Chapter 6! Year 5. Sometimes all someone needs is a hug and a promise of tomorrow. Harry centric chapter. Hope you don't mind too badly. A little biter sweet but mostly sweet near the end. =3
As always the only thing that belongs to me here is Lauren and this loose little plot.
Once again super duper big thanks to PandaWong, SandyLovesKittens, XenaHades, nightworldangel, FonzFan, The Yoshinator, and Isa'ralia Faradien. I hope you all enjoy this next chapter and all the ones after it.
Hope you random readers also enjoy!
Chapter 6 – Little Miss Comfort
Lauren did not like Professor Umbridge at all. The stout, pink woman made her think of what might happen if a pig and a toad decided to have a baby. She was unpleasant, snobbish, and hurt her friends. Her depreciating comments about Muggles, Muggle-Borns, and Magical Creatures worried her to no end. Lauren wasn't a Muggle-Born herself, but she was a Halfblood, her mum a Muggle, and it was only a matter of time before Umbridge focused in on her and the other Halfbloods here.
The way she looked at her made her skin crawl and Lauren knew, she just knew that she would be on the receiving end of one of those awful quills at some point if she wasn't careful.
She was sure that her combined sort of apprenticeship with Professor Snape and her rocky friendship with Draco were the only reasons she'd yet to be punished for some mundane slip up. She spent most of her time in the dungeons now, more time near Slytherins than other Ravenclaws, excluding Luna, and when she wasn't there she was with Harry and the others, hiding away as they trained in their little army.
It was difficult and tiring. She'd never been particularly good at DADA but with hard work and persistence she'd been able to learn, to focus herself and produce spells that actually tended to be quite strong and explosive. Of course many of them still tended to backfire or fizzle on her.
When she'd learned her patronus she'd nearly cried at how happy she was and hugged Harry again and again. Really, she'd made a slight spectacle of herself and she was pretty sure Cho was a little upset with her right now.
Eh, that was the least of her worries.
Right now the most of them was Umbridge, the second was Potions, the third was her O.W.L's and the fourth was Harry. He jumped to first though, since he was in the same room as her right now. Both of them were the last two sitting in the Room of Requirement, getting ready to leave after this last meeting of Dumbledor's Army. Usually everyone tried to exit at the same time but today he'd made some excuse to stay along and she had to take a moment to Transfigure her robes back to normal after a stray spell had scorched them. For most people this wouldn't take long but she was still crap at Transfigurations.
She managed though and, eyes finally off her pristine clothes, saw Harry who looked very tired and very very sad. He was sitting on one of the benches that lined the walls, shoulders slumped, elbows on his knees, head in his hands.
If Lauren didn't know better she would have thought that he was crying. As it was though, he seemed very close.
She approached him cautiously, wondering if he knew that she was still around, and stood before him with a soft, worried smile.
"Harry?" she asked in a timid voice. "Do you wanna talk about it?"
He rose his head slowly to regard her, a little surprised by her question. Usually it was 'are you okay?' or 'what's wrong?' which were perfectly fine questions though the first a little redundant since he was obviously not okay.
He took a deep breath as he looked up into her eyes, green like his but a little darker, and shook his head.
"No. I don't but…" he looked down again. His hand twitched slightly then clenched into a fist and his shoulders shifted from side to side in that way people usually did when they had an itch between their shoulder blades that they couldn't scratch.
Lauren's smile grew a little and she leaned down to hug him, kissing his forehead lightly.
Harry always got a little fidgety when he wanted a hug she had noticed. He would never ask for one outright, though sometimes he would go ahead and take one, but most of the time he'd just twitch a little here, shrug a little there, and go unhugged because no one else, except maybe Luna, noticed this little quirk.
He broke away from her to stand and then hugged her again, nice and tight, his head rested atop hers. She smelled like potions and parchment, like the dungeons where she'd been spending all of her time. It worried him that she was spending so much time there, so much time with Snape and worse yet, Draco. He didn't want to lose her to their side, didn't want to lose her as a friend. But she also smelled like chamomile and honey, like she always had. It was her favorite drink that he had noticed she often spilled on her sleeves, she wasn't changing.
She was warm and soft and hugging him back, hugging him tight like he needed. Even heroes needed a hug some times and well, Harry didn't see himself as much of a hero right now, just a sad, tired, scared teen age boy. That's all he wanted to be right now, since he couldn't be happy, not till all of this was over, and all he wanted was a friend who knew that, who could see that, who didn't want 'my friend the hero' just, 'my friend Harry. Harry who wanted to cry but couldn't, Harry who was scared but couldn't show it, Harry who wanted nothing more than to crawl into bed and stay there. Harry who needed a hug.'
He took a deep breath and closed his eyes against the tears. He was so sad, and so happy. Conflicted, confused, on the brink of insanity.
"It'll be okay" she murmured into his chest, snuggling her cheek against his heartbeat. "I'm here and Luna's here and Hermione's here and Ron's here and Neville's here and Cho's here and…" she continued on and on, listing off their friend, those who were members of the army and those who were not, people who cared for him. The list went on and on and he felt himself inch farther and farther from the edge with each name. "Your parents are here."
He stiffened.
"Even though you can't see them they are. Everyone who's ever loved you, everyone who ever will love you is here."
He battled against the tears.
"You're not alone Harry. We'll never leave you. You're not alone."
He slumped against her, the tears were there and now that they had started they were not going to stop.
She hugged him a little tighter and smiled bright, shifting from his slackened grip just slightly to turn her face up towards his.
"We love you." Her hands came up to rest on his face, small thumbs wiping away the tears as she brought his forehead down to touch her own. "And, there's always tomorrow."
He laughed, despite himself and rubbed at his eyes as she took a step back, grinning wide, eyebrows in a silly, suggestive arch.
She took another step and flung her arms out with a flourish, belting
"The sun'll come out tomorrow
Bet your bottom dollar that tomorrow there'll be sun!
Just thinkin' about tomorrow
Clears away all of the cobwebs and the sorrow till there's none"
She dropped a hand on his shoulder, then let it fall to link arms with him. Her unoccupied hand went to her hip and she looked up at him as she continued in her cheerful voice.
"When I'm stuck with a day that's grey and lonely
I just stick out my chin and grin and say"
She elbowed him softly and he joined her sweet voice with his own, wavery, emotion choked tenor a little laugh tailing it.
"The sun'll come out tomorrow
So you gotta hang on till tomorrow, come what may!
Tomorrow, tomorrow, I love you, tomorrow
You're always a day away."
They ended laughing, as they did every time they sang this song, and hugged each other again. It had been months since she'd prompted him to sing but it still had the same uplifting ability, made him feel the exact same happiness that had caught him by surprise in second year when he'd found her standing in a window and singing her little heart out.
Back then, when everyone but his two best friends had been shunning him for his Parseltongue abilities, he'd had little hope. Hogwarts was supposed to be a place to escape his terrible life with the Dursley's but at that moment it had seemed almost as dark.
Hearing those words, hearing them sung in such a cheerful voice, his hope had come back just a little bit.
When she turned to find him, asked if he was Harry Potter and then offered him a sugar quill and a big smile he knew things would be okay, that they would get better. Starting later in that same year she took to singing it for him when she came upon him while he was sad or angry or otherwise upset. Their own little joke, his personal pick me up.
"Thank you" he said softly, looking down into her eyes. He wished he could convey just how thankful he really was, the words didn't seem to be enough and he accompanied them with a smile.
She smiled back "any time" and reached up to pat him on the head. "Want a sugar quill?"
He laughed, more than he had in a while.
That, got extremely cheesy at the end. XD Wish I woulda made Nachos.
Anyway, you know those moments where you feel like crap and everything sucks and all your friends keep asking what's wrong but you don't wanna talk about it you just want a hug? And then that moment where you feel like no one will take the hint but then one of your friends, best or not, just comes up and hugs you or asks if you wanna talk about it and you're so unbelievably happy because they get it. Yeah, that's what Harry's going through right now. In my little head Cannon he goes through that a lot cause, while Hermione and Ron are awesome, a lot of the time Hermione is trying to plan everything ahead, looking towards their next move, trying to get info out of Harry, and Ron, as the best friend, wants to talk about everything and feels dis-valued if Harry doesn't open up.
There's nothing wrong with that, those are things friends do, but sometimes that's not what a person wants or needs. They need a hug and some spontaneous musical theater!
... This AN ran really long hu? Sorry. XD I just wanted to add one more thing, incase anyone was wondering how I update. I do it for every other chapter I write so, I posted this one after I finished writing chapter seven and I'll post seven after I'm done with eight. I'm really banging through these and plan to keep tempo so I think my average will be one or two chapters a day.
Um, questions, comments, advice? Send it my way in a review or Pm! And if note, have a good day/night/other!