Animus: Quest for a Brave Heart

Disclaimer: J.K. Rowling earns her credit. This is hers, scene manipulation is mine.

'The phoenix hope, can wing her way through the desert skies, and still defying fortune's spite; revive from ashes and rise.' -- Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra.

...

9: Set on Fire

Three years later…

The falling water washes away my footsteps and my scarf whips in the wind. My hair has been wrestled underneath my strong, navy beanie and I am thankful I have brought my red winter jacket rather than the school's winter cloak. As an 'Eighth Year', privileges are bestowed upon me because of circumstance and experience that someone my age should not have had to endure. It was unavoidable, I had told them. After all, there was a war.

A war which we won.

Hogwarts, repaired and restored, has played host to the multitude of students wishing for an education to guide them into the bright future that awaits them after Voldemort's downfall. The old castle is teeming with apprentices of wondrous unity and enthusiasm that would make its Founder's proud, the same students which make me proud to be studying alongside them. But such crowds and noise and the pushing and shoving of teenagers make me sick and frantic, if only because it seems so foreign now. I can hardly believe that I stayed sane all those years prior to the Battle of Hogwarts.

Hogsmeade is my escape, Weasley's Wizard Wheezes my destination and Fred and George my friends. While Harry and Ron learn to handle the fumbling raiders and disorganised groups of Dark rebels and Ginny finishes off her sixth and seventh year with her friends and cosmetics, I have too much time on my hands without the necessity of excessive research to save our lives. I feel lonely without my boys to bicker with or to watch over, to boss around, to reprimand for their pranks. So now, I work for two of them.

It is the first Hogsmeade weekend of the winter term and the twins' business is booming and swimming in a sea of customers that they need help to care for. Two jaunty men, so rich they hardly know what to do with the money, running the world's best source of happiness.

My happiness.

We got this store for you, Hermione. Bless you, you're going to go barmy without those prats to care for, so we'll be there instead, if you'll have us.

The door chimes merrily as I walk in, battling the frosty shop door open against throngs of customers eagerly snatching up products to wreck havoc on their neighbours and siblings. They laugh, yell and talk over one another in their excitement. Boys are examining the Skiving Snackboxes with glee and girls peruse the WonderWitch products and Pygmy Puffs, cooing and squealing their delight. Sounds of bursting excitement and amazed awe assault me like enemies of war from left, right and centre. There is a familiar tightening of my stomach, my arms and elbows are tucked close into me where I can see them and keep them out of the way and I flick my eyes at every movement I detect. It is an impossible amount that makes me swallow and frown in dire distress. Someone touches my side and I step away, but then someone else touches me again. The counter seems too far away, the back room and its mocking curtain even farther.

Not until I see magenta sleeves and scarred, freckled hands which enclose upon mine do I breathe, and only when their beaming faces grace my eyes do I give them a watery smile of my own. They tug me away from the crowd into an isle they somehow know to be deserted and wrap their arms around my shorter frame. I latch onto them as if my life depends on it, both ashamed at my cowardice and grateful that they understand. 'Hullo, Hermione,' they say. I nod into Fred's shoulder, inhale their familiar scent and release their holds. They do not shake or rub their arms, though I know my hold must have hurt, but continue to smile. They present their cheeks to me and I kiss each softly and quickly before we go, catching the beginnings of stubble.

'Fred, you need to shave,' I tell him, noting the label stitched into his work cloak. The curtain covering the back room is soft and reassuring under my fingers.

'Well, I know when I'm not wanted.' He laughs to himself and throws the curtain back to depart, his brother turning towards me.

'Glad to see you, Hermione.' George passes me my work cloak from its hook. 'Maggie's got the day off and Verity's at Diagon Alley so I'm going to join her now that you're here. Fred's staying to work with you since it's booming here too. Christmas season has been so very good to us.' He grins broadly at the mention of the business then it slips from his face into a softer, understanding smile. 'It'll calm down soon, don't worry.'

I remove my coat and put it on the hook with my scarf and gloves. 'Thanks, George. I'll see you next weekend?'

'Count on it,' he assures me and ducks around the corner toward the fireplace. I breathe once more, quickly change push the curtain away before stepping up to the second register.

As I work, I watch Fred working the floor, stacking products every so often, laughing, joking to entertain and charm the customers into wishing that they could stay forever and never have to leave. Since they do, Fred artfully convinces them to buy a souvenir of this memorable journey. I find it hard to believe I ever doubted them, said anything horrid about their business. I was hurt. I was angry. I hated how right they were. My heart is still clenched tight in an arctic fist that has nothing to do with winter or the war.

After two busy hours, the store holds only three men wearing Ministry cloaks, critically examining the different quills before they must finish their lunch break. I lean back against the wall and realise how cold and sore I am from standing in one place for so long. Fred chuckles as I fall into the nearby plush armchair and sigh contently. 'How'd we go?' The bell rings in the background.

'Brilliantly, as always.' I smile up at him. 'Your profits are amazing.'

'And so are—'

But he stops and the most horrible look appears on his face, worse than when he had been banned from Quidditch. It is close to George's expression when Fred was on his deathbed after the war, when there was every chance he might not making it through and George detested everyone who still breathed. The glowering magnifies when Fred turns his whole body towards the door. Curious, I push myself up from the chair, balancing on the arms, to peer over the countertop.

Oliver Wood.

I had dreamed of this meeting often. Every time I sleep or look out a window with my head pounding from overuse, my brain would go to his face and a conversation would start in my head. Good afternoon, Oliver, I would greet. How is your Quidditch fairing? I would stand tall as one who is sure in themselves. I would not blush or stutter or begin to cry in any way at all. I would be pleasant and show him that he and his dashing smile and confident air does not affect me in any way. He would say, My, Hermione, how you have grown. I can't believe I left you in a ditch somewhere. Whatever was I thinking? Then he would smile and I would smirk.

However, reality is quite a different thing.

My elbows unlock and, with a stifled cry of astonishment, I topple to the floor, my head ringing like the shop bell and pounding as if thudding in a sprint across the floor. My legs are bent and crooked over the chair and the work cloak has fallen from over my face to block my vision, allowing me to see only magenta blurs and thank Merlin I am wearing jeans. I feel two hands helping me up, one under my back and the other righting my legs, and hope with every breath that it is Fred. My protests are muffled and I shake my head to remove the fabric in vain. A hand plucks it away.

'Blimey, Hermione. You sure scared him off.'

I quickly push myself up from the floor, holding onto the chair for support, and peer over the counter again. The grumbling Ministry officials are my sole audience. 'He's– He's gone?' I sputter, confused. 'He was real?'

Fred frowns. 'Real as me, unfortunately. Wouldn't mind giving him an unprocessed Nougat. Let him bleed to death. Can't go joining any fancy League teams then.'

'Fred!'

'Right, no plotting anyone's murder. Got it.' He is, regardless, still muttering threats under his breath as I watch him limp away. His limp is more pronounced when he is angry. My head falls into my hands and I muse that this difference is just a reminder of the effects of battle and loss, of the changes made. I am unable to look strangers in the eye without suspicion, Fred and George are forever different, more cynical and mature, Ron is overprotective and overassertive and Harry has seen and murdered horrors that none of us can imagine.

Though it pales in comparison to the darkness of these consequences, I am thinking of a man.

He was standing in the doorway. He wore a blue and gold striped jersey instead of a winter coat or cloak, with arm and leg braces strapped to each limb and firmly grasped a long, shiny broom in one hand. His hair is cut short again, but it still just as thick. He still has the same eyebrows, jaw and nose. He still has that smouldering look in his darkened eyes and he still makes my mouth dry and my knees fail.

Everything I thought had vanished remains. The embers flare. I am a phoenix. My burning days have returned. Our love is reborn.

-x-x-x-

Like the coward I am, I have retreated to the back room. The love potion is the last thing I want to make, but it is necessary for the WonderWitch basics. It is simmering. I sit back and it hangs in the air and its sweet smells invade me. New parchment and freshly mowed grass… and… I choke because the other is—.

Then Fred comes in again and I realise he is talking to me. I start. 'Huh?'

'You were thinking about him again, weren't you?'

'I… I can't stop. He's there, all the time.' Fred's eyes harden.

'He's a git, Hermione. I don't understand why you don't let it go.'

'Because I can't! Because he is always there.' Tears leak from my eyes unbidden and I furiously wipe them away with the back of my hand, feeling helpless and utterly pathetic. His gaze softens. 'Why, Fred? Why? We've barely even spoken. I haven't laid eyes on him in three years. Why does he have this effect on me?'

'I can't answer why.' Fred steps forward and wraps me in his embrace. 'I can't tell you, because I don't know. I do know that me and George will support you in whatever you do. Just let it out…' I stop crying immediately and push him away. He laughs, 'No? Hermione, I swear you are the strangest girl I know.'

I scramble from the chair and away from him, pulling out my wand and muttering scorgify to clean my face. I relish in the burn. 'It's George and I, Fred. And that does not solve the problem– the… that happenstance,' I spit, turning on my heel to face him. My cheeks are still flaming red and my eyes are burning with determination. 'What must happen are strategy, tact and logic.'

Fred walks toward the door again, shaking his head. Then he stops, swivels and marches forward to grasp me by the waist and spin me around and around until I am shrieking with laughter rather than displaced anger for him to put me down. He chuckles and sets me on my feet. 'Try some spontaneity,' he says, ignoring my glaring. 'You might like it.'

Then he leaves and I am left with drooping shoulders and little breath. I let my mouth run away with me and speak my thoughts aloud in a whisper to empty air. 'But for spontaneity I need bravery and it is bravery that I do not have.'

I had fought death eaters and taken the scars with me, held my head high and most of my tears at bay when saying farewell to our dead, smiled when necessary, frowned only in private and with friends, and almost have my perfect NEWTs. But even I, with all these accomplishments and more, could not be spontaneous.

Courage continuously evades me.

-x-x-x-

Then there are chances. Suddenly, he is everywhere. Suddenly, when I walk through Hogsmeade to go to the bookshop, he is there. I hurry through the crowds, afraid to be touched, afraid to be late for work, and he is pushing through them in my direction and my cowardly nature forces my eyes wide and down and suddenly I am pressing myself against the wall until he passes.

But one day, when I have seen him, ducked and run, he follows me and I find myself staring at the barrelled chest of Oliver Wood.

'Hi,' he says.

I do not know what to do. I do not know how to feel but to stare at my shoes and screw my eyes shut in the hope that he will disappear or I will so I do not have to be in this situation.

'Hermione?'

And with my name, my name as fire across his lips, my mouth is dry again and I look at his chest again, and then his neck and then his face and his eyes.

Those oak eyes. I am regenerated.

'Hi,' I whisper. I wonder if he is confused as to why I am acting as such, why he is waiting for me to do something, if he is waiting for me to do something. I hold myself around my stomach and fold my arms under my suddenly heaving chest, aware that my hair is falling out of its messy bun and that my fingers are scratched from Crookshanks this morning and that his eyes are running across my form, bold, yet bashful, open and yet attempting to be covert.

'It's good to see you,' he says, and it is soft and unsure. While I am looking at his face, I notice that there are dirt marks across his skin and angry red scratches that are coated in that grime.

'How is the Quidditch?' I ask.

But his answer is not as I expected: he does not launch into a monologue, does not conjure a Quaffle or show me his broom, his broom no where in sight, something that is so rare that I am immediately stunned into wayward suspicion.

He says, 'It's fine. I took a fall,' and points to the dirt patches I was raking my eyes mere seconds before. I lean away as far as I can and stare up at him. The stone wall is smooth and strong against my back. 'You're looking good,' he says. I know I do not look good, I stare down at myself, small breasts, too much fat, curvy in places where curves should not be so large, with no muscle because exercise does not come easy to someone who works at a desk all the time.

I hug myself tighter. 'You look good too,' I say, and it is out before I can think of biting my tongue, more as a formality, but I said that formality without thinking of the implications of such a statement with such unrequited chemistry that should not exist on my part.

And, Merlin, does he look good.

He stares at me too, and I think he might grin but he does not: instead, his eyes flick again and he steps closer.

'Thanks. Do you want to--?'

'Do you have a girlfriend?' I ask, my eyes suddenly flashing as his hand reaches out to touch my hand, my shaking hand tucked under my arm, that arm that is protecting my body, my body protecting my heart and my heart trying desperately to obtain oxygen to breathe. I do not know why I asked that question. I do not know anything, I feel. I feel so useless, cowardly, I feel like I can no longer think on my feet, that Bellatrix's torture stole my smarts as well as my trust in anyone who points a wand at me.

'I…' He drops his hand and folds his arms too. 'Yeah. Claire. She's... she's nice.'

I nod. I am silent while he stares around us at the people passing in the crowd and the abandoned side street to the left. 'I have to go to work. I'll be late.'

'Yeah, okay,' he says, without looking at me. I start to move but, as if by magic outside of our magical world, the photo that I always keep with me flutters to the ground. As if in slow motion, I am unable to move and watch as he picks it up and looks at it. His eyes rise to mine.

'I remember this day.'

'I've got to—'

'Your little trick amazed me.'

I start and stare at him in confusion. 'It was a spell...'

'That's not what I'm talking about.' He reaches for my hand. 'I never forgot.'

'Can I have it back?'

He hands it to me and I slide it back into my pocket, pushing it down securely. With that I turn to leave but his hand grasps mine and he says, 'Hermione, I'm really sorry. There were rules. You don't date as rookie. There was a game.'

I try to stay strong despite the real, burning link that chains me to him, and breathe, 'It's okay.' But really, it pains me to know that he consciously hurt me.

'I'm sorry,'

I do not turn. 'You don't have to apologise. It was years ago.'

'I want to make it up to you. Please look at me.'

I hesitate. I turn. I look at him and his eyes are imploring and his hand has not left my arm and, for the entire world, all I want to do is bury my head against his shoulder and hug him tight because, somehow, I know he can support me and my torments. But it is a fantasy, and I smile at him, that fake smile I use in the crowds, in the shop, between the isles and their narrow corridors. 'I'll see you. I'm late for work.'

Then I leave. The chance for spontaneity lost. His hand seems to take an age to slide from my elbow, and that warmth does not fade even as I barrel my way through the crowds and dive into the shop, dodging the first twin I see, leaving him with a snooty customer whining about the hygiene of the pygmy puffs, and pushing my stunned limbs into the backroom.

When the curtain closes, I lean against the nearest wall, slide down and let myself cry.

-x-x-x-

Christmas is two weeks away and the snow is yet to fall. London is assaulted with rain for days then mild, bitter winds for more, the weather unpredictable and dangerous like a war. I am bundled in a blanket of red and blue tartan as I stare out the window of my bedroom at my childhood house, a book about Goblin Wars resting open in my lap and watch the trees sway.

My parents are in the other room and I have made my escape, for in their presence the air is too thick for me to breathe in.

A dot appears in the sky and soon it is an owl, a Snowy owl. I get up and place the book on the table, holding the blanket tight around my shoulders to keep out the cold while I open the window. Hedwig lands on the sill and I stroke her head, reaching for the letter she holds out for me. 'Hi, Hedwig, this is for me?' I ask her, untying it carefully. She hops around on the sill, cocking her head to the side. I smile. 'Waiting for a reply, are you? Do mind Crookshanks.'

The Kneazle glares from his place curled half under the pillow of my bed, squashing the photo that lies underneath. His yellow eyes glow and his horrid face is scowling. I open the letter while Hedwig flies inside and waits on the bedpost, eyeing Crookshanks back in a staring contest, as if they were having a secret conversation.

When I finish reading I sigh and rest my head in my hands, looking out at the overcast sky once more. There is a triple knock on the door. I drop the blanket on the old armchair, pat down my hair and open the door to Ginny.

'Hi. Your Mum let me in,' she says. 'What a scowl she has!'

I step back. 'Ginny, come in. Hedwig's just arrived.'

'And I see you've read Harry's letter.' She nods and grins and that smile is one I know too well. That sly, wicked smile that means Ginny is thinking devious things for me to reject. 'Are you going?'

'It's a party, Ginny. At Christmas,' I say. I sigh and gesture for her to sit at the chair next to the desk. 'It will be Slughorn's party all over. Or Ernie's. You do remember that, don't you?'

'You mean when Fred and George spiked the drinks, Susan almost killed Seamus and Harry and Ron went flying shirtless through Diagon Alley at late-night-shopping?'

'Yes,' I deadpan, trying to quell the small smile twitching at my lips. 'Exactly. We don't need that publicity, not now. Not after…'

Ginny shakes her head. 'We will not live in fear of the media. We won't. And this time Dean knows there's no funny business, all right? He said it's a dance, a kind of celebration, which is not a party, not really.' She takes my hand and pulls me to sit on the bed opposite her. The animals stare at us, wide eyed. 'He's paying for it, for all of us, 'cause… you know. And Everyone's going. You never know you might—'

'I do not want you to play matchmaker, Ginny. No,' I interject sharply, holding up a hand. 'I must focus on my N.E.W.T.s, all right? Besides, I don't even want a boyfriend.'

'Right. You've got Crookshanks.' The cat in question glares at her and I gather him in my arms, focusing on his purrs against my chest as his paws that reach to wrap around my neck in a hug, the claws lightly scratching my neck. 'Going to kiss him?'

I set him on my lap and stroke him mechanically, sighing at her pitying gaze. 'Stop looking at me like that.'

'Fine,' she relents, pouting. 'Are you going to go?'

I pause, stare out the window then level my gaze to her. 'As long as you don't attempt to set me up with anyone… and we try to set boundaries for the ruckus. No midnight trips to the stores.'

'Look, it's really tame, quite formal actually. We're going to a hall, turning on some music and having some fun. It's not a club, it's not even a pub. It's a live band and a good time. Like a downscaled Yule Ball.'

Her gaze is so earnest I find I cannot say no. 'All right, Ginny. All right.' She smiles brilliantly, so much I feel almost blinded. I give her a truthful smile in return.

'Great, I'll write to Harry for you. Have you got any owl treats?'

'Bottom draw of the desk,' I reply, stand and set Crookshanks on the pillow again. He curls up and tucks his head under his tail, shutting me out. Maybe he sees my decision as betrayal.

-x-x-x-

Comments are appreciated. Thank you for reading.

-AA-