Chapter 02 Reset
A/N: I can't tell you how much I Hate doing this, but, it seems like the only way to respond to reviewer . You make some good points and I'm checking them out. Thank you for that. Let me respond to the second story comment. As you say, it has been up for 6 months. It seems as though no one wants to read it. First I posted the complete story. No one looked at it. I thought it was because of the length, so I posted the first chapter. Still no interest. Now, if you are going to report a stolen story you need to show proof it's stolen… On another point you made, read and read (red) can be confusing, especially for English as a second language folks. So... Wow! Who put that soapbox there? Now, on with the story.
Hermione talked Harry into studying with her more than playing around and goofing off with Ron. Harry noticed that Hermione was studying Ancient Runes. "Mione, oops, I meant Hermione, why are you studying Runes? What can you do with them?" Harry asked. "You called me Mione. You know, if anyone else had tried to give me a nickname I might hex them. But you... If you want to call me that, please try not to let anyone else hear you." She smiled at him, her eyes sparkling with affection.
"Harry, Runes can be used to enchant things, build powerful wards, preform spells you can't cast without help, runes can be used for many different things. Runes and Arithmancy go hand in hand in spell creation, and as I said, in warding." Harry looked thoughtful. "I wonder if it's too late for me to change. I don't know about Arithmancy, but Runes looks fascinating. I'd gladly drop Divination."
Hermione said, "We're not that far along, actually. I just like to work ahead. I'm sure if it interests you, you'd have no trouble catching up Harry, and you know how I feel about Divination. Harry, may I ask you something?" "Of course. If it's too embarrassing or personal I reserve the right not to answer though." He said with a grin.
"Prat. No actually, I was wondering, why did you stick your wand up that troll's nose, and don't tell me it was an accident. You leaned forward as it was bending over to hit me with it's club so you could see it's face, when your natural reaction should have been leaning back." Harry had the, kid-with-their-hand in-the-cooky-jar-look. … … "I, I had red that trolls had hide that was very resistant to magic. I thought that by sticking my wand up it's nose I could cast a spell into it's unprotected sinus cavity, maybe even reach it's brain.
"The problem was, I then realized, I didn't know any spells that could hurt it even inside it's skin. I was about to try driving my wand deeper with all the force I could muster when it yanked me off it's back and tried to club me. Ron thinks you owe him a life debt. I looked up life debts and you can't cause someone to be in danger so you can rescue them to incur a life debt. Also, you have to place yourself in a life and death situation for another person in order to incur such a debt. Ron stayed in the door way ready to rabbit. That did not meet any of the requirements for such a debt.
"That's part of the reason I let you talk me into studying this year. I need to learn some offensive spells so next time I can actually do something. I don't ever want to see you in a situation like that again without knowing I can do something about it. If you had been kill… killed... I would have wanted to lay down and die too because I couldn't have helped you." Harry explained. "Oh Harry!" Without a thought, Hermione threw her arms around him and kissed him. Both of them blushed profusely and kept casting furtive glances at each other the rest of their study session.
Harry ordered the books for the classes, even if he couldn't take the class he could study along with Mione. She invited him to a study group she was part of. Harry went not knowing exactly what to expect. When they got to the classroom Hermione introduced him to her study partners.
Padma, Justin, Su, Susan, Hanna, and two Slytherins, Daphne, and Tracy. "Are we going to have a problem Potter?" Daphne asked. "Your best mate hates us you know." Harry then answered, "You have me confused with some one else. My best mate is a part of this group and she doesn't have any problems with you so why should I?" Hermione blushed profusely but was grinning widely.
The girls looked back and forth between Harry and Hermione. Tracy spoke up. "You know, most boys would never call a girl, mate, let alone, best mate." To which Harry answered, "Yes, well, I never went through the, girls are icky stage. Sadly I wound up making friends with Ron first. I could have made friends with Neville instead, but now he seems to shy away from me so I may have lost the chance."
"You, you want, want to be my friend?" Harry turned around to see Neville carrying a chair over to the table. "Yeah. I wish I had met you and Hermione before I met the Weasleys. I might have if my relatives hadn't hoped to make me miss the tra, Oops! I didn't mean, er, that is," "Your relatives don't like you?" Daphne asked looking shocked to her core.
"Like me?! They hate anything magical, especially me! They treat me like, well, something you wouldn't want to step in at a kennel. They make me do all their work and then beat... Er..." Neville dropped the chair, tripped over it and lay looking up at Harry in shock. All the others were looking at him with similar expressions.
"I, I didn't mean to say that. Please don't tell anyone! I get beaten worse if anyone finds out how they treat me. Some of my teachers have tried to help, they left school and never came back. I saw one of them on the street and said hi to her. She said hi back and went on with what she was doing like she didn't even know who I was.
"I mean, there was no cover up, no pretending, it was just as if she had never met me, Then I remembered some weird dreams I've had. Dreams of being beaten so bad I thought I was going to die. Then Dum... er, um," Daphne gasped and then asked, "Dumbledore? You were going to say you dreamed about Dumbledore weren't you?" … "Um... yeah, also Snape, and madam Pomfrey.
"When I saw Snape and Pomfrey for the first time I was shocked. I knew them somehow. But I had never seen them before except in my dreams." Harry told them. "There's a form of magic called Obliviation that can remove, or block, memories. It sounds to me like you, and those teachers have been Obliviated." Daphne told him. "Sometimes a Mind Healer can get the memories back. Not always, but sometimes." She added.
In a filthy, horrible townhouse in London a young woman who had lost everything she held dear was inscribing runes on the floor of the library. She had spent two months so far drawing, and charging, a Runic Array. She was minutes away from attempting to activate the array.
Taking all her clothes off and tossing them outside the runes, she sat in the middle of the array. She closed her eyes and focused on where and when she needed to go. The array began to glow brighter and energy pulsed out of and into the array. "Tempus Porta!" She screamed. Most of the shell that was left of London vanished instantly before the explosion fell back into it's self and the energy simply was no more.