I do not own Harry Potter and by now you should have seen the Chapter one notice. Please follow it or I shall devour you with ketchup and mustard.
Chapter 14
Pain
While Remus and a seven-year-old Harry were well on their way to France via Portkey, Hermione Granger was currently at home of her day off, clutching what few pictures she had managed to save with her magic of happier times.
When everything had happened all those years ago she had been so sure. So sure that her friend, her best and truest friend had betrayed her and the Weaselys to join Voldemort and kill all that didn't agree with him. In fact, she was quite bitter about it for the year after he had been found guilty because she was so sure her senses had been wrong snd that she had been betrayed along with everyone else.
She had even bonded closer with Ron, the youngest male Weasely and their other best friend. It was to the point they fell in love as they lamented about the cruelty of how they were deceived, how they were tricked, because all evidence and even Harry's own words were truth against him enough.
But to hear and find out that Harry was innocent.
That Harry had been framed by Voldemort...
That a different potions master, other than Snape, had worked and invented a fake truth serum....
What had she done?
What had they all done?
That was when the fights between her and Ron had started. Huge ones— ones that were over every little thing. Even Hedwig, whom had chosen to stay with her, had fled to go live with Hagrid instead because of the intensity of the fights between her and Ron.
They were never physical for either one of them, but they were extremely mental.
But there was one thing she most definitely would give Ron Weasely credit for; he may be a little slow on the uptake, but he was a quick learner where it counted.
And he learned how to use her own barbs against her.
Too many bitter things had been said in those last six months they had been together. Too many that, although she and he both wanted to get back together as they generated far too much chemistry between themselves to be forgotten, the words that they had spewed at each other kept them apart.
Looking at a well worn and cried over picture, she found her mind wondering where that happiness, that hope for the future had gone.
But she already knew the answer before she could say it.
It had died with a black haired, green eyed boy who had given them a reason for living. Who had helped give a Weasely a chance to make himself known and a bookworm to come out of her shell.
Harry was their glue, and without him, their friendship and their bonds simply faded away.
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In the ministry, a red-headed and very lonely Percy Weasely had wondered if it was too late for him to crawl back home and beg for his family's forgiveness. He had been so sure that the government was right. That Fudge had it all in hand and that, prophecy or not, Harry Potter was just some upstart kid that had taken a spot that should not have been available in his family's home.
It wasn't until after his death that the now twenty-five going on twenty-six year-old man would come to realize how much Harry had kept things at bay for not only himself but for others as he lived. Because with him around, Voldemort had been blind to the others...
Like Penelope Clearwater... his fiancee...
Penelope was one of the one of the ones the Death Eaters had killed in Diagon Alley only days after the arrest of one of their own. Fudge as well, as he had firmly ignored the man's testimony under truth serum of what he had invented and of those spies in the Ministry.
Dumbledore couldn't be right and could not be saying that Fudge had done the unthinkable to the only one who could have saved them.
Saved her...
All things changed though when she died. Percy began to look at the Ministry in a new light and, well...
He now did not like what he saw and did not like what he felt as he looked at himself getting ready every day to work there from his small home.
His home...
Why?
Why did she have to die?
In the end, Percy had no answer. So when Fudge came to him, demanding that he— Fairweather, as the blundering idiot called him all the time— find some way to fix this mess, Percy had promptly gotten up and said words that to this day were still bandied about the ministry offices.
"Fudge, help your damn self, I quit!"
He was stunned as only days later, Rufus Scrimgeour had heard what the youth had said and, knowing of the reputation, the old and former auror had then taken the red head under his wing.
It seemed the old coot respected a former lackey when he stood up to his corrupt boss.
In his own gruff way, the new Minister had helped to heal Percy and had specifically asked the young man to help him in finding ways to stop Voldemort.
It was only through the combined efforts of Percy's knowledge and Rufus's power that they had managed to keep Voldemort at bay for so long in the more populated areas.
But even they knew they were losing...
They needed a miracle and...they needed it soon.