Author's Notes: The Rotten Writer here again gang. Apologies for the delay. Health problems, family problems, technical problems... it's been rough. But i'm back and raring to go. Jumping into things here and moving right along. Not a lot to say, really, so I hope you all enjoy and I'm looking forward to seeing what you guys think.
Disclaimer: I stil don't own jack. Not gonna change... ever.
On with the show! Here is Chapter 48 of Soul Scars!
Soul Scars Part Four
Allegria
By,
Rtnwriter
September 1st that year fell on a Thursday, something that a majority of the students enjoyed immensely as the professors didn't bother to hold classes for only a single day, giving the returning students a three day weekend before their first actual week of classes. Only the Ravenclaws, and Hermione, were at all disappointed to not be diving immediately into their full course load.
When Hermione woke at a quarter to five in the morning that following Monday she was excited and looking forward to the day ahead of her. That sensation lasted all of five seconds, before she realized that something was very wrong; there weren't enough bodies in bed with her.
"Daphne, " she hissed, reaching out to shake the blond's shoulder. "Daphne, Susan's gone."
Daphne struggled awake but eventually her mind processed what Hermione was saying, as well as what she could feel across their bond, and she sat up sharply, looking around wildly for a moment before she closed her eyes.
"She's downstairs," she muttered a moment later. "I can feel her. I think she's sitting in our spot."
Hermione felt a simultaneous flood of relief and a small stab of irritation. Since completing their portion of the bond, Daphne and Susan could always feel where the other was located. Hermione didn't seem to have that ability, nor could they find her the same way. She felt that there was something different about their bond since she admitted that she was in love with the two of them, but thus far she hadn't been able to determine what that was.
Silently, the two of them climbed out of bed and made their way downstairs. Coming off the final step into the Common Room, they immediately spotted Susan's vibrant red hair where she was sitting on their sofa by the fire and started toward her. Separating, they each rounded opposite ends of the sofa, and gently sat with the shivering redhead between them.
Susan sniffled, never moving her red rimmed eyes away from the fire. "I didn't wake you, did I?" she asked in a croaking voice, causing both girls to immediately wrap their arms around her.
"Not at all," Hermione assured her. "I woke up and was worried that you were gone. Then I felt how upset you were and I woke Daphne."
"I didn't want to bother you," she whimpered, her shaking getting worse as shame, fear, and a surprising self-loathing spread over their bond.
"You know better than that, love," Daphne gently admonished her. "Something's bothering you, and we've let you try to work through it, but you're not getting better. I don't like what this is doing to you, Susan."
"I know. I know, I'm sorry." She let out a shaky laugh, "Look at me, always the first to preach opening up, and now here I am bottling things up, holding back."
Hermione felt a sudden spike of worry that didn't originate with her and realized that Harry had just woken up. Thirty seconds later the sound of footsteps reached them and he was suddenly there, crouched on one knee in front of them. When he met Hermione's gaze she only shook her head, silently letting him know that she didn't know what was wrong… yet.
"Can you talk to us, Susan?" he asked in a gentle tone, adding his own arms to the hug the girl was wrapped up in; she let out a choked sob.
"I can't do it," she finally whispered, her eyes squeezed tightly shut. "I just… I can't."
Daphne shushed her quietly. "Can't do what, love?" she asked.
"I'm not as strong as the three of you. I… I can't stop dreaming... I'm so scared."
"Susan, look at me... please?" Harry asked, gently trying to coax her attention. When she finally opened her eyes to meet his softly glowing gaze, he gave her a small smile. "There you are," he whispered. "Now… is this about the World Cup? I have nightmares about it too, you know." His eyes flickered toward Hermione for a moment before returning to Susan.
"But you're not falling apart," she sobbed.
"And I've suffered years of horrific nightmares to get to this point," he pointed out. "I'm glad you haven't been conditioned to ignore them like I can. I'd never want for you to have to suffer my nightmares."
"I don't want to disappoint you, but I can't do it anymore. I'm sorry, I just can't."
"Can't do what, Susan?" Hermione echoed Daphne's question, gently rubbing the distraught girl's back with one hand. "What is it?"
Susan didn't answer for a time. She sat there, sobbing quietly and tried to pull herself together before she could speak.
"When you went over the wall," she finally said, turning her head to look at Hermione, "I froze. I froze, and if Harry hadn't jumped off after you… we would have lost you. If it'd been left to me, I wouldn't have reacted fast enough. And you," she added, turning to Daphne, "You climbed on the back of a broom with this lunatic flying," she gestured to Harry, "and… you fought back. I was so scared that you and Harry had to keep reassuring me. I didn't help fight at all. I… I didn't even cast a single spell at those horrible things while the three of you fought to save our lives."
"There's absolutely nothing wrong with that," Hermione insisted. "You know I would never have gotten on a broom with Harry under those conditions. I could barely get on just to fly back up to all of you."
"It's not just that," Susan said, sniffling again, "I did the least when we went after the Stone. I was useless after you were petrified. Harry and Daphne kept going but I just fell apart."
"We don't know why that happened," Harry pointed out, "but that doesn't make you useless. Daphne and I have dealt with more trauma in our lives than you've had to. Personally, I'm grateful for that. We need someone like you, Susan, to remind us that life is more than pain and darkness."
Daphne nodded, immediately latching onto where Harry was going with his analogy and she took hold and ran with it. "You're the light for the rest of us," She cut in. "You pushed us to open up more. You've helped us navigate all the emotional pitfalls we've come up against so far. You've been a part of every major growth in our bond and in our relationships. The night I kissed Hermione, you helped her when her memory came back. New Year's Eve when I kissed Harry, that was partly at your insistence. The day you kissed him, and then Hermione finally admitted her feelings….
"I think Hermione telling him we all loved him during the Dementor attack was the only time you weren't directly involved, somehow, other than being there with us. Don't ever think you're not an important part of this bond."
"How long has this been eating at you, Susan?" Hermione asked curiously.
"Just since the Cup," came Susan's quiet response. "I just started thinking over the last few years and realized how little I've really contributed in all the trouble we've gotten into-"
"But you have contributed, immensely. Just like Daphne said," Hermione cut her off, "You are an important part of our lives, because we love you, not because of what you can do."
While Hermione and Daphne continued to reassure their bond mate as best they could, Harry had a thoughtful expression on his face as he turned over everything she'd said in his mind.
"Susan?" he suddenly asked, causing all three of his girls to look to him. "You never really answered Hermione. What is it that you don't think you can do anymore?"
Susan shifted uneasily in her seat between the other girls.
"It's okay," Daphne whispered in her ear. "You can tell us. We're not going to judge you."
"I don't want to let you three down," she muttered morosely.
"And we don't want you doing something you don't want to, just because you think you have to for us," Harry said firmly. "Sorry, not to speak for you two-"
"No, I agree completely," Hermione interrupted. "And you can feel that Daphne agrees with us," she added to Susan. "What is it, hon?"
Finally, Susan drew in a deep breath and let it out in a long sigh. "I don't want to fight," she admitted. "We swore to you in Second Year that we'd fight with you, but… I don't think I can do it." Her blue eyes were fixed on Harry's, a pleading look in their watery depths.
"You don't have to fight if you're not comfortable with it," he told her. "You don't have to do anything that you don't want to do."
"I can't just leave you to shoulder everything," she insisted. "I just… I don't know what to do. I don't think I have the instincts that you three have when it comes to danger. I don't have whatever it is that lets you react... to protect people instead of cowering in fear."
"Learn Warding," Daphne suggested.
"Work on enchanting, or spell crafting," came Hermione's offer.
"What about Healing?"
The girls looked to Harry again, and this time he shifted a bit nervously under their combined scrutiny. "I was just thinking… I've noticed you watching Madam Pomfrey before, when she's doing her diagnostics and such, and you always seemed very interested in what she was doing and… well, let's face it, with my luck it would probably be a good idea if at least one of us know some medicall spells."
His attempt at a joke fell flat as they glared at him, but they couldn't deny that he had a point. Even if their bond mate wasn't such a trouble magnet, it would still be a good idea to know some basic healing.
"He's not wrong," Hermione finally admitted.
"Though his delivery could have been better," Daphne added with another icy glare in his direction.
"Hey, I don't try to get hurt you know," Harry protested only to have them shout back in unison:
"We know!"
"Why don't you go talk to Madam Pomfrey this afternoon?" Harry suggested, hoping to draw their attention away from him.
Susan had finally stopped shivering and sniffling, looking decidedly contemplative as she considered the idea. "I just might do that," she said, slowly nodding her head before she glanced to each of them in turn. "You're sure that-"
"We want you to be happy too, Susan," Daphne said. "If fighting isn't for you that's perfectly fine. We each have our own strengths and weaknesses."
"I do think that you should still train with us, though," Harry said. "Cut back on it some, sure, but you should still know how to defend yourself."
With Daphne and Hermione nodding in agreement with that assessment, Susan could only nod in assent as well, a feeling a gratitude and relief flowing across their bond from the redhead. "Thank you for understanding," she whispered, and all three of them leaned in to envelope her in another hug.
"Nothing to thank us for," Hermione murmured quietly, and she felt Harry nodding his head.
When they finally separated again, Harry glanced at his watch. "Neville and I need to meet up with Blaise," he said. "Why don't you get a little more rest, Susan? You still seem exhausted."
She considered that for a moment before shaking her head. "No. You're right that I should keep training with the rest of you. The exercise and the practice is good for me. I can take a nap this afternoon, after classes, if I really need to."
Decision made, they returned to their dorms to change and, with Neville accompanying them, the headed out for the Room of Requirement where Blaise was likely already waiting.
As they walked, Hermione allowed herself a small smile. The feelings of shame and self-loathing from Susan were gone entirely, replaced by a sense of determination and eager excitement. Entering the room behind her bond mates, she was pleased to think to herself, she's going to be just fine.
#####
"I don't like this, Sirius," Amelia growled, glaring at the parchment spread out across her desk.
"I don't either, Aims, but what can we do about it?"
"Nothing!" she suddenly bellowed, furiously shoving the parchment aside, sending it flying off of her desk. "There's absolutely nothing that we can do! That's what's pissing me off!"
For those that knew the Marauder, his reaction was strangely calm as he slipped from his chair on the other side of her desk, and began gathering together the loose bits of parchment now spread across the floor of the Head Office of the DMLE.
"These are my kids, Siri," she said, her face in her hands. "None of them are actually mine… but they're mine. I love them, and they're all going to suffer according to that… thing!" She spat out the last word as if it were something vile in her mouth, motioning to the parchment in Sirius' hands. He laid the notes on her desk as she resumed glaring at the top sheet where the words of the Oracle could be seen.
"'Knowledge will fall'," he quoted, his eyes fixed on the page as well. "Is it possible that bit has already happened? Can we ignore that now as said and done and move on from it?"
She lifted her head to meet his gaze. "What do you mean?"
"Well… we're agreed that 'knowledge' must mean Hermione, right?"
"Yeah, so?"
"Well… she 'fell' off the top of the Cup Stadium. Yeah, Harry caught her, and a damn good job that was too, but she still fell. Maybe we can count that as one bit of awful out of the way and we don't have to worry about it anymore."
She sighed and sat back in her seat. "I considered that actually, but I'm worried that there's a slightly less literal interpretation that is potentially much worse."
"What's that?" he asked despite being reasonably positive that he didn't actually want to know.
"That phrase 'fallen in battle' comes to mind."
Sirius blew out a gusty sigh and dropped heavily back into his own seat. "Yeah," he muttered. "I didn't want to know. You honestly think it means she's going to die."
It wasn't a question.
"I think it's a possible interpretation. And if I'm right, it doesn't matter, since there's absolutely nothing we can do about it. A prophecy can be avoided. With great difficulty, but it is possible. The words of an oracle are fact. It will happen. There's absolutely no avoiding it."
"Then why are you driving yourself crazy with this? If there's nothing to be done why agonize over it?"
"Because I have to know, Sirius! I can't stand not knowing. I…"
"But you don't know," he said when she trailed off uncertainly. "Until it happens all you have are guesses, and there's no way to know what might be correct. You don't even have the whole thing. The missing part could say, 'and they lived happily ever after, ' for all you know."
She cracked a small smile at that, causing him to grin broadly.
"Look, put this away and come to dinner with me tonight," he said.
"I'll admit it," she sighed, "I'm impressed you waited this long."
"I'm sure I have absolutely no idea what you're talking about, Madam Bones." His tone was calm and firm and she looked back at him in surprise.
"You've never been known for your patience, Sirius," she pointed out, "You've been hanging around for months, and this is the first time you've asked me out since you got your freedom."
"Sitting in a cell for twelve years teaches one patience, Amy," he responded, "And as good as I am at making people think otherwise, I'm not actually stupid. We had something once, you and I. We're not the same people we were back then. Not anymore. I know there's no way of just jumping back to that, but I would like to see if we might find something new. Come to dinner with me, please."
Amelia's lower lip was pinched between her finger and thumb as she thought, her eyes never leaving the very serious expression on Sirius' face.
"How did we go from talking about that," she released her lip to wave at the parchment on her desk, "to discussing a date?" she wondered and Sirius broke out into a broad grin.
"I'm just that loveable," he said.
She snorted out a laugh, "And that's the joker I know, she muttered, eyeing him speculatively. At one time they had been very close. In the weeks before that awful Halloween night, she had even suspected that he might have been planning on proposing to her. But then everything went to hell, and he wound up in Azkaban for more than a decade. Did she really want to traverse that rabbit hole again? Worse, did she deserve the chance he seemed to be offering? She hadn't believed in him. She'd thought him guilty right along with everyone else. If she'd cared for him as much as she thought she had, shouldn't she have questioned things? Shouldn't she have known that something wasn't right with the official story?
Why had it taken a teenager to figure out what had been staring her in the face, if she'd just taken the time to look for it?
"Have you talked to Harry about your argument from a few weeks ago?" she asked. Sirius grimaced but didn't answer, which was answer enough in and of itself. "Long and short of it, you were out of line, Sirius." She immediately held up a hand to stop him as he opened his mouth to protest. "He went over a few lines too. I told him that much myself, but the girls warned you not to push for an answer, and you did it anyway."
"Is it suddenly a crime to be worried about my godson?" he demanded defensively.
"No, it isn't, Sirius, but you haven't been a part of his life for a long time. He cares about you, and he's happy that you're in his life now, but you just can't come at him like that."
"I just wanted to understand," he muttered, slumping dejectedly in his seat.
"And that's admirable of you. But you can't demand answers that he's not ready to give. He hasn't even told his girls the whole story yet. I'll tell you this much… the people responsible are going to be spending a good number of decades rotting away in a dark hole, where they belong."
Sirius seemed pleased with that.
"Talk to your godson, Sirius," she said, blue eyes studying him carefully. "Show me that you're not the same man you were thirteen years ago… then we might talk about that dinner."
She straightened up the parchment on her desk and locked it in one of the bottom drawers. When she looked up at him he was staring off into space, a contemplative frown furrowing his brow. For a moment she almost asked him to leave so she could concentrate on her work, but eventually she just let him be, simply pulling her in-box closer to her. For some time the silence was broken only by the sound of shifting parchment and the scratching of her quill.
#####
Their first full week back at school passed quickly enough, Harry felt. That first Monday Susan actually did go and speak to Madam Pomfrey. Apparently the mothering Mediwitch was quite thrilled to have one of the bonded showing an interest in the Healing Arts, particularly due to the trouble the only male in their quartet tended to get into. Susan had been quite delighted to relay that part of the discussion to the three of them that evening, much to Harry's chagrin, despite knowing, and having even mentioned himself, that with his luck it was inevitable that he'd find himself under the tender mercies of Poppy at some point during the year.
Just because he knew it to be true, didn't mean he wanted it thrown in his face by a rather smug redhead. The day before, on Sunday, the four of them had made their way to the Hospital Wing, right after breakfast, to resume their weekly appointments with Madam Pomfrey, and she'd found no differences in their bond since the girls had completed their portion of it the previous term. That was bothering Harry to a significant degree.
He'd promised to try, and he had been. He couldn't exactly spend more time with them, as they spent almost all of their waking hours together when at school, and plenty of time over the summer as well. While during the time he did spend with them however, they were all significantly more affectionate with each other than they'd been before the day he'd made that promise, and gifted them the heart charms that hung from the bracelets all three wore daily, not once had he seen the girls without those bracelets after the Christmas Day when he'd first given the items to them, there was something still missing, preventing him from finishing his part.
They hadn't done much beyond kissing, even if some of those kisses had drastically tested his willpower on occasion, but he simply could not figure out why his part of the bond hadn't grown further as the girl's had. The only difference that he could think of was them acknowledging and understanding that they loved each other. Something he was still struggling with. Not just to say that he felt love for them, though that was difficult enough, but he had other issues with the entire situation that he really wasn't sure how to address.
He knew, somewhere deep inside that what he felt for his girls was considerably deeper than anything else he'd ever experienced. When Hermione had gone over the wall of the Cup Stadium… that had easily been the most terrified he had ever felt in his life. Even greater than the fear he'd experienced growing up, or when confronted with Voldemort, or the basilisk. Those fears were mostly for himself, and something that he was well acquainted with. But the fear of losing one of the girls… that had shaken him to his core, and he had been struggling since with just what it meant.
By Thursday afternoon however, those personal issues were shunted aside for something considerably more pressing, at that moment. Their entire group of friends, as well as most of their year group, had been waiting with a great deal of anticipation for this: Their first Defense Against the Dark Arts lesson of the year with Mad-Eye Moody as their instructor. Over the week, Susan had told several stories in the Common Room, with most of their House hanging on her every word, of the scarred and grizzled Auror veteran.
She'd grown up knowing him, and had heard many things about the man over her years spent waiting around the Auror Bullpen for her aunt. Many of the stories she recounted seemed fantastic, even impossible, or, as the Weasley twins pointed out, they sounded like something that might happen to Harry. He'd thrown a few couch cushions at them for that, though the solid impacts had done nothing to curb their laughter.
As they filed their way into the class, most of the students actually arriving early for this much anticipated lesson, Harry let his thoughts wander a bit, latching onto several things he'd noticed over the last few days, while he and his friends all sat in the first row, as close to the teacher's desk as they could get.
First, he'd noticed that Blaise was spending more time talking to Luna, and twice already the two had vanished to walk around the Black Lake. He felt they'd looked rather comfortable, walking fairly close together on their way out of the castle the second time. This wasn't entirely unexpected to Harry, not after the conversation that he and Blaise had held early in the summer. No, the thing that Harry found odd, was the way that Neville had taken to watching the two of them with an unreadable expression on his face whenever they were nearby. Whenever Harry asked if he was okay, Neville simply muttered something he couldn't really make out and would change the subject.
The second and third things seemed to be related to each other, but Harry couldn't figure out why for the life of him. Starting the day after the Welcoming Feast, it suddenly seemed as if all the girls in the castle had taken to traveling in packs. All week, everywhere they went, he would see groups of girls clustered together in the halls, and whenever they passed there would be a great deal of giggling and whispering.
Each time this happened he would note a mixture of annoyance, anxious anticipation, and worry through the bond with his girls. They steadfastly refused to tell him what was bothering them whenever he would ask, however.
Item number four on his list of strange things, was that Ginny Weasley had tried, on three different occasions, to talk to him alone, and he had no idea what she could possibly want. He didn't think he'd said ten words to the girl over the last two years, and suddenly she was quite keen to talk to him.
"I swear, everyone is going crazy around here," he muttered to himself, pulling his Defense text from his bag and setting it on the desk in front of him while they waited for class to begin.
Slowly, the class finished filling up with the last stragglers walking in just before the bell rang, signaling that class was set to start. All strangeness and personal issues fell away and Harry sat forward eagerly in his seat, wondering just what they were going to learn from the legendary retired Master Auror.
The only problem was that as the clock ticked past the official start of class, there was no sign of their professor. Most of the students continued to chat idly amongst themselves, while Neville, Blaise, and the four bonded exchanged looks, each of them wondering at the man's absence.
Finally, nearly ten minutes after class was supposed to start, the door burst open and the grizzled old Auror limped into the room.
"Yer not going to need those," he growled as he stumped his way up to the front of the class. "Those books. Put 'em away. Yer not going to need them today." There was a generalized rustling throughout the room as the class put away their books just as the professor reached the desk and leaned back against it.
"Professor Lupin sent me some information on you lot, and I looked over the past records for this class," he growled, his fake eye spinning wildly around the room in an extremely disconcerting manner. "From what he said ye've all got a solid grounding in dark creatures. But ye all appear to be way behind on curses, so that's what we'll be focusing on this year. Learning to recognize and counter harmful curses, jinxes, hexes and so on. PUT IT AWAY!" He suddenly bellowed and more than half the class nearly leaped out of their seats, Harry and the rest of his friends included.
Both of Professor Moody's eyes were fixed on a seat behind where Harry and his friends were sitting, and he half turned in his seat to see Lavender and Parvati sitting two rows behind them. Parvati was in the process of pulling a magazine of some kind out from under her desk, where she'd apparently been trying to hide it, so that she and Lavender could read while the Professor was talking.
"I don't care if you want to look up new beauty tips, or whatever it is you girls do, do it on yer own time," Moody snarled after the magazine was tucked back in Parvati's bag. "But in this class you will give your undivided attention, or you'll be helping me demonstrate defending yerselves from the curses and hexes that we cover this year. AM I UNDERSTOOD?"
Again they all jumped and the class nervously chimed their understanding.
"There is entirely too much out there that can end yer life, or make it an utter misery, for you not to devote yer full efforts in my class. I will not have you goofing off, or not giving these lessons the full consideration they deserve. If you don't like that, THERE'S THE DOOR!"
He stopped and his bright blue eye scanned slowly across the frozen class, passing over each one of them for a moment before he suddenly pushed off of the desk and started pacing back and forth in front of it, his hands clasped together behind his back.
"So, straight into it. Curses. They come in many strengths and forms. Now, according to the Ministry of Magic, I'm supposed to teach you countercurses and leave it at that. I'm not supposed to show you what illegal Dark curses look like until yer in the sixth year. Yer not supposed to be old enough to deal with it 'til then. But Professor Dumbledore's got a higher opinion of yer nerves, he reckons you can cope, and I say, the sooner you know what yer up against, the better. How are you supposed to defend yourself against something you've never seen?
"A wizard who's about to put an illegal curse on ye isn't going to tell ye what he's about to do. He's not going to do it nice and polite to yer face. You need to be prepared. You need to be alert and watchful. CONSTANT VIGILANCE! So . . . do any of ye know which curses are most heavily punished by Wizarding law?"
Harry was slightly surprised when several different hands went up around the room. Aside from his and Hermione's, Neville, Blaise, Tracey, Ron, and a few more of the Slytherin students, including Draco Malfoy, all raised their hands as well.
"You. Weasley, right?" Moody said, pointing one gnarled finger at Ron who gulped and nodded nervously now that the Auror's attention was focused entirely on him.
"Y-yes, Sir," he stammered. "There was one that I remember my dad talking about. The Imperius curse? Or something like that."
"Yer dad would know that one…" Moody trailed off and turned, pulling a large glass jar out from behind his desk and setting it on top. Inside the jar, three hand sized black spiders could be seen scuttling around, and Ron immediately pushed himself back as far as he could in his seat, looking suddenly quite pale.
"The Imperius Curse," Moody continued, completely ignoring Ron's behavior. "Nasty bit of business that one. Properly applied, the Imperius can take complete control over the victim. One wizard, or witch, applies the curse on another person and suddenly that person is completely under their control. If they want that person to jump off a cliff, they'll do it. Do a tap dance? Easy enough. Steal something, murder, lie, cheat, betray their friends or family. It's all possible. But with this curse, it comes down to a battle of wills. The caster's will has to be stronger than the victim's, or the victim can fight it off. Ye'll each be getting a chance to fight off the curse later today."
"Umm…. Sir?" Hermione asked, hesitantly raising her hand. "Are you saying that you're going to cast the Imperius on us?"
Moody shook his head, jaw length gray hair flying about wildly for a moment. "No, lass. I have never actually cast them before."
There was a sudden scoffing noise from somewhere in the room. Harry wasn't certain, but he thought it came from Malfoy's general direction. Moody seemed to think so too as his fake eye snapped up and stopped on Malfoy, even as his real eye stayed fixed on Hermione.
"Have something to say over there Mister Malfoy?" he growled out in a low, dangerous sort of voice. Harry thought Malfoy should have been smart, he should have recognized the danger inherent in the man's tone, but true to form, he simply drew himself arrogantly up in his seat and sneered down at the professor.
"We keep hearing about the Legendary Auror Moody," he drawled out. "How you supposedly captured more dark wizards than any other Auror. But if you don't have enough power to cast one of the Unforgivables, how amazing can you really be? Sounds to me as if your reputation is as trumped up as Potter's."
"So… ye think the fact that I refuse to cast those curses is an indication of power?"
"Of course it is. Only the powerful could use those curses."
"Yer an idiot."
Malfoy blinked. "Wha-"
"A bleedin' moron. Power has absolutely nothing to do with it…" He paused, looking suddenly thoughtful for a moment before correcting himself. "Sorry, power is a part of casting that kind of magic, but the real trick is in just what makes them dark in the first place."
A sea of blank faces stared back at him, and Moody let out a long, drawn out sigh. "Has no one ever explained to ye what truly makes a spell dark?" he asked, and nearly as one the entire class shook their heads.
"Great. I've got my work cut out for me with you lot," he muttered to himself, though those students sitting in the front were just able to make out what he was saying. "All right. Let's try a little debate session, shall we? What makes the the Cruciatus, the torture curse, one of the three Unforgivable curses?" he asked and both eyes moved randomly around the room.
Harry was frowning, his mind spinning rapidly as he tried to come up with some kind of answer to the question.
"Well… it hurts people. That's plenty of reason, ain't it?" Dean Thomas answered after Moody pointed to him.
That's not right, Harry thought. Plenty of others spells can be used to hurt someone that aren't even curses. Charms and Transfiguration can cause some serious agony if you use them right.
Moment's later Moody backed up his thoughts by saying nearly the same thing. So if it isn't what the curse does that makes it dark…
"Is it the intent?" he suddenly asked, more to himself than anything else but he noticed Moody's head whip in his direction and realized he'd spoken louder than he meant to.
"What was that, Potter?" he asked, his eyes fixed intently on Harry.
"Uh… well… I was just wondering if it has to do with intent," he said, a little louder and the Auror nodded.
"Keep going…"
Harry frowned again, his arms crossed over his chest as he worked his way through his thoughts aloud. "I was going to mention the Killing Curse when you asked us to name those with the worst punishment. It's a curse that's only purpose is to kill. But just killing someone wouldn't be enough to make a piece of magic dark, I mean… I could kill someone with a levitation charm, a banishing charm, or a cutting curse. A piercing hex can kill, even a knockback jinx can kill if you knock someone down a flight of stairs or out a window.
"With Cruciatus… it can't just be that it causes pain, since you can hurt someone with literally hundreds of other spells, and in some pretty horrible ways too. So I was thinking that it has to do with intent. With the Cruciatus you have to want to cause pain. You have to enjoy it, revel in hurting someone, don't you?"
When Harry stopped speaking, the class was sitting utterly silent, staring at Harry as if his head had suddenly started spinning around in circles, he started to fidget in his seat, sure he'd screwed something up, somehow, until Moody finally spoke.
"That, is probably one of the best answers from a student I've ever heard," he said and half the class looked to him in complete shock. "That's it exactly. Dark magic is labeled dark due to intent. You have to want to cause pain, death, or to force someone to bend to yer will or the spells won't work. I could stand up here and every last one of ye could point yer wands at me and say the words to the curses and I doubt I'd get so much as a nosebleed. Ye might have more than enough power, but if ye don't really mean it, nothing will happen.
"That's why those three are considered Unforgivable. Only the worst, most depraved sort of individual, would be willing to use them on another person without having any other choice. I've known good people that have used the Killing Curse and the Imperius when they were backed into a corner and I don't think any less of them for it. Personally, I've never felt that I had the need to cast any of them. I always found another way to deal with whatever situation I was in, without having to resort to one of those curses.
"But, to finish answering yer earlier question, Miss Granger, no, I will not be casting the Imperius on you lot." He gestured to a corner of the room and when the class all turned to look they noticed a wavering in the corner, like heat waves in the air that shimmered and suddenly a cloaked figure came into view. "No, my guest, Director Croaker of the Department of Mysteries will be doing it for me. Dumbledore has decided, and the Ministry agreed, that it would be good for ye'll to be familiar with the spell, so ye can possibly learn to fight it off. Not everyone can, but if ye have a strong enough will, ye might be able to learn to do so."
What is Croaker doing here? Harry wondered, eyeing the Unspeakable suspiciously while Professor Moody continued his lecture. Personally, Harry felt ill when Croaker started demonstrating the curses on the spiders. The Imperius had most of the class laughing as one of the spider was sent cartwheeling across the teacher's desk. It performed a strange, spastic sort of tap dance and at one point swung from a line of webbing as if it were performing on a trapeze before Croaker returned it to the jar.
"You all think that was funny, do ye?" Moody growled, stomping back and forth at the front of the class. "That was simple stuff. Amusing for you. What if the Director had decided to have that spider crawl into an open flame? Or hurl itself into a pot of boiling water? The Director could've done that, ye know. That spider would have followed that order, even if it died in agony because of it, and that's what could be done to any of you by a Dark Wizard wanting to hurt ye. In the last war some victims were made to torture and kill their own families before they released 'em from the curse, just long enough to let 'em see and truly understand what they'd done, before they were killed themselves."
No one in the class was laughing anymore. More than a few of them looked as ill as Harry felt, and the uncomfortable feeling only grew as the other two curses were demonstrated. He actually closed his eyes when the Killing Curse was used, not wanting to see that flash of green light that had haunted his nightmares for years.
"Right awful curse, that one is. It doesn't just kill, it tears yer soul away from yer body. Impossible to block with any kind of magical shield. Only one person has ever been known to survive being hit with it, and he's sitting in this room," Moody said, both of his eyes fixed on Harry who desperately wished that he could throw his invisibility cloak over himself to get away from all the staring eyes as most of the class turned their heads to look at him.
With two of the spiders still alive and a third dead Moody came to stand in the middle of the room, directly in front of the class.
"I hope I've impressed on you all just how terrible these curses can be," he said in a surprisingly quiet tone. "I've made a career out of fighting the kind of people that willingly, even gleefully, use these curses, and others like them, and I want to make it clear to all of ye now… if I ever catch one of ye using anything that ye learn in my class to hurt someone else, or using one of those three curses on another person, I will happily help hunt ye down just like any other dark witch or wizard that I've ever captured." He scanned the rows of students again, every one of them listening intently as he spoke, each absolutely certain that he meant every single word.
Turning back to his desk Moody leaned against it again and started calling out names, directing the students one at a time to the empty space between the first row of desks and where he stood where Director Croaker proceeded to cast the Imperius on them one at a time. After the unpleasant mood left by Moody's last statement to them, there was some much needed levity for most of the class as they watched their friends and classmates engage in one bit of foolishness after another.
Harry was too sickened by what else the Imperius could make a person do to really get a laugh out of things like the others were, but he couldn't help cracking a smile when Malfoy gave a horribly off-key performance of 'I'm a Little Teapot'. He noticed that Neville, Blaise, and his girls were just as somber as he felt during the exercise, until Neville was called up to the front of the class.
By that point, it'd been relatively the same with each student. Not a one of them seemed to have any ability to fight off or resist the curse in the slightest. In fact, Ron was still clucking like a chicken now and again, even though he'd been released from the curse several minutes earlier. Neville's reaction was entirely different. The Director cast the curse, speaking aloud for the benefit of the class.
"Jump up on the chair," he said as Moody conjured a simple wooden chair next to where Neville was standing, his eyes glassy as he faced out toward the rest of the class.
For a moment, the muscles in Neville's body shifted, as if he were going to turn toward the chair but then he seemed to hesitate, the blank expression on his face showing a look of confusion.
"Jump up onto the chair, Longbottom," Croaker said again, more forcefully, and Neville actually did turn that time. His knees started to bend and he straightened up again. Then he finally bent his knees and started to jump, but at the last second he suddenly turned.
"No!" he shouted, startling most of them with the sudden exclamation as he fell against the chair, crashing hard to the stone floor.
"That's the way, laddie!" Moody roared, stomping forward to grab Neville by the shoulder, helping him to his feet. "Did ye all see that?" he said excitedly, his accent getting noticeably thicker. "Longbottom actually fought it off, mostly. What'd it feel like, kid?"
Neville looked shaky, wincing in pain as he let his weight settle on his right leg. "Umm… I felt… I felt kind of floaty… like there was this haze over my mind or something, and I heard a voice telling me to jump up on the chair."
"And?"
Neville shrugged. "I don't know. It seemed like a reasonable thing for some reason, but when I went to do it I suddenly heard my own voice asking 'why?' I mean it's not like I wanted to jump onto a chair, so why do it?"
"So ye listened to that other voice, your voice. That's exactly the way. Again Longbottom, and the rest of ye, watch 'is eyes. That's where ye can really see the fight."
Murmurs swept through the class as Croaker cast the curse twice more on Neville. By the second time, he was able to shake off the effects of the curse in less than a minute, without even trying to do whatever the Director was telling him to do.
"Very good, Longbottom," Moody praised as Neville limped back to his seat. "Very good. They'll have trouble controlling you."
"Anyone else think he's just a little too happy about all this?" Harry muttered when Moody's eyes suddenly swiveled to him.
"Potter, yer up. Let's see what ye make of yer second Unforgivable."
"I still don't know what to make of the first one," he muttered as he pushed himself to his feet and moved to stand in front of the class, facing the Director, unlike the rest of them who had faced out toward the other students. As the cloaked Unspeakable faced him, Harry did everything he could think of to prepare himself. He kept his focus on the figure before him, closed up his Occlumency as tightly as he could after first sending a reassuring feeling toward the girls, and then waited, his body tense for the curse to be cast.
Croaker's gloved hand suddenly snapped up, wand held loosely in their grip as they quietly intoned, "Imperio."
Harry really only had a minimal idea of what to expect, based on what other students had said of their experience as they'd gone along, and Neville's description as well. The Imperius Curse was one of only a few spells that was colorless, giving no indication of when it hit its target, so there was no tracking the direction of the spell, no knowing when it hit him.
"Perform a handstand, Lord Potter," Croaker commanded.
For several long seconds both of them stood perfectly still, the class holding their collective breaths as they waited to see what would happen.
"I'd rather not, thanks all the same," Harry suddenly spoke up, crossing his arms nonchalantly over his chest.
Whispers broke out throughout the class as Moody and Croaker both jerked in surprise, the latter glancing down at their wand for a moment as if wondering if it might be broken.
"Imperio!" Croaker said again, more forcefully and jabbed their wand in Harry's direction. "Do a cartwheel, Lord Potter."
Harry just shook his head, arms still crossed. "I have absolutely no inclination toward gymnastics."
"How're ye doin' that, Potter?" Moody growled, stomping closer to look into Harry's glowing green eyes.
"Doing what? Not sure why the Director is suddenly joking around, but I'm still waiting on the curse to be cast on me." Harry shrugged.
"I assure you, Lord Potter, I was casting correctly both times," Croaker said, their distorted voice sounding distinctly confused. "Are you saying that you felt absolutely no effect at all?"
"I didn't feel anything," Harry admitted as the whispers got louder. "I didn't hear any voice, no feeling of floating… nothing at all."
"Well… that is interesting," Croaker mumbled thoughtfully before gesturing for Harry to return to his seat. After sitting, they continued working their way through the rest of the class until, five students later, Hermione was called to the front, resulting in the exact same reaction as Harry; the curse was cast at her but had absolutely zero effect.
The whispers that broke out once again amongst the bonded's peers, only grew more pronounced when both Daphne and Susan also had no reaction to the curse. By the time they were dismissed, they were under nearly constant watch by everyone else, only their friends not treating them any differently, and the girls were particularly pleased to be able to escape the uncomfortable scrutiny of their classmates and an intensely curious Professor Moody.
#####
Quills scratched quietly over parchment as Neville, Hermione, Susan, and Daphne worked on their class assignments in the Gryffindor Common Room for an hour or so before dinner; when the portrait suddenly swung open, and they looked up just in time to see Ginny Weasley rush into the room then up the stairs to her dorm, sobbing quietly as she went.
That can't be good, Hermione thought as she looked back at Neville and her bond mates.
The four of them exchanged a baffled look for a moment before the portrait opened again and Harry entered, his broom in one hand, looking a touch wild around the eyes and more than a bit out of sorts.
"What's wrong with you?" Neville asked as Harry walked over and dropped into his usual armchair near the fire, laying the broom on the ground next to his chair.
"I'm not really sure what happened honestly," he said, sounding dazed which caused the girls to frown in a mixture of confusion and concern.
"What do you mean?" Hermione asked.
"Ginny just asked me out."
The girls flinched while Neville looked bemused. Personally, Hermione felt more than a touch of apprehension shoot through her, old insecurities rising up in the back of her mind, but they were quickly quelled by a flood of reassuring emotions coming from the girls sitting on either side of her.
"She's barely spoken to you before," he pointed out. "Why would she do that?"
"How the devil should I know?" Harry blurted out. "I'm not even certain what she was talking about. I was just out flying my broom. After that defense class, I just wanted to clear my head a bit, you know?" The four of them nodded. "I was coming back in when she stopped me in the Entrance Hall and asked if I'd take her to the Ball. I didn't have the slightest clue what she was talking about, but I told her I wasn't really interested in going on a date with her."
"Were you rude to her at all?" Susan asked and Harry shook his head.
"I don't think so," he said. "I tried to be as nice as I could... really!" he added when the three of them gave him a skeptical look. "I just said that I didn't really know her, and I wasn't interested in going on a date with her. I still don't know what Ball she was talking about, but she started crying and last I saw she was running this way. Did she come in here?"
That did a lot to reassure Hermione, and she pushed a sensation of gratitude toward the other girls.
"A couple of minutes before you did," Daphne answered, gesturing toward the stairs. "She was crying and ran right up to the dorms."
Harry groaned and slumped down in his chair. "Great. Anyone want to bet how long until Ron shows up yelling at me for upsetting his sister?"
"What about the twins?" Neville asked, smirking when Harry suddenly grew pale.
"They won't bother to say anything," he groaned, "I'll just suddenly find myself the victim of some weird pranks for the next month."
"I don't think you really need to worry about that," Hermione disagreed, her bushy mane bouncing slightly as she shook her head. "They're a lot more practical than Ronald is. They'd likely try to get your version of events first, and as long as you weren't intentionally mean to her, I think you'll be okay."
Harry frowned at the fire, hoping that she was right. "Fingers crossed then," he muttered.
They were silent for a few minutes before Harry sighed and sat up in his chair. "What Ball was she talking about anyway?" he asked.
"Aaannnd that's my cue to be elsewhere," Neville spoke up as he packed up his classwork and books and stood, throwing his bag over one shoulder. "See you guys at dinner," he added before he headed out of the Tower.
"Okay… what was that about?" Harry muttered, confused by his friend's odd behavior.
Instead of answering, Hermione responded to his question with a question of her own, "You really don't know about the Ball?"
"Hermione, I haven't the foggiest notion," he answered, they could feel his honest confusion over the bond, easily matching the expression on his face.
"Hogwarts is hosting a Yule Ball this year," Daphne cut in. "It's a traditional part of the Triwizard Tournament."
"How can anything be tradition if it hasn't been held in more than a century?" he asked incredulously. "And when was a Ball ever mentioned?"
"Dumbledore announced it at the Welcoming Feast," Susan explained, grinning at the blank expression on his face. "I'm surprised you didn't notice."
He let out a nervous laugh at that, absently stroking the scar behind his jaw with one finger. "Was that after he mentioned the Dueling and Quidditch Tournaments?"
All three girls nodded and he laughed again. "I was so worried about the whole idea of the Tournament, that I kind of tuned Dumbledore out after that. I just wasn't paying attention."
He thought carefully about that for a moment before several things clicked into place in his head, with the addition of the knowledge that there was a formal dance being held that year recent events started to make considerably more sense.
"That's why we keep seeing those groups of girls standing around whispering and giggling?" he asked. "They're talking about this Ball?"
They nodded again.
"And that's why I've been sensing some odd things from you three, isn't it? You've all been nervous, and apprehensive, and…" He trailed off, eyebrows rising in surprise as one last final detail clicked into place and a sudden panicked expression flitted across his face for a moment before it vanished. "And you've been waiting for me to ask you…"
They nodded again. He lowered his Occlumency enough to catch a glimpse of their emotions over the bond, mixed in with the anxiousness and nerves, that he remembered feeling from the girls before, was a sense of desire that stunned him with its' intensity, and he shook his head in surprise. What the hell are you supposed to do now, Potter? he thought, slamming his shields back in place.
"I-I'm not entirely sure I even want to go to a dance," he muttered, searching desperately for some excuse to get out of the decision he could see looming fast in front of him. "I've never been to one, so I wouldn't have the slightest clue what to do, or how to act, and I don't even know how to dance. I'm pretty sure whoever tries to dance with me'll end up in the hospital wing from me stepping on your toes…"
When he nervously trailed off, his eyes darting everywhere but at the girls sitting in front of him, Hermione and Daphne exchanged a confused look while Susan's eyes narrowed suspiciously.
"Daphne and I have been to dances many times," she said. "It's a part of pureblood high society, attending social functions. We've managed to avoid any since we started school, but we'll have to start attending some sooner or later, especially with you and Daphne both already Heads of your Houses. We can teach you how to dance, and you too Hermione, if you don't know."
"I know how to dance. I'm no expert but I have danced before."
"As far as what to do and how to act... what you do is have fun with your friends and dance partners, and you act like you would most anywhere else. There's no trick to it, Harry," Susan finished.
He mumbled something unintelligible, staring at the fire in silence for several minutes before Susan spoke up again.
"Harry… can you please drop your Occlumency?"
His head snapped toward her, eyes as wide as they'd ever seen them, and Hermione and Daphne exchanged another confused look, wondering just what their red headed bond mate was up to.
"Why?" he squeaked.
"Because you're a nervous wreck right now, and I don't understand what's got you so anxious. If we could feel what you are… well we might be able to help."
For a moment, sheer panic flooded Harry's mind, he had to fight the ridiculous urge to simply run away. Why though? he thought. You've been thinking since Blaise asked you for permission to ask Luna out over the summer that the four of you needed to sit down and talk, so why not now? There's a comparison here that maybe they can help with.
Slowly, reluctantly, he lowered his Occlumency shields, letting the girls in. The three of them shivered slightly at the sudden influx of emotions, but quickly settled, their eyes closed as they carefully examined the sensations coming across their bond. When they finally opened their eyes again, Harry shifted nervously in his seat as they stared at him.
"Harry, I need to talk to you for a second."
All four of them turned sharply away as the new voice intruded on them, finding Ron standing nearby, an unusually serious expression on his face. Harry winced as angry spikes shot through his head at the red-head's interruption, and he shot to his feet.
"Just a second, girls," he murmured stepping over to get rid of Ron. "What?" he asked bruskly of the lanky boy after they stepped a few feet away.
"What'd you do to my sister?" Ron demanded without preamble.
Harry started in surprise, more than a little confused, before he suddenly remembered and sighed. "I didn't do anything to your sister," he said, arms crossed as he glared slightly at the taller boy. "She asked me to the Ball and I turned her down-"
"So Ginny isn't good enough for the 'Great Harry Potter'?" Ron cut him off sarcastically.
"I didn't say that," Harry shot back, more than a little irritated with his Housemate. "She and I have hardly ever spoken to each other, and I'm not about to go to a dance with someone I don't even know," he finished.
Ron seemed to consider that for a moment before finally nodding once, curtly. "Fine, I guess," he muttered before he took a step closer, then asked with a glance to the girls behind Harry where they still sat on the sofa, "Which one?" in a low tone.
Harry leaned back as a result of the boys close proximity, staring at him in confusion, "What are you talking about?"
"Which girl are you taking to the Yule Ball?"
Harry cast a furtive glance over his shoulder, hoping they weren't paying attention to him and Ron, only to find three pairs of eyes watching closely.
"I don't know," he finally muttered, turning back to the red-head. "What's it to you anyway?"
"I figure once I know which one you're asking, you can put in a good word for me with one of the others."
"Why in the hell would I do that?" Harry blurted out, surprise quickly giving way to anger.
"You owe me for not beating the crap out of you for hurting Ginny," Ron said, oblivious to the dark scowl Harry was directing at him. "And besides, those three are some of the prettiest birds in Gryffindor. I'd rather go with one of them than end up having to pick an ugly girl."
"You're a real piece of work, you know that Weasley?" Harry growled, wondering just why they'd tried to be friendly with the boy in the past. Not that he'd made any great effort to hang out with them beyond getting last minute help with his class assignments.
"What's your problem?" Ron snapped, his ears and face slowly turning red.
"You're my problem. You act like these girls don't have feelings. Like they're commodities to trade or something. You think I 'owe' you something, and by the way I don't owe you squat, and your answer to that delusion is to trade a person for this imagined debt?"
"Doesn't hurt anyone," Ron muttered. "And what do you care? You're not dating them."
Furious, Harry reached out and grabbed hold of Ron's tie, yanking the boy closer as a commotion started somewhere else in the room. "It doesn't matter if I am or not," he snapped. "I care about them, they're my best friends, and I wouldn't set any of them up with you for anything," Harry growled, his eyes glowing dangerously.
"Jeez!" Ron yelped, struggling to loosen Harry's grip on his tie. "Calm down, Mate, it's not like you're in love with them or anything!"
"But I am-"
Harry cut off his angry shout in mid-sentence as his brain caught up to what he'd been about to say. Like a balloon popping, all of his anger suddenly vanished, and his grip on Ron's tie slackened, allowing the other boy to wriggle free.
"I am in love with them," Harry whispered, stunned as the absolute truth of those words suddenly crashed down on him.
"Right," Ron snorted. "...so which one is it?"
Ron's blatant stupidity cut through the epiphany Harry had just experienced and he growled low in his throat, taking a threatening step toward him when two heads of bright red hair suddenly bounced into view.
"No worries, Harrykins-"
"-we'll take it from here." Fred and George cut in as each of them grabbed one of their brother's arms, lifted him off the ground, and started carrying him away despite his angry protests.
"We think you and-"
"-your girls should go-"
"-have yourselves a chat-"
They ping-ponged before saying in unison, "Leave the idiot to us."
In seconds they were gone, swiftly carrying their brother up the stairs toward the dorms. A glance around told Harry that the crowd in the Common Room had noticed the altercation, but his glare caused most of them to quickly turn away.
"Harry?"
He turned at the sound of Hermione's voice to find the three of them standing just behind him, hopeful expressions on their faces, even as he was suddenly struck by a confusing wave of emotions from all three of them.
"Are you really…."
He couldn't even attempt to make heads or tails of the mix of feelings coming from the girls and simply nodded shamefully.
"I… I don't understand how but-"
"Maybe we should take this discussion somewhere else?" Susan cut in and they took another look around the room, noting that, while most of the other students had turned away, many were still casting furtive looks in their direction now and then.
"Right… okay," Harry muttered, nodding absently as the girls packed up their work. After quickly rushing up to their dorm to drop their bags while Harry put his broom away in his dorm, they met back in the Common Room where Harry clamped down on his Occlumency again, just to keep back the rising rush of panic that was filling him.
They didn't say anything. Hermione and Susan simply looped one of their arms through each of his and with Daphne leading the way, they left the Tower, heading directly for the Room of Requirement. She paced quickly back and forth in front of the blank stretch of wall, when the door appeared she practically yanked it open, gesturing for the three of them to enter ahead of her.
The room beyond the door was the smaller recreation of their Common Room, including only their corner with the low table, sofa, and the armchair that Harry prefered to sit in. Hermione and Susan lead him over to the chair and gently pushed him into it before they took their places on the sofa, with Hermione in the middle between Daphne and Susan, each of them looking expectantly at the raven haired teen across from them.
Harry fidgeted nervously, one hand stroking the scar behind his jaw while the other tightly gripped the arm of his chair, he sat in complete silence, as if not sure what to say. The girls studied him carefully for several minutes, equally at a loss as to how to start the discussion they knew they needed to have, when Hermione finally cleared her throat, drawing their attention to her.
"Harry… could you tell us why you were really looking to get out of asking us to the Yule Ball?" she asked gently, causing Harry to blink in surprise for a moment before his hand slowly lowered from his scar and he frowned in confusion.
"I just… I didn't know what to say," he muttered.
"What do you mean?" Susan asked. "It's not difficult, Harry."
Harry snorted, "Easy for you to say." His eyes flitted from one of them to another, "I don't… I care about all three of you. I don't know how you expect me to ask one of you to this Ball and reject the other two. How am I supposed to make a choice like that?"
"Who said you had to make a choice?"
Harry's eyes darted to Hermione, confusion evident in their glowing depths. "What do you mean?"
"It's simple," she explained, sitting back between the girls on either side of her with a small smile turning up the corners of her lips. "Take all three of us."
Harry's jaw dropped open as he gaped at her for a moment, looking to Susan and Daphne, he noted that both of them were smiling and nodding.
"But... I can't do that," he protested.
"Why not?" Hermione countered. "Trust me, Harry, I looked up the rules last weekend. There is no rule that says a person can only take one date. And there's also no rule that says someone can't take three dates. Since there's no rule against it, and if we all agree, there's absolutely nothing wrong with you taking all three of us."
She paused for a moment, hesitating only slightly when the girls on either side of her took hold of her nearest hand and squeezed encouragingly. This was probably not the ideal circumstances to attempt broaching this subject with Harry, Not that there would probably ever be an ideal time, Hermione reminded herself.
For months they'd been moving along, getting closer and closer, but something was still holding Harry back. He needed to know what the future could hold for the four of them, if there was any possibility of getting through to him, she had to take the chance Ron Weasley's stupidity had presented her with.
"In fact… there's no rule at all that says that the four of us can't be together… if that's what we want. And we want that, Harry. The only question is, do you?"
Harry's shock at her suggestion, that he take all three girls to the Yule Ball, quickly morphed into confusion over her choice of words as she'd continued talking. When she finished, he was left with a deep frown on his face as he tried to puzzle out the meaning behind her words.
"You're… you're not talking about the Ball anymore… are you..." he asked, though his tone implied that it wasn't really a question.
The three of them exchanged a look before Susan leaned forward in her seat, blue eyes focused intently on their bond mate.
"Harry… did you really mean it? What you said in the Common Room. Are you in love with us?"
He stared at them for a moment, then he suddenly stood and started pacing in front of the fire, his hands shoved deep into his pockets.
"What does it matter?" he muttered. "It's pointless to think that way."
"It's not pointless, Harry," Daphne insisted. "We need to know. We need you to tell us-"
"It doesn't matter!" he barked out, cutting her off. "What kind of person would that make me?" he asked. "What kind of person thinks they can actually love three different women at the same time? That's not normal."
"We're not normal," Hermione pointed out. "What part of our friendship, our relationship, has ever been normal? We found each other in a strange way, and we fell in love with you under strange circumstances. Our lives are filled with danger, and chaos, and more uncertainty than most people will ever deal with, and that's just been in the last three years. So what part of 'normal' has ever applied to us?"
"You only fell in love with me because of this bond," he denied. "If Voldemort hadn't tried to kill me, my soul wouldn't have been split apart, and you wouldn't have gotten stuck with it," he almost yelled, "You wouldn't have my scars," he whispered, before firming again, "You wouldn't have dealt with all the pain I've been put through over the years. You wouldn't be here with me if it wasn't for that bond. You wouldn't have been in so much danger the last three years. You could be out with your own friends, finding someone that wouldn't have to split his attention between the three of you. I promised you all that I'd try, and I have been, but I still don't understand what you want. How… how could you be happy with someone that couldn't love you completely?"
By the time he wound down, Harry's grip on his occlumency had slipped, and the girls were inundated with wave upon wave of self-loathing and doubt, the likes of which they'd rarely experienced, and it rocked them back in their seats for a moment before they were able to shove the emotion aside and focus their attention back on him.
"So, you're finally admitting that you're in love with us?" Hermione pressed.
Harry threw his arms up in the air in exasperation, "Yes!" he practically shouted, "And I feel like a complete tool for even thinking I could actually-"
"You are such an utterly infuriating, noble, idiot, Potter," Daphne snapped angrily. Harry spun in the middle of his pacing, leveling a shocked stare in her direction. "What do you think you've been doing... holding a part of us hostage or something?" she asked. "That if you didn't have part of our souls that we wouldn't love you? We wouldn't want to be around you, or be with you?"
Reluctantly, Harry shrugged, not entirely certain what to say to that, and Hermione stood, moving over until she was standing right in front of him, staring him in the eye for several long moments.
"That is what you've been thinking, isn't it?" she murmured. "Dammit, Harry… even if your soul hadn't been torn apart, and the pieces hadn't ended up with us… the fact that we bonded shows we were still soul mates. It's very possible we still would have found each other. Who knows? Maybe it would have taken longer. Maybe we wouldn't all be here together right now, but it's possible. What does it matter?"
While she was talking she raised her hand up slowly, his glowing green eyes tracking the motion warily, as if expecting her to hit him at any moment, until her right hand came to rest gently on his cheek. When her palm cupped his cheek, a measure of the tension in his body bled away, and a moment later Daphne and Susan were standing on either side of them, each placing a hand on the back of his neck.
"You asked how you could love three women at once," Susan said. "By that logic how can I love two women and one man at once? If it's such a horrible thing for you to think you could love all three of us, wouldn't I be just as terrible a person?"
"Same here," Daphne said, causing him to turn away from Susan to look to her. "We said it before, Harry, the bond might have given us the opportunity to fall in love, but it didn't make us fall in love. All it did was put us together, the rest was entirely us."
"And I think you're forgetting something else," Hermione said. "We love you, but we love each other as well. You being with the three of us… that isn't limiting us from finding one person to love us completely. We wouldn't be trying to share the affection of one man, because we would all be sharing each other equally. Just because you love all three of us doesn't mean that we'd receive any less love or affection in a relationship between the four of us."
Nervously, she licked her lips before she pushed on. "We want to be with you, Harry. We want you to be with us… all of us."
"If being together means that you find yourself with three lovers, then we're each getting three lovers out of the relationship as well," Daphne pointed out. "I don't think any of us are really ready for too much right now, but eventually I have every intention of making love to you, Harry, and I intend to do the same with Hermione and Susan too, one day. When we're all ready."
All four of them were blushing brilliantly by the time she finished, but at his incredulous look, Susan and Hermione both nodded their agreement.
"Do you remember what we were told, and what we read, about how the bond is completed?" Hermione asked.
"Yes. An act of love, right?"
"An act of love where both parties understand and accept that there is love there. We completed our part of the bond with just a kiss. Me and Daphne and Susan. But we've kissed you, and you've kissed us, and your part of the bond hasn't finalized, and it won't, not until you honestly believe that you can love us, and you accept completely that we can, and do, love you too."
He looked hopeful and doubtful in equal measure.
"Please, Harry," Hermione whispered. "Please, just trust us. We want this. Not what we've been doing, but an honest real relationship. We want you to finish bonding with us. We want to feel that you love us."
The struggle on his face was beautiful and heartbreaking to watch for the three of them. Fear, and doubt, and love raged in his vibrant eyes. The muscles in his cheeks twitched, his brow furrowed and smoothed, and furrowed again repeatedly, as he fought an internal battle that they were powerless to help him with any more than they already had.
Whatever happened with their relationship, everything was entirely up to him now.
Finally, after nearly five minutes of silent debate, he let out a pent up breath and his face smoothed out. A quiet chuckle escaped him, surprising them with the sudden shift in his mood.
"I owe Blaise a huge apology."
At their confused looks he shook his head, dismissing the unasked question before focusing his attention back on the brunette in front of him.
"To hell with it," he muttered, "allegria." Before Hermione had a chance to react, his arms snaked around her waist and he pulled her flush against his body, his lips quickly closing the distance to hers.
There was a passionate hunger to his kiss, so different from how gentle he usually was, that excited her. It stoked a fire in her chest as her heart began to race, and she moaned quietly against his mouth, her eyes falling closed as her arms slid around his neck. Hermione could feel Daphne and Susan's hands resting on her forearms, but that was a dim realization, her senses were completely consumed by the boy, the young man, that held her so firmly in his arms.
When they finally pulled away from each other, she felt dazed, her breath coming fast, and she couldn't stop the pleased smile that spread across her face. Leaning forward, she pecked him on the lips again, and stepped back to let Susan take her place in his arms. She was grinning broadly as she wrapped her arms around his neck, eagerly bringing her mouth to his.
Hermione let out a startled gasp when their lips met and a brilliant aurora of light exploded around them. Gold mixed with silver coiled and twisted around auburn blended with silver and green, their auras tangling around each other as Susan plunged her tongue into his mouth and his arms tightened around her. In seconds the auras around them bled together until streaks of gold suffused the light that surrounded Susan, while her original auburn had been added to the blend of gold and silver that surrounded Harry.
"It did that with you two as well," Daphne whispered from the other side of the couple between them. Hermione nodded but didn't say anything, just watching as two of the people that she loved the most in the world expressed their love for each other.
The light around Harry and Susan finally faded away as they pulled back. Susan grinned, tugging lightly at his bottom lip with her teeth, before she shot Hermione a wink causing the brunette to blush brightly, remembering how she'd done that very thing to Susan at the World Cup.
Susan moved back, making room for Daphne and the gorgeous blond smirked, her hands sliding up Harry's chest and neck to tangle in his hair as she pulled him down to her, the two of them completely oblivious to a third corona of light pouring from their bodies as they lost themselves in each other.
As the shortest of the three girls, Harry really had to stoop a bit more in order to kiss her properly. The seconds ticked by, and he eventually wrapped his arms tightly around her waist and straightened up, lifting her completely off the ground. She let out a startled squeal into his mouth when her feet suddenly left the ground, but instinctively her legs came up, wrapping around his waist as he hoisted her up higher, his arms crossed under her bum to support her.
Finally, after an indeterminable amount of time had passed them by, he loosened his grip, letting her slide down his body until their lips parted, the light fading away, and she was left standing again on wobbly legs. Daphne was reasonably sure that her hands, tightly gripping his shoulders, were the only reason she was still standing.
Blindly, he reached out to grab hold of Susan and Hermione, pulling them close to join him with Daphne.
"I still haven't actually said it, have I?" he asked after a few moments spent simply holding his girls close.
"Not yet," Hermione said and he took a slow, deep breath.
"Hermione?"
"Yes, Harry?"
"I love you."
Finally hearing the words for the first time from the broken, but healing young man, she couldn't help but smile.
"I love you too, Harry."
"Daphne?"
"Yes, Harry?"
"I love you," he murmured quietly.
Her arms tightened around his neck as she rested her cheek against his chest, "Merlin, I love you too, Harry."
"Susan?"
"Yes, Harry?" she asked, an impish grin twisting her lips. She wasn't sure how discussing the Yule Ball had led them where they were, but she didn't think she'd ever been happier in her life.
"I love you, Susan," he said causing a contented sigh to escape her.
"I love you too, Harry. I knew you'd come around, eventually."
"I'm sorry it took me so long."
"You don't have anything to be sorry for," Hermione told him, burrowing closer against his side. "You had a few more problems to deal with than most people. We'd have waited twice as long, and still been more than happy that you finally understood."
Eventually they pulled away, and the girls directed Harry to the sofa. Pushing him into the middle with Susan and Daphne cuddled on either side of him, he pulled Hermione down until she was sitting in his lap, her legs stretched over Susan's again with Daphne helping to support her back.
They sat there in silence for a time, there were no words necessary at that moment between them, as they simply enjoyed each other's presence, their emotions bleeding back and forth across their bond.
Before long Harry became aware of the steadily growing sense of curiosity coming from the girl in his lap.
"Go ahead, Hermione," he told her, a small smirk twisting his lips. "You've got a question, I can tell."
"What was that, what you said?" she blurted out, unable to contain her curiosity a moment longer.
For a moment he was confused. "What'd I say?" he asked, thinking back over the last twenty minutes or so in an effort to pin down what exact comment she was referring to.
"Just before you kissed me," she muttered, her cheeks pinking slightly, "you said something like… 'allegria'?"
"Oh, that." He chuckled softly a broad smile on his face. "Just some advice I got a while back that I should have listened to more closely. Blaise told me about it. It's an Italian word. It means happiness or joy. We were talking at the beginning of the summer, and he said it was a word he sort of took as his personal motto, and suggested that I look for it. Look for my allegria, my happiness, and when I found it, he said, I should ignore fear and doubt, just grab onto it and never let go."
The girls considered that for a moment as slow smiles spread across their faces, and Hermione leaned up to press a gentle kiss to his lips.
"Remind us to find something really special for Blaise for Christmas this year."
"I'll make sure of it," he said, his arms tightening around her waist. "You're positive that we can do this?" he asked a minute later. "The four of us together? I don't have the slightest clue how this is supposed to work."
"Neither do we," Daphne said from where her head was resting on his shoulder. "But we'll figure it out together."
He considered that for a minute before nodding slowly. "Well… would the three of you be my dates for the Yule Ball?"
By the time the four of them made it down to the Great Hall for dinner, Harry couldn't remember if any of them had actually answered his question with words. He figured that the extremely enthusiastic kisses he'd received from them in response to his request, were answer enough on their own.
#####
For a second time, in a room deep within the Department of Mysteries, two people appeared in complete silence and without entering through any door. Still dressed in muggle clothing the man's white shirt had a picture of a wicker picnic basket on it and in blue lettering above it were the words:
Where are we going,
and why am I in this handbasket?
"That's all of them," the woman said, sighing softly as she stared at the four names on the wall.
"And it's about bloody time," the man groused, his eyes narrowed irritably as he also examined the tree on the wall before them.
The four names had shifted, moving closer together and now, instead of golden lines connecting them they were surrounded by a circle of gold. The lettering of the names themselves shifted and shimmered with an ever changing kaleidoscopic display of gold, silver, green, and auburn.
They silently observed the ever shifting array of colors for a time before she turned, brushing her long black hair back over her shoulders in the process. "When should we approach them?" she asked.
"I want to say sooner than later… but with what we've learned is going to happen this year… it might be better to wait and talk to them this summer when everything is at least a bit calmer."
"That long?" she asked, surprised by the response.
"There's really no point in approaching them any sooner. These four are the youngest ever, there's only so much they would be able to do. From what we've heard, they're basically doing it already anyway." He frowned, his brow furrowing into deep lines as he thought for a moment before resolutely shaking his head. "No. We'll have to wait. The Hydra has risen. There's no point approaching them until the Adversary makes his opening move."
"Just because we can't help them, doesn't mean we can't meet them and observe," she pointed out.
"There'll be plenty of opportunity to observe them in action this year," he said, nodding silently in agreement.
"Well, let's see what opportunity will present itself first," she said, smiling as she looped her arm through his, turning them both around to walk across the room toward the door. Between one step and the next they simply vanished, once again in utter silence and leaving no indication how they arrived, how they left, or that they had ever even been there to begin with.
