A/N: M For safety, folks.
Enter obligatory "I don't own this IP and am not making money off of this" statement here.
"NEVILLE!" Luna called out for the third time. It took a lot to get the almost disturbingly even-keeled girl to raise her voice or sometimes, even more disturbingly to those around her, show any kind of emotion at all, but two things at the moment were vexing her greatly. The first was that, while she and Neville seemed to be making some tentative progress in the days since the start of their burgeoning romance, he'd also become obsessed with the journal of his long-departed ancestor, reading it at every opportunity. She'd heard stories from Gryffindor Tower that he was almost constantly walking into people or furniture when he was in the Common Room, so focused on the folio was he. Seamus had even teased Neville about taking it to the loo with him. She didn't begrudge him his curiosity or his desire to learn (she was a Ravenclaw after all), but it had caused him to miss quite a bit of what was actually going on around him. For example, the previous day she'd caught him a hair's breadth from plummeting to what would have likely been his death when he had been reading while walking down the Grand Staircase and hadn't seen the stairs shift position. This closely tied in with the second thing that was troubling her, however, for he had missed the fact that Professor Dumbledore had returned to Hogwarts with a very troubled look on his face but without Harry and Hermione.
"Wha . . . huh? What's up, Luna?" Neville asked as he raised his head from the journal sitting on the Gryffindor table in the Great Hall.
"Professor Dumbledore just came back into the castle, but Harry and Hermione weren't with him," the Ravenclaw responded.
Neville tilted his head curiously as he turned toward the doorway into the Entrance Hall. "Maybe they're with the Weasleys. They were asked to go early; maybe they're staying for the wake too." Seemingly satisfied with the answer, he turned his eyes back down toward the no-longer-lost piece of Longbottom history.
Sublimating her agitation at her boyfriend (which wouldn't have been an issue before her 'awakening,' as Harry, Hermione, and Neville had taken to calling it), Luna contemplated the perfectly reasonable, if troublingly dismissive, response Neville had given. She still couldn't shake the feeling that something was off though, and she shook her head. "No. No, something's wrong. Come on," she said, grabbing the boy's hand as she stood from the table, which caused him to squawk in protest and reach his other hand out desperately to grab the journal as she pulled him out of the Great Hall. They hurried to try and catch the headmaster before he disappeared behind the gargoyle guardian of his office. For a man over 110 Dumbledore moved quite quickly, and it wasn't until they were in the last hallway before his office that they caught up to him. "Professor! Professor!" Luna called out, and the Headmaster turned to behold the two students who were quick-stepping to catch up to him. Dumbledore did his best to put on a benevolent smile but his heart just wasn't in it, and Luna caught it in an instant. "Sir, what's happened? What's wrong?"
His smile immediately faltered as he looked at them. "Please, upstairs," the older man said. "It's been a very long day so far, and I could do with a sit down and perhaps a cup of tea." He turned again to approach the stone sentinel and, after a whispered password and a quick jaunt up the revolving staircase, the three of them were seated in the Headmaster's Office with a tea service between them. After a few calming sips of the very strong tea, Albus sighed and then looked upon the two students. "Most of this will likely be in the Prophet in the morning so I don't feel too bad telling you now, though I'd ask you to keep it just between yourselves until tomorrow. However, since Harry specifically asked me to speak with the two of you I feel it best if you heard as much as possible from me." Albus took a deep breath and plunged in. "Let me begin by saying that Mr. Potter and Miss Granger were physically none the worse for wear the last time I saw them."
"Physically?" Neville asked with his head slightly cocked, immediately catching the qualifier. "What about the rest of them?"
"That's . . . a bit more complicated," the Headmaster replied, and began to relay the story of the day so far, from Harry's stirring eulogy, through the battle, pausing slightly at their horrified and tearful expressions when he told of how Ron Weasley's body had been turned into an Inferius, before continuing up until Voldemort's eventual withdrawal from the battlefield, intentionally skipping the events that took place afterward as well as not going beyond "Harry was forced to destroy the Inferius" in describing that rather gruesome scene . As he finished, he took another fortifying drink from his cup while Luna and Neville processed everything that had just been said. "Mr. Longbottom, if you'd like you may use my Floo to contact your grandmother. I'm sure she would appreciate knowing that Bellatrix and Rabastan Lestrange are both dead."
Neville could only nod his head slightly as he struggled to come to grips with the events of the day. The (what he considered) joyful knowledge that now three of the four people that had tortured his parents into insanity were no more, something that he and his grandmother both had desired for some time, could not take hold past his concern for his friends, or the (misplaced) guilt he felt that he had not been there to help them. Neville could not imagine the level of pain the two of them must have experienced, and indeed may still be experiencing; his only consolation was that they were with each other. Harry and Hermione had always, and probably would always, put each other back together when they fell apart; it seemed almost intrinsic to their relationship.
After finishing their tea and Neville making a brief Floo call, the teens departed the Headmaster's Office and, without a word, walked toward the tapestry of Barnabus the Barmy. Once safely ensconced upon a couch within a cozy sitting room, complete with happily crackling fire, provided by the Room of Requirement Luna finally spoke up. "Neville, talk to me. Tell me how you're feeling."
The blond-haired boy was staring off into space as he gave his response. "I'm . . . I'm not sure. Part of me is sad. About all of this. About Ron. About this whole damned war. About what Harry and Hermione had to go through at the funeral . . . about what they had to see." Neville shuddered at the very thought of Inferi; to have the body of your best friend rise up and try to kill you, only to be forced to take action . . . he wasn't sure how he would have responded to that. Wasn't sure if he could have responded to that, which he surmised was exactly why Voldemort did it. "Another part of me is happy that 2 of the Lestranges are dead; that there's been a little more justice meted out for my parents. Happy that those monsters are dead. Happy that the story of Voldemort running away from Harry will help people believe we can win.
"But I'm also angry. Angry that it had to happen at all. Angry that Ron is dead and that the Death Eaters would dare to attack his funeral." Neville hung his head and closed his eyes as the next part came out as a whisper. "And part of me is angry at Harry. Angry that he killed Bellatrix and denied me the chance to do it myself. How stupid is that?"
"It's not stupid at all," Luna responded immediately, cupping his face in her small hands and forcing him to look over at her. "They are your feelings, Neville, for good or ill. The only stupid thing would be denying them. Don't be afraid to feel what you feel, and don't be afraid to talk about it, or to express it. Keeping it inside will eat away at you. Trust me; I did it for far too long, and even thinking objectively I can see how much damage that has caused me."
Neville finally looked up and beheld the pale silvery eyes that continued to ensnare him with their beauty, captivate him with their intelligence, and amaze him with their sensitivity. Impulsively, he leaned forward quickly and caught her lips with his own, his arms wrapping tightly around her as his mouth worked against hers. Unexpectedly, the normally placid Luna responded aggressively, her hands pulling tightly on his hair and her tongue licking along his lips asking for entrance, which Neville quickly granted as he leaned back and pulled her atop him so that they both lay prone on the couch. He had known Luna for over a year and half and knew that there were still a lot of mysteries about her that he was eager to discover, but he would never in a million years have thought that the shy, unassuming blond he had come to have deep feelings for would behave the way that she currently was. He wasn't about to call her on it either. What they were doing didn't just feel good; it felt right.
His hands roamed up and down her back, sometimes lightly pressing, sometimes sliding his nails along the fabric of her robes. If her moans and whimpers, suppressed by their increasingly passionate kiss, were any indication then she liked everything he was doing. Which only confused him more when she suddenly broke their embrace and stood up, staring at him with a look he didn't recognize while her chest heaved as she tried to catch her breath. Thinking that he had done something wrong, that he had pushed to far, he leaned up on his elbows and spoke. "Luna, I'm . . . I'm sorry . . . if that was too much too soon . . ."
Her lilting chuckle confused him even more, at least until she shed her robe, shoes, and blouse before pouncing upon him once more. She kissed, licked, nibbled, and suckled her way from where his neck met his shoulder up to his ear before biting it softly. "Silly boy. Not too much. Not enough," she whispered before licking along his earlobe and causing him to groan in pleasurable frustration. Neville's hands immediately returned to her back, all the more eager to wander now that there was nothing between them and the pale smoothness of Luna's body. He tried desperately to get his lips back on hers but she playfully refused, desiring instead to put her mouth to use by continuing her assault on the exposed skin of his neck and shoulders. Luna could feel his arousal against her as she teased him, but it was when she began nibbling along his Adam's Apple that he involuntarily bucked up against her, introducing a new dimension into their tryst. Far from being angry or disappointed, Luna moved her legs to straddle him and pressed herself down hard against the firmness now situated against her womanhood. "This . . ." she panted as she moved her hips slowly, generating sufficient friction even through their clothing to cause electric sparks to shoot from her core up through her entire body. "This is enough," she finished before their kiss resumed and his hands found her hips, pulling her tight against him while she ground down.
Caleb's journal lay forgotten on the floor.
{-}
"Henry?" Catherine Granger questioned of her husband as they drove home from their dental clinic after their last appointments of the day.
"Yes dear," Henry responded distractedly, his eyes on the road.
"Is there any particular reason why you're going almost 20 miles over the limit?"
"Oh, I don't know," he responded, "maybe because you told me our only daughter is home alone with the little bastard that caused her to have to take all those wretched potions at the end of last year?"
"That's incredibly unfair," Catherine responded testily. Henry had been acting unlike himself ever since she'd told him about Hermione's phone call. At first she thought it was just his anxiety finally peeking through, but this almost seemed like barely contained rage.
"Is it?" he shot back, quickly turning his head to look at her. "Alright then, I take it back. Then I'm rushing because our only daughter is home alone with the little bastard who is probably taking advantage of her impaired emotional state from her friend's funeral to slime his way into her knickers."
"Henry!"
"Tell me I'm wrong, Cat."
"I'm not sure there's ever been a time you've been more wrong," Catherine growled back out. "First off, Harry and Hermione have been best friends almost since she left for school. You've heard her talk about him; you know that he respects her, likes her, and would never take advantage of her. If they decided to get together, she could do a hell of a lot worse. Your brother-in-law ring any bells?" She knew it was a low blow, but neither one of them had any affection for the utterly useless, conniving, and unloving man Henry's sister had married. "Secondly, it was his best friend, too, not just Hermione's. If I had to guess I'd say he's going through at least as much emotional turmoil as she is. And third, even if they are trying to bring themselves a modicum of solace on what must be the most difficult day of their lives by having sex, are you about to become a hypocrite on me after almost 25 years of marriage and 30 of being together? You and I were Hermione's age when we first slept together, and that was at my parents' house when I was an emotional wreck after my dad died. And we'd only known each other since the beginning of sixth form, not since we were 11. And Hermione is much, much smarter and more mature than either of us was at that age." Henry only grumbled some more as he put his focus back onto the road. He knew his wife was right in everything she said; it didn't make it any easier to sublimate the emotions he was feeling about the fact that Hermione was home alone with a boy, the same boy that she had followed into a battle last year and gotten hurt badly for her effort. Based on what he'd heard about Harry from Hermione he imagined he was probably a pretty decent chap; it didn't make that protective father streak that seems to be inherent in males with daughters die down any. And so, while he let slightly off the accelerator, he was still eager to get home and find out why his daughter and her friend were there instead of at school.
The Grangers pulled into their garage and Henry entered the house while Catherine collected the dinner they had picked up from the back seat of the car. Entering through the back utility room, where they had decided to put their washer and dryer, Henry noticed a pile of robes on the floor and his eyes narrowed. Why the hell are their clothes back here?! his overactive paternal instinct screamed at him. He was about to move past and find out what was going on when he noticed there were two ties in the pile as well, and one had some discoloration on it. Picking it up, he gasped quietly when he realized that a good portion of the right side was still stained a crusty red. Blood he thought to herself. Just what the fuck is going on? Dropping the tie he rushed the rest of the way into the house, looking to make sure that his baby was okay, unlike the last time that she'd left the school with 'the little bastard.' He passed through the kitchen and dining room before pulling up upon walking into the sitting room. There he beheld almost exactly what he'd feared he would. Harry (he presumed it was Harry; after all he hadn't seen the boy for over 4 years) lay on his back on the couch, Hermione half buried into the back of it and half draped over him not unlike that cat of hers would do when it wanted to get comfortable. His right arm and her left hung off the couch, their fingers entwined as they slept.
Seeing this, combined with bloody clothes in the wash, made all of his and his wife's well-reasoned, logical, and perfectly reasonable explanations fly from his head like paper caught in a tornado. Suddenly Henry Granger was no longer 'Henry Granger, First Class Cambridge Graduate, top student in his medical school class, sought after oral surgeon, and published author.' He was 'Henry Granger, worried, frantic, and pissed off father of a teenage daughter who was lying on the couch with a boy who was nothing but trouble.' He saw red, and stalked toward the couple with murder in his eyes.
Over the first 10 years Harry had spent at the Dursleys he had learned to have an almost sixth sense about when someone was approaching him as he slept. It seemed an understandable and essential evolution of his survival instinct since, at least until he moved upstairs after his first Hogwarts letter, the approach was usually Vernon or Petunia coming to either beat on the cupboard door to wake him up for chores or to throw the door open and skip the middle man by beginning to beat him. Years at Hogwarts where he didn't have to be so vigilant, along with the aforementioned move upstairs at Privet Drive meaning that he usually had time to wake and prepare for their entry into his room (due to them having to undo all of the locks) had dulled the sense somewhat but it had never fully gone away no matter how tired he had been when he'd fallen asleep.
It was a testament to the comfort he felt when he was with Hermione, then, that he didn't instinctually recognize approaching danger until it was too late. Still, Harry went from deep contented sleep to nearly full awareness almost instantly when a hand gripped his upper arm painfully tight and yanked, pulling him away from Hermione and off the couch. He was thrown sloppily across the room, still mostly horizontal, and the effects of the day, his exhaustion, and memories of him being chased and getting into fights with Dudley and his gang caused muscle memory to kick in. He tucked in and rolled, coming back up facing his opponent. Sometime during their furious make-out session Hermione had taken his glasses off, and so now the room was only a series of colored blurs. One such blur in dark green seemed to be coming at him, stalking him like Vernon used to when he wanted to frighten Harry before his beating. Slytherin colors Harry thought, and once again reflex against a perceived threat kicked in. Harry sprung, shooting forward and driving his shoulder into the solar plexus of the other person. He heard a masculine grunt as he continued moving his legs, pushing the person as far away from a now fully awake and screaming Hermione as possible. He was running purely on instinct and adrenaline, everything in him saying that he needed to protect Hermione from whoever had found them.
The two toppled over one of the chairs in the room and tumbled to the ground, Harry knocking the wind out of whomever he was fighting as all of his body weight came down on the shoulder lodged firmly in the gut of his adversary. The momentum, however, caused Harry to almost cartwheel, his legs coming over before he rolled several times on the floor over the other person's head. He stood immediately and, frantic to eliminate the threat before they could do anything to Hermione or himself, he reached out his hand toward the end table next to the couch, where he knew his wand lay, and yelled "Accio!" For the second time in his life Harry consciously performed proper wandless magic, holly and phoenix feather soaring the several feet from its resting place and landing comfortingly in his hand. Sparks flew from its tip as he turned to bring the weapon to bear against the groaning green blob on the floor.
Before he could take any other action, however, another missile flew in from his right, pinning his wand against him as arms wrapped around his midsection. Instinct almost caused him to respond to the new threat until he registered the brown hair of the person and he took in the flowery scent that would now always to him be distinctly Hermione. "Harry, stop!" she said, and she was close enough for him to see that she had tears in her eyes. "Harry, it's okay. We're alright, we're not in danger." Her presence soothed him as her head buried itself in his chest and her arms came loose from around him so that she could run her hands up and down his arms consolingly. After ensuring that Harry was once again calm, she allowed her own rage and indignation to take over as she turned toward the first figure, who appeared to Harry to have gotten up on one knee. "Dad, just what the hell did you think you were doing?"
Dad? Harry thought, the logic centers of his brain kicking in and taking over for the adrenaline-fueled instinct that had defined the last few moments. He tried squinting to see if that helped him see clearly, but all that accomplished was making things worse as he was now trying to see through his eyelashes. Hermione, as if sensing his need, unfolded the eyeglasses in her hand and put them in Harry's. Seating them on his face, a man who appeared in his early middle age came into focus. Though still on one knee, a hand across his stomach, Harry estimated he was of average height and had an athletic build. His hair color matched Hermione's with the exception of the greying temples, and he was dressed in green hospital scrubs. The man took a steadying breath before rising to his feet.
"Well, Father? What do you have to say for yourself?"
"Say for myself?!" he shouted indignantly. "You're the one lying asleep all cozily on the couch with the arsehole that almost got you killed last year! Your clothes are in a pile in the back room, some of them covered in blood, and I don't even want to think about the situation of how he came to be dressed in your clothes!" Henry turned an angry glare at Harry, who met the stare with one of his own. "Get what you came for you little prick? Did you steal my daughter's virtue in my very house?!"
That comment re-ignited Harry's ire, and he was just about to respond when the opportunity was lost. "Henry Eric Granger that's enough!" bellowed a stern voice just entering the fray. Harry and Hermione both turned to see the woman who had come in from the back of the house, a bag in her hand and a severe expression on her face. For Harry there could be no doubt, even discounting where they were, that this was Hermione's mother; now he knew where the woman that he loved had gotten her soulful brown eyes from. She was about Hermione's height but had a slimmer build than her rather well-proportioned daughter, and her short, neat, dirty blond hair was in stark contrast to Hermione's thick, wavy, brown tresses.
Hermione left Harry's arms to move toward her mother, who enveloped the younger woman in a needy hug. Harry and Henry just continued to stare at each other, Henry's arm still across his sore stomach and Harry nervously twisting his wand in his hand, ready to raise it in defense if Hermione's father decided to restart their apparent disagreement. Neither made a move when the women turned from each other to face them and the older spoke again. "Gentlemen, and I appear to be using that term loosely at the moment, let's all sit down at the table and talk."
When neither male moved from their spot for several seconds, an exasperated sigh left her. She walked up to her husband and, taking him by the arm, pulled him toward the dining room. Harry watched them go, his posture tense. Hermione came over to him, gently taking his right hand into both of hers to stop his nervous fiddling with the holly and phoenix feather wand. She stared up into his eyes and he down into hers, and she could see the depth of both anger and resentment present there over what her father had said and done. To be fair she shared those sentiments at the moment, but she knew that they would all have to sit down and hash this out. Still holding his right hand, she gently led him toward the dining room, where her parents were seated in two of the six chairs, her father at the head of the table and her mother to his right. Hermione set Harry into the chair opposite her father before taking the one next to her mother, using her as a not-so-unconscious shield from her father and both of them as barriers between the older man and the younger.
"Alright," Hermione's mother said as she turned to look at the teenagers. "First off, Hermione, it's good to see you, despite the circumstances. And Harry, welcome to our home." She turned an evil eye on Henry as he snorted in derision. "In case Hermione hasn't told you, my name is Catherine, and this misguided lump of excess testosterone is my husband Henry. Now before we get into anything else, why don't you two tell us why you're here instead of at school? I know that your friend Ron's funeral was today and, while I understand it's a difficult time for the both of you, I can't believe that that was enough to give you leave to not be in Scotland."
"Isn't it obvious? He probably convinced her to come here for a quick shag," Henry said with a growl.
Harry's indignation once again came to the fore at the (what Harry considered) insulting remark. "I believe the question was directed to us and not to you," Harry responded angrily.
"Don't you dare talk back to me in my own house, boy," Henry responded as his face turned an angry red.
"Henry what the hell is wrong with you?" Catherine admonished, but it was Hermione's comment in stereo with her mother's that was the more ominous.
"Oh damn," Hermione had said as she shut her eyes. "I really wish you hadn't called him that."
"Why . . . . . aaaat?" Henry started to ask and then exclaimed as he suddenly found himself wrapped in ropes and hanging upside down by one of his ankles.
"You want to know why we're here? Okay. I'll tell you why we're here." Harry stood, pocketing his wand as he walked around the opposite side of the table from the women and sat down in the empty chair closest to the Levicorpus'd and Incarcerous'd Henry Granger. Catherine attempted to stand, to defend her husband and/or defuse the situation, but Hermione grabbed her arm to make her keep her seat and shook her head when her mother opened her mouth to say something. Harry saw none of it as he leaned down so that he was almost face to face with Hermione's father and began to talk. His voice was steady and quiet, but there was no mistaking both the emotion and the steel that the words were laced with.
"We're here because we had to fight for our lives today. Not because we wanted to. Not because we invited it. We had to fight for our lives for the simple crime of continuing to exist when they don't want us to. They firebombed the Tower of London just to make sure that our law enforcement wouldn't be able to respond and they could do the job right this time." Catherine gasped at hearing that, having heard the reports on the news in between patients, but otherwise kept herself silent. Harry just sighed and shook his head as he continued. "I killed at least 3 people today, quite possibly more." Another gasp from Hermione's mother along with a brief wide-eyed look from her father, greeting that news. "And despite how evil, disgusting, and wretched they were I'm still going to have to live with that for the rest of my life. They –" Harry's voice caught slightly but he marshalled himself and went on. "They turned the body of our best friend into a soulless monster that would have torn us apart." That caused Catherine to cry out in horror and pull her now weeping daughter closer. "They made your daughter watch as his animated corpse stalked toward us. They . . . they forced me to act. Forced me to look at the face of a man who was as good as a brother to me and utterly destroy him in order to save our lives." Harry's calm was almost disturbing, talking about these things as if reading them from a book. "After all of that, we knew we needed time, someplace safe where we could cry and try to heal. This," Harry waved his hand around the room, "was the first place she thought of, the one place where she thought we could get those things. Get what we needed after what happened. And until a little while ago it was working; right up until you showed up."
Harry turned his head and, for the first time since the Grangers had arrived home, a smile came to his face. "Your daughter is an amazing witch, an exceptional woman, and an even better friend. She saved my soul earlier today. That's not romantic drivel or teenage hyperbole; her love for me, and mine for her, literally excised an evil that was trying to possess me. She alone did that, and I realize now that only she could have. I feel like one of the most fortunate people on Earth that she looks at me the way she has today, and hope to one day both be worthy of that look and be able to return it to her such that she knows I feel the same way she does." Hermione had turned her head out from her mother's chest and toward Harry when he'd started speaking of her, and in later years her smile at his words would both warm and haunt Henry Granger; warm because it was a look of honest and pure love and haunted because his actions could very well have made it so that smile was never revealed.
The moment passed, and Harry's smile disappeared as he re-addressed Henry. "Hate me all you like; it's all I knew from when my parents died until I left for Hogwarts. Insult me to your heart's content; you'll be hard pressed to find one that either my family or the wizarding world as a whole hasn't already laid at my feet. Think poorly of me, yell and scream at me, or hit me all you like; I'm used to it. But you will not so much as insinuate the despicable things about Hermione you're accusing us of.
"How dare you?!" Harry hissed out, his temper finally getting the better of him. "That is your daughter over there with tears in her eyes. Tears that have been there for the last five days; I know because I've been wiping them away just the same as she has mine. Tears of pain, loss, sorrow, and fear. She's lost one of her best friends, a man I know she loved, that she still loves and will probably always love. And today, instead of being able to say goodbye properly, she was forced to once again fight with everything she has against a group of people who would think nothing of butchering your entire family in their beds, and would do so without the slightest compunction. So she brought us here in an attempt to find peace and solace, and instead of that there's only aggression and insults.
"You want me gone? Fine; this is your house and I have to respect your wishes, so I'll gather my things and darken your doorstep no longer. But you'd better put whatever the fuck that was before in a deep dark hole and be the loving and caring father I've heard so much about, that I've longed for my entire life, and that Hermione desperately needs right now. Because you raise your voice against your daughter one more time in my presence and I'll show you why the most dangerous wizard in Britain ran away from me with his tail between his legs earlier today." With that, Harry stood and walked out of the room, a room whose occupants were stunned into silence. He seemed to be doing that a lot lately.
After a moment Catherine was able to speak again. "That was . . . was . . ." she began, searching for the appropriate word.
"I've been calling it 'dragon-y,'" Hermione supplied, looking toward the door that Harry had left through. "It's a fairly new development, but I have to admit I like it."
"Hermione, please undo . . . whatever all that is . . . from your father," Catherine said as she got up from her chair. The younger Granger woman was about to protest when her mother completed her statement. "I'll see to Harry." With a nod of assent from Hermione, Catherine walked out of the room.
Hermione drew her wand and, though she was still stunningly upset at her father, carefully rotated him back upright before undoing his bindings and setting him gently in his chair. She placed her wand on the table as she stared at him, and he had the decency to hang his head at her glare.
"I owe you an apology," Henry began, inwardly cringing that the statement didn't even begin to describe what he needed to do.
"You're damn right you do," she spat back, trying and failing to control her own temper. "You are the most intelligent man I know; I would have never thought you were capable of what you did and said today, that you would both act that way and think so little of me." Henry's flinched as if pained at the second part of her accusation. "Where did all of that come from?"
Henry shrugged. "It sat in my head all afternoon; why were you home? Why was Harry with you? I know how teenage boys are, and I know that grieving teenage girls aren't exactly paragons of reason. And . . . and I guess I'm still harboring a lot of resentment towards him for last June, and for all of the summers and holidays that we've missed with you, seemingly because of him. And it stewed.
"And then I get home and see crumpled clothes on the floor, covered in dirt and blood, and I all of a sudden I was seeing you after you got home last summer. All of those awful potions you had to take, all of that pain, and there was nothing I could do about it. But it was when I saw you two on the couch that I finally snapped. My little girl, lying there with the boy I blamed for taking her away from me, for putting her in danger, for getting her hurt. Even though he was asleep he had that smirk on his face and I was convinced he had taken advantage of you, had used you to get what he wanted. And the top blew off the pressure cooker." Henry wasn't a man much for tears, but he was closer at this point than he had been in a very long time. "I'm so sorry, sweetheart. You're right; I should have taken a minute and thought it through, let you all explain what was going on. But I just lost it." Henry reached out to try and put his hand on Hermione's, but his daughter pulled her hand away.
"I will accept your apology on one condition. You also have to apologize to Harry. You have no idea what he's been through today."
"Well, it seems you went through the same things," Henry responded. He was confused by Hermione's sad chuckle.
"We might have been in the same place, but I don't think our experiences were even close. The easiest part of Harry's day was probably giving Ron's eulogy. Everyone was crying by the end of it. Then," Hermione's eyes hardened, "then, the woman who killed his godfather, who had shared a dream with Harry about them living together as a family before he was killed the same night I was hurt, shows up along with a bunch of Death Eaters and a giant fight breaks out. We'd kind of mostly expected it, and had decided beforehand that we weren't going to make the same mistake we made last year at the Ministry."
"What, running off on a whim without a plan?" Henry couldn't help but quip. He was floored by her deadpan response, though.
"No, not shooting to kill when they're trying to kill you."
"Sweetheart? Did . . . did you . . ." He couldn't quite get out the words to ask if his seventeen-year-old daughter had taken a life. He visibly relaxed when she shook her head, converse to her tensing.
"No. I tried, though, a few times. The . . ." she closed her eyes as if pained, and Henry saw her unconsciously rub her chest. "The man who hurt me last year was there." Her head shook slightly side to side, eyes still closed, as the memory crept back up on her. "I was trying so hard. I wanted him dead. Needed him dead. Needed to be the one to kill him. And I eventually got him with a few spells, but they were all quick-casts and mostly innocuous things. But they worked; they knocked him out of the fight." Hermione opened her eyes. "And he was there. On his knees. And I had my wand raised . . ." she imitated the movement with her empty hand, her vision seeing the events of earlier that day. "But . . . but I couldn't do it. When I talked to the Aurors I said it was because I wanted him to face justice, to know that he'd been beaten by a teenaged girl and could expect nothing better than a return to the hell that he'd been sprung from. But it was all bull; I knew why I really Stunned him, and so did Harry. Regardless of what he'd done to me, or to others; despite what a worthless waste of humanity he is, I couldn't kill an unarmed man, no matter how much I wanted to. So I Stunned him instead, breaking our own rule. Harry didn't call me on it, and I know he'll never bring it up, and I love him all the more for it. But despite knowing that I won a moral pyrrhic victory for not killing him, I feel like such a . . . I don't know . . . a fraud? A failure? A disappointment? I feel like a terrible human being for wanting to kill him and at the same time like one for not following through. I don't know . . ." Hermione put her hands to the sides of her head and squeezed. "I'm so conflicted." She looked over at Henry, and his heart broke as he saw the dread and doubt in her eyes. "Daddy?"
And that was all it took; the rest of the explanation of the day's events didn't matter anymore to Henry. What she did, what she and Harry might have done; it all paled in comparison to the fact that this was his little girl and she needed him, perhaps now more than she ever had or ever would again. In an instant he was in the chair vacated by his wife, his daughter burrowed into his chest as his arms wrapped around her, as if trying to shield her from all the evil of the world, like a father should. Hermione didn't cry, but instead allowed herself to be surrounded by the peaceful protection that she had always found in her father's embrace. There were still a lot of things to work out, but for those few moments all the rest of it could take a back seat to the comfort and care Hermione needed, which Henry was more than willing to provide.
{-}
Catherine caught up to Harry in the utility room, where he was pulling the laundry out of the washer. As she watched, he placed Hermione's in the dryer and wrapped his own in his dirty set of outer robes. "Harry?" Catherine began tentatively. He turned toward her, his expression hollow.
"I'll be out in a moment, ma'am. Just needed to grab my clothes."
"You'll do no such thing, young man," Catherine responded with conviction. "Despite what happened earlier, you are welcome here."
"Your husband doesn't agree."
"You leave my husband to Hermione and me," she answered. "Honestly I haven't seen him that worked up in a while; he must be terrified."
"Ma'am?"
"Quit the ma'am stuff, Harry. Mrs. Granger if you must, or Catherine or Cat if you like." The faintest hint of a smile crossed Harry's face, and she took it as a good sign. "My Hank is a wonderful man but like anyone suffers from character flaws. The first one, if you can call it a flaw, is that he is an intellectual; his thought processes are based on logic, and his actions usually bear that out. However, it has made it such that he pushes down a lot of his emotions; it's not that he doesn't feel them, but he doesn't express them. He explained it to me once that he just forces his mind somewhere else. When they get out, however, they tend to all come out at once, and in every instance it's been fear that has been the straw that broke the camel's back.
"I know you probably don't understand this yet, Harry, but someday when you have a child of your own you will. Parents live in an almost constant fear for their children, and for the last six years Hank and I have been in a state of near-paranoid fright. We sent our only daughter alone into a world that we knew nothing about, a world that smashed up against Hank's long-held ideas of a logical reasoned, and orderly universe, on the word of a complete stranger. She wrote to us of ghosts and magic incantations, giants, centaurs, elves; all the stuff of fairy tales. And she told us of the dangers; she never tried to hide them from us. We know how you saved her from a troll when she was 12, of how she could have died from that giant snake when she was 13, and running for her life from a werewolf at 14. And she would end most of those stories with telling us that much of that was nothing compared to what you had to endure. I hope you can see how that would cause us to fear for her safety and survival." Harry could only nod, knowing that he couldn't form a defense for the magical world against the truth.
"And then she comes home last year, wounded, weak, and in more pain than she was willing to admit to, with stories of following you into a fight you had no right being in; a fight that honestly none of you should have survived." Harry winced as if struck at that; again, there was no denying the validity of Catherine's words. "She then tells us about a war, a war that her best friend is central to, and how she was going to stand by your side regardless of the consequences. And Hank tried to use logic to talk her out of it, but I guess she has a little more of me in her than any of us realized," Catherine added, which made Harry smile a bit; for some reason he had no trouble imagining the part of Hermione that had decked Draco Malfoy came from the woman in front of him.
"Through all of this, Hank never yelled, never raged, never cried, never wavered; he kept it all in, not knowing how to properly deal with the illogic of it all. Not just the illogic of magic, but of his studious and learned little girl acting with such resolve, conviction, and passion based not on logic but mostly on her unwavering trust in, loyalty to, and love for, you." Harry's eyes were as wide as saucers at that, and Catherine smiled. "Oh yes, I've known for some time that Hermione loves you, I think even before she did. I'm guessing she only recently worked up the nerve to say it out loud, though. Yes?" Harry could only nod dumbly, completely shocked by his first experience with a mother's intuition.
Catherine's smile faded. "You were right in what you said before; she loves the both of you, yourself and Ron. Which is why I'd guess it's only been recently that she's admitted to either set of feelings." She seemed lost in a thought, her eyes staring at nothing. "That's how it works sometimes; we can't express ourselves how we truly wish to until some unprecedented event drives it out of us. That's not to say that the emotions aren't real," she continued as Harry paled; she surmised (correctly she would find out years later) that he was worried Hermione's admissions were born of recent events and would fade away to nothing. "We struggle so hard to control ourselves, our surroundings, our lives; it's been my experience that all that leads to when the dam breaks, which it invariably will, is a bigger flood. But the water is still water, and it will still flow strongly and as it was meant to after the high waters recede. With love, the torrents, rapids, and chaotic swirls of the flood, the 'honeymoon phase' as I've heard it called, settle into the gentle, constant, and comforting flow of the river along the path Nature destined for it.
"It's similar with Hank," she continued, shaking away some thought or memory Harry knew not. "He bottled up all of his fear, doubt, and worry about Hermione behind that dam, thinking that he was being a supportive father, letting her choose her own destiny. And since he's better than most at hiding what he's really feeling, that all had a long time to build up inside him. Unfortunately, you got to experience today what happened when it became too much and that dam finally broke. I'm sorry it happened, Harry, and I'm not trying to justify or excuse Hank's actions; Lord knows if he'd done that to me or said any one of the, quite honestly, incredibly insulting things he said to the two of you earlier he wouldn't know which way was up by the time I was done with him. But I'm asking you to try and see the 'why' behind the 'what.' One of Hank's favorite things to do with Hermione when she was growing up was to ask her 'Why?' when she learned something knew. Why is the sky blue or grass green? Why do tigers have stripes but lions don't? Why do elements react with some but not others? It's not enough to know that something happened, Harry; it's just as important to know why it did. Not to place blame, not to allay your conscience, but simply in order to understand and, hopefully, be able to come to a level of acceptance. Does that make sense?"
Harry's eyes were focused on Catherine's feet as he absorbed everything she had said. He finally looked up at her as he replied. "It does. And it helps me understand a lot more about Hermione as well." He went on as Catherine's head cocked to the side in question. "It's never been enough for her to know how to cast a spell or what the spell did; she needs to know why it does what it does, why the words and wand movements cause that particular effect, in some cases why someone would come up with a spell to begin with. You can't tell me that someone meant to invent the toenail-lengthening jinx." They both smiled, much of the remaining tension finally broken as Harry put his clothes back on top of the washer. "Thank you."
"What for?"
"For talking me down. For helping me begin to understand, not just this but seemingly about so many things in my life thus far. For making me ask the question; it's amazing how many possibilities open when you can bring yourself to ask such a simple thing as 'why.' And for putting it in terms I can understand, which Hermione still has trouble with sometimes," he finished with a smirk.
"No thanks needed, Harry. Now let's go see how much damage Hermione has done to my husband."
Harry chuckled at that and the two of them walked back into the dining room to see Hermione cradled in Henry's arms as they sat in their chairs, the two of them talking softly about seemingly inconsequential things. Upon seeing Catherine and Harry re-enter the room Hermione stood, kissed her father on the forehead, and walked over to them before wrapping Harry in a tight embrace. On reflex, his arms came around her comfortingly and he placed a soft kiss on her temple. Catherine smiled as she walked towards Henry, who had also stood and approached the far side of the table from where he'd been. He and Harry appraised each other for a moment before the older man spoke. "Harry, I'd like to apologize for the amazing level of stupidity I exhibited earlier, and I was hoping that maybe we can try to start over."
Hermione's arms tightened around him as he responded. "I think I'd like to try that as well."
Smiling, Henry extended his hand. "Henry Granger."
Harry couldn't help but smirk as he shook the offered hand. "Harry Potter. It's a pleasure to meet you again, sir."
A sudden loud clap caused Harry, Hermione, and Henry to jump. "Smashing. Now, who wants cold Chinese food?"
A/N: The moral of this chapter is "don't keep it inside," and if I was doing chapter titles in this story that probably would have been it. Talk to someone, it doesn't matter who. And remember; your feelings are never stupid.
It took three drafts, at 7-9K words each, to finally cobble something together that I thought I could put out.
I hope that those of you who asked "How the F could Hermione just stun Dolohov?" are okay with the answer presented. It didn't express itself quite how I wanted it to, which was that she couldn't bring herself to kill an unarmed man on his knees, no matter how much he deserved it. And for those of you who expressed displeasure that she mixed in what are basically prank spells, I'll point out that Dolohov hit Neville with a Tarantallegra in the DoM, and they were playing for keeps then too.
Sixth Form, from what I understand, is the stage of education in the UK for ages 16-18.
This should hopefully conclude the "teenage angsty melodrama" portion of our broadcast day. We will now attempt to move on to the "doing something about it" phase.
As always, thanks for you favorites, follows, views, and reviews.