Ch. 8 – The Arrival of Harry Potter

"What? Already? When?" The questions burst forth from her in rapid succession.

"Dumbledore came around with him late last night," Mrs. Weasley said. "Surprised me and Arthur as well. He had told us they would be coming later this morning, after all."

Hermione's heart began to beat faster. Harry. He was here. For the moment, she resisted the increasing urge to crash through every door in the house looking for him. There was something unexpected stirring in her. Of course she had missed him, but the way she yearned to see his face right then was undeniably different than any other time they had been apart.

Mrs. Weasley noticed the look on her face. "I know you want to see him, but let's let him sleep for a bit longer. I'll be fixing him breakfast meanwhile."

Hermione only nodded before speeding off to Ron's room. She knocked and waited, restlessly tapping her foot.

"Yeah?" a voice came from inside the room. Hermione opened the door to see Ron sitting on the edge of his bed, casually dressed. Pushing aside the mild surprise that he seemed to have been awake for quite some time, she met the quizzical look on his face with anticipation.

"Harry's here!" she blurted out as soon as her foot stepped over the doorway.

"What?"

"Your mum just told me. Dumbledore brought him around last night. But she said to let him sleep. They must have gotten here really late…"

Ron promptly stood up and pushed past her, making his way to the stairs. Hermione hurriedly went after him. "Mum, is Harry really here already?" he began to shout once he was halfway down. "I thought he wasn't coming until later today!"

"Yes," Mrs. Weasley answered with a touch of impatience as Ron entered the kitchen. Hermione made it one step in and saw that Mrs. Weasley's back was to them, not having deviated from the food preparation. "But Ron, I don't want you bothering him. Let him sleep. They got here late last night and I'm fixing him something right now. Poor boy looked rather underfed…"

Ron quickly turned back and skipped up the stairs. Hermione spun on her heel with a huff and looked up. He motioned with his head to follow.

"Where are you going?" she asked.

"Where do you think?"

"But your mum said—"

"Yeah, we're not listening to her," Ron interrupted, rolling his eyes. "Like we're going to wait..."

Hermione considered saying something back, but she could not deny that she wanted to see Harry as soon as possible. And as blaming Ron if anything went wrong seemed appealing enough, there was no additional protest from her as they made their way to the front of Fred and George's room. The door was ajar and she hesitantly began to raise a fist to knock, but Ron, not wasting any time, kicked the door open and strode in.

She shot the back of Ron's head a glare, but stepped inside as well. She quickly scanned the surroundings and noticed a lump on the bed that had sprang up at the sound of the door crashing into the wall.

There he was. Her breath stopped and a rush of emotions burst from her heart and spread throughout her body. It was a mixture of joy and relief and strangely, melancholy. A part of her felt the same way she did after a long cry—empty. The hollowness then inexplicably threatened to overtake everything else and her knees seemed like they would give out if she took another step. She swallowed nervously and stood still as Ron marched over to the curtains and pulled them apart, granting the sunlight access into the room and causing Harry to glow. And nothing else mattered then. It did not matter that he was disoriented at the moment, barely awake and clumsily grasping for his glasses. He was here. Harry was here. Her eyes greedily absorbed the sight of him and she felt everything slow down as if her mind was doing all it could to extend the time she had to silently stare.

Then she registered Ron making his way over to Harry and thumping his head. "We didn't know you were here already!" he said excitedly, ignoring Harry's mumbled question of what was going on.

"Ron, don't hit him!" Hermione suddenly said. The spell was broken.

As Ron greeted Harry, Hermione moved to the edge of the bed and sat down.

"How're you, Hermione?" Harry said, turning his sight towards her.

Their eyes met and she felt her heart pounding against the walls of her chest, begging to be let out. It wanted—needed—to be closer to the heart of the boy in the bed. It desperately wanted to make contact—to touch—to crash into it and come together—to beat as one. Something inside was telling her to slide further up the bed and wrap her arms around him—to squeeze as hard as she could and never let go. She watched his face with intense concentration, attempting to pick up any hints as to how he was feeling, wondering if it would seem too bizarre right then to give in to what her heart was screaming for.

"Oh, I'm fine," she answered, staying where she was.

Hermione had noticed the cloud of death hanging over him for the second summer in a row. She silenced her desires of unknown origin and thought about mentioning Sirius. Immediately, it was as if a tremendous weight was hoisted upon her body and though she knew it could not be possible, she felt as if she had been there with Harry as he had experienced that terrible guilt and misery of losing his godfather. Though she had obviously been in his general vicinity for days afterwards at school, this was different. It was an unshakeable sense that she had been by Harry's side—before, during, and immediately after. It somehow felt true that she had been with him every step of the way. But, as she had been (shamefully) knocked out for some time at the Department of Mysteries, that was impossible. She felt a headache looming.

"What's the time? Have I missed breakfast?" Harry suddenly said. He had averted his eyes slightly from Hermione's gaze. Hermione only continued to stare. She knew then that he had guessed what she was going to bring up and had quickly mentioned any other subject he could think of.

The conversation turned towards what Harry had been doing with Dumbledore. He had just finished informing them about convincing an old teacher called Slughorn to come out of retirement when Ginny entered the room to complain about Fleur.

As if then responding to a summons, Fleur burst through the door shortly after, carrying a tray with much of the food Hermione had seen being prepared in the kitchen. It was not long before Mrs. Weasley also joined, in a noticeably worse mood than Hermione had seen earlier. Fleur happily greeted Harry and bent over to kiss him on each cheek.

Hermione's eyes widened at the sight. She was being reminded of something. It was still distant but slowly, she could feel the memory growing clearer. It had to do with—

"Bill and I are going to be married!"

Her thoughts were interrupted at Fleur's exclamation. Knowing all too well how Ginny and Mrs. Weasley felt regarding the matter, Hermione knew that she could not look at either of them in the moment lest their temptations for hostile remarks broke through. She chose to instead look at Harry again and was still doing so when Fleur bent over and kissed him a third time.

The kiss.

There was a jolt of light pain in her head. Visions of kisses past flooded her mind. Fleur. Viktor. Cho. Ron. Harry.

The memory of when she had kissed Harry on the cheek at the end of her fourth school year pushed itself to the front of her mind, leaving her confused. It's been so long since I thought of that, she mused. But as soon as she thought it, she knew she was wrong. She became certain that her latest recollection of the moment had been relatively recent. What had triggered it? As Fleur left the room and talk among the others continued, she briefly closed her eyes and tried to focus. An image of fire and a small room came to her. It was so close. It was within her grasp. It was—

"…he likes a bit of adventure, a bit of glamour," Ginny's voice broke through. Hermione opened her eyes. It was gone.

"I expect that's why he's gone for Phlegm," Ginny continued. Hermione involuntarily laughed. Harry laughed as well.

But it was not long before the conversation shifted to what was decidedly not a laughing matter. After snapping out of her strange state where intrusive thoughts ran amuck and decrying Ron's behavior around Fleur as "pathetic," Hermione steered their talks to the subject she had been most anxious to bring up in front of Harry.

"…I mean, he was her cousin!" she found herself saying. As the discussion continued, she watched Harry. He did not meet her eyes this time but despite that, something still pulled her to speak on the subject.

Mrs. Weasley then reentered to summon Ginny to the kitchen and Hermione attempted to look occupied in searching through whatever was inside Fred and George's boxes, aware of the uneasiness that pervaded the room. She eventually held up a small telescope and feigned interest.

"What's this?"

The conversation shifted again. From Fred and George to Percy to Harry's private lessons with Dumbledore.

"I don't know exactly why he's going to be giving me lessons, but I think it must be because of the prophecy," Harry said. A sense of foreboding filled Hermione and Harry explained that although it had been smashed, the prophecy had been made to Dumbledore who retained a memory of it.

"…At least, it said neither of us could live while the other survives," Harry said.

Having the speculations in the Daily Prophet confirmed as true was unsettling, to say the least. But Hermione felt a strangeness come over her; it had cushioned the reveal for her and she felt that her reaction was much less subdued than if she had not already known. Somehow, this was not new information to her. The vision of a stack of books came to her mind. Again, she felt as if she was so close to reclaiming a lost memory and taking advantage of the momentary silence in the room, she concentrated as hard as she could and squeezed the telescope in her hand.

It took a few seconds to fully register the pain around her eye. She coughed from the black smoke that had materialized and as her vision cleared, she made out the shape of a tiny fist hanging from the telescope. After Ron (trying very hard not to laugh) had reassured her that Mrs. Weasley could help rid her of the black eye, Hermione sat down on the bed again. She looked at Harry with a mix of fear and admiration. "Are you scared?"

"Not as much as I was," he replied. "When I first heard it, I was…but now, it seems as though I always knew I'd have to face him in the end…"

Though Hermione continued rambling, speculating about Dumbledore's private lessons, she was only halfway paying attention to what she was saying. Well, no matter. She would be there with him until that end, supporting him with her friendship. How could she even think of leaving him after all they had been through? And now he had this hanging over him as well. She shifted between staring at Harry and looking anywhere else she could. Her heart was still pushing her to embrace him, now accompanied by the pang of sorrow in her chest. The fact that he still had the courage and resolve to face what was waiting for him… The vision of the empty room returned. And she could now feel that this constant sense of strangeness that had come over her—it had something to do with Harry. She suddenly remembered their first year. They had been together in a room before going opposite ways, both of their paths blocked by fire. Her flames purple, his black. She had gone back to Ron, Harry had moved forward to face Quirrell. But before that, hadn't she said something to Harry? Yes, she had. About friendship and bravery and—

"Hang on. I think Dumbledore said our O.W.L. results would be arriving today!" Harry said in reply to Hermione's comment about their O.W.L.s.

Everything else faded from Hermione's mind. Really, what did these half-memories of empty rooms and stacks of books matter? She briefly wondered if she was going mad and decided she had more important things to think about now. After a mild panic attack, she left the room muttering about checking to see if any owls had arrived.

It was later in the afternoon and Hermione was on the couch in the Weasleys' sitting room, tapping her foot restlessly. She had come up short—had failed. Hours later and that small black E still seemed to be haunting her. Harry had, of course, received an O. He had always been better at her in that one subject. He had so much experience as well...

Harry, Ron, and Ginny came into the room and noticed her despondency.

"Are you still thinking about O.W.L. results?" Ron asked incredulously.

"No…" she lied. She scanned the disbelieving faces on the other three. "What's up?" she asked hastily, ready to change the subject to anything else.

"We wanted to ask you to play Quidditch with us," Ron said.

Hermione stared blankly. When she had wished for the subject to change to anything else, she had neglected to add the exception of Quidditch and was now seemingly paying for her mistake.

"Umm…I don't know," she replied hesitantly. She had wanted to take her mind off of one failure but wasn't sure if doing something that she was even worse at was the correct way to help her forget about it.

"Come on, it won't be that bad," Ginny said.

"Why do you need me at all?"

"Because we're only three people and need another for even teams," Ron said with exasperation. "Who else are we going to ask? Mum?"

Hermione could tell from the smirks on Harry and Ginny that the image of Mrs. Weasley racing on a broom towards the goalposts with the Quaffle under arms had entered their heads as well.

Harry tilted his head and looked at her. "You just want to sit here by yourself for the rest of the day?"

"Of course not," she replied.

"Yeah, you'll team with Harry," Ron added.

"Oh…okay," Hermione acquiesced.

"It's the only way the teams will be fair," he continued.

Hermione understood the implication but did not even have time to feel embarrassed as the other three turned around and motioned for her to follow.

Minutes later out in the orchard, as they waited for Harry, Ginny handed Hermione a very old, battered broom. She took it unenthusiastically and saw Harry arrive, the Firebolt in hand.

Ron, who had already been in the air, flew down towards them and landed. He put up a hand to Harry. "Hang on, what are you doing?"

"What?" Harry replied.

"You can't use that! It's not exactly going to be fair if you do!"

"But…it's my broom," Harry said in confusion.

"We might as well not even play!" Ron said, dramatically throwing his hands in the air.

"I thought the point was to balance out the teams," Harry said. "How am I going to..." He and Ron slowly turned their heads to Hermione who could feel her face starting to turn red.

"Give it to Hermione," Ginny suggested.

There were seconds of silence before Ron brightened up. "Yeah, if she's the one who has it, it won't make much of a difference!"

Hermione's face burned even more. She quickly glanced at Harry to glean his reaction at this turn of events.

"But…it's my broom," Harry said stonily. There was almost something like pain in his eyes.

"It's okay," Hermione said. "I'll just use—"

"Mate, just give her your damn broom!" Ron said.

Harry sighed. "Yeah, you're right," he said in defeat. He held out the broom to Hermione who reached for the end of the handle. As the wood made contact with her skin, she heard the ghostly voice again. "She turned into you."

There was a light tremor in her head. At the frequency with which this was happening, it seemed as though she would have to get used to this. It seemed completely random as well. Even more baffling than the consistent jabs of pain were the words, images, and memories that came to her head (also seemingly random). In this case, the last person she would have expected to think about came to mind as Cho Chang intruded her thoughts. Trying to hide her bewilderment, she tugged slightly at the Firebolt. Harry did not let go.

Hermione glanced at his face. He stared back with pleading. She rolled her eyes and prepared to share an exasperated look with Ginny. She twitched again as a sensation shot through her skull. It was a thought she had held before. Something to do with Ginny—and Harry.

"Harry, what are you doing?" Ginny said suddenly.

"…Nothing," he mumbled. The sound of Ginny's voice snapped Hermione out of her thoughts. "Oh, give it here already," she said impatiently. She tightened her grip on the shaft of Harry's broomstick and pulled as hard as she could.

Caught off-guard, Harry let out a yelp and lurched forward. Hermione's eyes widened in shock and she froze. His face was becoming larger by the second—was getting dangerously close to hers. But Ron, who had been standing next to them, held out his arm and steadied Harry before they could crash into one another.

"Okay?" Ron asked them.

"Yeah."

"Sorry," Hermione muttered.

"Let's play already," Ginny said. She fetched a pristine, bright red ball that made their other equipment look even shabbier in comparison. "We can play with the new one Fred and George got us."

She tossed it over to Ron who caught it and nodded appreciatively. "Blimey, this feels nice. Glad we don't have to use the old one anymore." Ginny and Ron mounted their brooms and flew up into the air.

Hermione gripped the Firebolt tight but did not move. Harry, who had not gone into the air yet, was watching her carefully.

"Are you sure you're going to be all right?" he asked with concern in his voice.

Hermione relaxed as she noticed his tone and right then, she truly felt that she did not have anything to worry about and everything really was going to be all right. She gave him a small smile and nodded.

"Take care of it, okay?" Harry said in a strained voice.

Her smile was instantly replaced by a scowl. It was the stupid broom he cared about! Of course! Stupid boys and their stupid brooms! Unbelievable!

With mounting irritation, she straddled Harry's precious broomstick and kicked off the ground. Now in the air, any trace of every other feeling she had was replaced by terror. She looked down which she knew was an immediate mistake. Although she was not a complete beginner and had flown a handful of times before, it had never been something she had ever gotten fully used to. Even though she was only a few meters in the air, the ground looked so much further away. She swayed slightly, wondering not if, but when she was going to make a fool of herself by falling off. A hand gripped her arm and steadied her.

She turned her head and saw Harry in the air right alongside her. She was safe.

"Just relax," he said. She took three deep breaths and nodded and he understood that she was ready. He loosened his hold and his arm slowly fell back by his side. Hermione gripped the handle of the broom with both hands and all the focus she could muster. She leaned to the front and felt the Firebolt inch forward. She swerved to the left then the right, the broom listening and responding to her slightest touch. Next, she circled the orchard, slowly making her way around the makeshift goalposts at the marked ends until the sensation of flying finally became not comfortable, but at least tolerable.

Ginny flew up right next to Hermione and it could not have been clearer that she was completely at ease in the air unlike her. She tossed the red ball in her hand straight up where it fell back into her palm with precision. "Ready?" she asked.

Harry flew up next to Hermione's side. "Let's toss the ball around a few times to warm up."

"Sure," Ginny replied.

The four of them soon formed a semicircle and Ginny lobbed the ball to Ron who caught it and threw it hard to Harry. Hermione felt a strange sense of foreboding as their eyes met and he threw the ball underhanded to her. Oh no, she thought. Her panicked mind transformed the ball into a giant ball of flame that grew so much bigger and blitzed towards her. She flailed her arms wildly in an attempt to catch it, watching with horror as she came nowhere close and the ball dropped like a stone. As Ron laughed, Harry flew down and caught it before it touched the ground.

Hermione flushed as Harry came back up with the ball in hand. "Not a bad try," he said.

"Don't lie to her, Harry," Ginny piped up.

"She's got a point. How often do we get a chance to tell her she's bad at something?" Ron chortled.

"Yeah, just then she reminded me of Ron last year in that match against Huffflepuff," Ginny said. She put on an expression of fake desperation and swung her arms with great exaggerated motions that still nevertheless bore an uncanny resemblance to Ron after his fourteenth failed save in the Gryffindor-Hufflepuff match the previous school year.

Harry chuckled and Hermione could not help but smile. Ron stopped laughing. "We still won the cup," he grumbled. But there were no more quips from him for the rest of the afternoon.

After a few more practice throws (Hermione had actually managed to catch a few), they began their game. Hermione considered herself lucky that in the grand scheme of things, she did not care much for Quidditch. She did not know how she could have handled it if she had cared, with all the mistakes she was making. But eventually, she admitted to herself that it became kind of fun. Not any of the shaky flying or inaccurate throws or missed goals, mind you, but spending time with her friends and having Harry fly next to her was something of a newfound pleasure. When her throws came up short, he sped up and was there to catch it. When she shot too far, he went beyond and returned clutching the ball tightly under his arm. He guided her around the field, relentlessly passing to her no matter how many times she dropped the ball unprovoked or how widely she missed the goals. And he did so with a smile.

She was hovering near the goalpost now, watching Harry speed towards her with the ball in hand. He outmaneuvered Ginny and passed by Hermione, throwing her the ball.

"Shoot it!" Harry yelled.

She caught it, startled that she did, and turned to the currently unguarded goalpost.

But she hesitated a second too long and Ron was now closing in on her. The goalpost was not so unguarded anymore. From the corner of her eye, she saw Harry flying towards her. She prepared to throw him the ball back but Ron made it to her first, intent on prying it from her hands. In a panic, she swayed and caused the Firebolt to swerve left. Trying to correct course, she tilted right towards Harry, which resulted in her dodging Ron, and clumsily threw the ball with both hands. She heard Ron swear and lunge for the ball but it was too late. His fingers missed it by millimeters and she watched in surprise as it sailed right through the middle of the goalpost.

Hermione barely registered Harry's cheers and it was not until he flew up next to her and clutched her shoulder that she recovered from the shock of having scored a goal.

"That was brilliant!" Harry said.

"Wow, Hermione," Ginny said, descending towards them. "Where did that come from?"

Hermione only smiled in response.

"Sorry mate," Harry said to Ron with a huge grin. "But this day will now always be the day that Hermione Granger scored on you."

Ron did not look pleased and grumbled about it being luck.

"Well, seeing as we couldn't possibly top that, how about we call it for the day?" Ginny said.

The others agreed and soon to Hermione's relief, her feet once more found solid ground.

Her voice seemed to properly work again now that she was no longer in the air. She held out Harry's broomstick to him. "Here, hope I didn't damage it."

"Don't worry about it," Harry said, taking it back. "I shouldn't have said anything."

"Was I awful, Harry?"

"Absolutely not."

"Stop lying."

"I swear I'm not," Harry said innocently. Hermione's eyebrow raised. He was wearing that stupid grin of his again.

"Okay," Harry said. "Let's just say there's room for improvement and leave it at that. But that last goal was really brilliant. And I'm not lying about that."

"So that means you were lying about me not being terrible before, right?"

Harry opened his mouth but words seemed to fail him. He instead patted her shoulder and hurriedly ran off towards Ron and Ginny as they put back their brooms in the shed. But as he had turned his head, Hermione had seen the beginnings of a smirk on his face.

She rolled her eyes. Once again, she thanked the fates that she did not care too much about her Quidditch skills. It had ended up being a bit fun, but now basking in the comfort of being back on solid ground where she was unlikely to fall over, she was not sure she wanted to be back up in the air anytime soon.

"You'll play tomorrow too, right, Hermione?" Ginny called out as she, Ron, and Harry began to walk back to where Hermione was standing.

"What?!"

Ron frowned at her. "You didn't think this was a one-time thing, did you? We still have so much of vacation left. We'll play tomorrow, and the day after that, and the day after that, and the day after that, and the day after that…"

Hermione blinked in disbelief. Were they insane? Did they really want to do this every day?

Harry noticed the look of shock on her face at being told she was expected to play Quidditch every day for the rest of the summer and laughed. "Don't worry," he said to her. "It won't be every day." He tilted his head and grinned. "But you'll play again, right? We make a pretty good team."

She rolled her eyes once more. There he went again, spouting those ridiculous untruths. She had watched him on a broom far too much—every Quidditch match he had ever played, the first Triwizard task against a dragon—to know how much better he really was than what he had shown today. She suddenly recalled how scared she had been for him as she had been watching the first task. But he had exceeded everyone's expectations. He had not simply been good, but brilliant. Amazing. Outstanding.

As Hermione opened her mouth to chastise him for not being truthful about her Quidditch skills, Harry grabbed her hand. His sudden movement seemed to have no thought behind it, as if it was the most natural thing in the world to suddenly be holding hands with her. She felt a light pain in her head as she randomly thought of Madam Puddifoot's tea shop. She would later suspect that the pain would have been much more pronounced had she not been busy being flustered over having her hand held.

"Come on, promise you'll keep playing," Harry said, seemingly unaware of the effect he was having on her.

"Okay," she squeaked.

He let go and nodded with satisfaction, turning and walking back towards the house with Ron and Ginny.

Hermione knew something was wrong. She had of course, held Harry's hand before. Not only that, she had hugged him multiple times, had tightly grabbed his waist as they had flown through the skies, had even kissed his cheek. Physical contact with him was certainly nothing new. So why on earth was she feeling so strange right now? Her mind raced as she searched for explanations and when her thoughts arrived at a possible answer, her face paled. Absolutely not, she thought to herself. He's your best friend! She refused to acknowledge what she had come up with and only cursed herself for thinking it. This train of thought—fueled by her feelings and seemingly intent on leading her towards trouble—was disastrous. It was awful. It was terrible. It was woeful. It was pathetic. It was appalling. It was—

"Hermione? Are you coming?" Harry called out. He had turned his head back around once he had noticed she was not walking with them.

"Y-yes," she stuttered. She exhaled sharply and shook her head, quickly walking towards Harry as he waited and she returned to her thoughts.

—dreadful. It was absolutely dreadful.