Hermione Granger and the Fate Foretold Chapter 10: Feeling Red, a harry potter fanfic

Ch. 10 – Feeling Red

"Letters from Hogwarts are here by the way," Mrs. Weasley said, pointing to the kitchen counter. She moved the rest of the empty plates from the table to the sink as Hermione, Harry, Ron, and Ginny all approached the pile of envelopes, each picking up the one with his or her name scribbled on it.

Hermione grabbed the letter opener on the counter and slit her envelope open, holding out the tool after for the next person to take. Ignored by the two boys, it was grabbed by Ginny. To Hermione's left, Harry picked at his own envelope and ran his finger along the opening, while to her right, Ron nearly tore his in half in the process. She unfolded the parchment and was scanning the list of books that would be required for the N.E.W.T. levels when she heard a sound of surprise. Her head lifted and she found Harry staring at something in his hand.

"What's that?"

He flashed it to her and she recognized the badge that signified one's position as Quidditch Captain.

"Whoa!" Ron exclaimed, snatching the badge out of Harry's hand for examination.

Hermione's face lit up with a smile. "That gives you equal status with prefects! You can use our special bathroom now and everything!" She had no idea why she said such a thing but after it had come out of her mouth, she felt her face turn hot. Thankfully, it seemed nobody else had noticed what her own comment suddenly made her think of. Several weeks had now passed since she had found herself on the Weasleys' kitchen floor, head ringing with the troubling realization that she was in love with one best friend but fated to end up with the other. The idea of being "fated" to do anything—the suggestion that she was not in control of her own actions—was preposterous, of course. But the weeks passed and the consistent sharp pains in her head persisted, accompanied by the now-familiar voice in her head crooning the names of her two best friends. And through it all, wondering more than ever if she was going mad, Hermione could not shake the feeling that somehow, what she had been made aware of in her mind and heart were certain truth. She began to notice certain looks Ron was giving her when she presumed he thought he was being furtive. She became aware of the strange, suggestive comments (not only limited to sharing bathrooms), coming out of her mouth when she was near Harry and the fanciful thoughts she found herself getting lost in. But most terrible of all was the sense of foreboding dread that loomed in the back of her head urgently telling her she was not supposed to feel this way. But how could she control that?

Hermione attempted to nonchalantly go back to scanning the book list when one title caught her eye. "Confronting the Faceless," she read out loud. Say it, the voice in her head hissed.

"I wonder what it's like for Slughorn to come back to Hogwarts after retirement," she said.

"He must have gotten an unbelievably good deal," Ron said, tossing his own letter to the side. "The job is clearly jinxed at this point. But maybe since he's already taught the subject, he has some kind of immunity."

Hermione looked to Harry, expecting him to chime in with his thoughts on Slughorn but to her surprise, it was Mrs. Weasley, who had not left the kitchen and had overheard their conversation, who turned to them and spoke with a puzzled expression. "Horace Slughorn never taught Defense Against the Dark Arts."

Four pairs of eyes looked to her. "What?" Harry said in shock. "What did he teach then?"

Hermione somehow knew the answer before it was said.

"Potions," Mrs. Weasley responded.

"Potions?!" Harry and Ron echoed.

"Mum, are you sure?" Ron asked in alarm.

Mrs. Weasley raised an eyebrow. "Am I sure? Of course I am! He taught your father and me for years. Do you think I'm going senile, Ron?"

"But what about Snape?" Harry blurted out.

"What if he's on some mission for the Order?" Hermione threw out. She did not know where this idea had come from, but this too, felt like something that had been planted in her head, causing her to grow uneasy.

"Well, Mum?" Ginny piped up. "Is he?"

"Even if I knew, I certainly wouldn't tell you all," Mrs. Weasley snapped.

"Do you think he'll even be at Hogwarts this year?" Harry asked the room with a hint of hope in his voice.

Hermione looked at him. "Did Dumbledore mention anything?"

Harry seemed to be thinking back to that night. "All he said was he was a staff member short. He never said anything about two…"

Something clicked in Hermione's mind. "Snape's taking over Defense Against the Dark Arts!" she said with a gasp.

"What?!"

"No way!"

Both Harry and Ron had exclaimed at the same time, turning to her with a mix of disbelief and anger on their faces as if she was the one who had personally appointed Snape to the position.

"After all this time?" Harry said. "Why would Dumbledore let him have the job when he hasn't trusted him so far?"

"But Slughorn's never taught Defense! It makes sense!" Hermione insisted.

"I don't want to believe it," Harry said defiantly. "I'm not going to believe it until we get to Hogwarts and I hear it from Dumbledore himself."

"Why would he not tell Harry though?" Ginny asked. "Especially if they went together to convince Slughorn."

"Probably because Dumbledore knew you would have this sort of reaction," Hermione said to Harry.

"He said he would tell me everything now!" Harry said. His face suddenly turned glum. "But he's definitely kept stuff from me before."

"Harry, this is clearly not the type of information Dumbledore had in mind when he said he would tell you everything," Hermione said. "It's not—"

"Not what?" Harry interrupted. "Not important? We're talking about someone who's wanted this job for years and had it denied to him by Dumbledore himself. Now suddenly, he's supposedly fine with it? Something's going on."

"You know," Ron began. "What if—"

"Shut up, Ron!" Hermione said.

"What? You didn't even let me finish!" Ron snarled.

"Because it was clear whatever was going to come out was rubbish!" Hermione shot back. "How many times have we been over this? Dumbledore trusts Snape!" As the words left her mouth, however, Hermione felt the now-familiar searing pain in her head that caused her to press into her temples. She gritted her teeth in annoyance. Why now? What was so important to draw attention to at this moment?

When the pain had stopped however, a new thought was left in its wake. She turned to Harry. "You know what you should do though?" It was as if someone had taken control and was now guiding the words out of her mouth. "You should buy the Potions book. You won't need an "O" like when Snape was teaching it." She turned to Ron. "You too."

"Come off it," Ron said. "You want us to buy extra books on a hunch you have?"

"It's not a hunch!" Hermione said. "It's the only thing that makes sense, unless you think your mum is lying."

Ron seemed to consider her words. He looked to Harry and shrugged. "I'll do it if you will."

Having listened to their entire conversation, Mrs. Weasley seemed bemused at their disbelief. "I am beyond sure that Horace Slughorn taught Potions and will be teaching Potions once term starts. He taught the subject for years, why would he come out of retirement to teach a different one?"

Harry still seemed as if he did not want to accept it, but there was a hint of resignation in his voice. "Maybe…I should buy the book…"

"Advanced Potion-Making by Libatius Borage," Hermione read out loud from the booklist.

"Get a new copy," she said to the room. She felt a tremor in her head. "Get a new copy," she repeated, though this time, it was more to herself than to anyone else.

Hermione watched Ron open the door and followed him into the compartment. It was now afternoon and they had just gotten back from their prefect duties of patrolling the corridors of the Hogwarts Express, fending off countless questions and attempted interrogations from people they hardly knew about what had happened at the Ministry.

"Hi, Neville. Hi, Luna," she and Ron greeted the two others already with Harry in the compartment.

Ron informed Harry about what they had just seen. Malfoy had been shirking his responsibilities, lazily lounging around with the other Slytherins when he should have been patrolling the corridors. The Slytherin prefect's neglection of duties was unsurprising but what was was that Malfoy did not even seem interested in another of his favorite pastimes: abusing his power and bullying younger students.

Hermione had never shied away from her duties of course. In fact, she had always taken the appropriate amount of pride in her status as a prefect. But as she had walked along the corridors with Ron, staring at the back of his head and red filling her eyes, she had found herself incessantly thinking about their friend who was not with them. And this time, she knew why. The rest of the summer holidays had passed by, packed with many more games of Quidditch (there had been no improvement on her end) and long conversations filling the air where she could not keep her words clear. Her face had seemingly adopted a permanent shade of red as she saw him every day, refusing to let her emotions fade until she was forced to admit it to herself. Her heart had simply swelled substantially in an attempt to contain all that she felt about Harry Potter, and she was barely holding on. There was now no more running. Only hiding. For how could she ever think of telling him?

But now he was in front of her. Like she had been doing so frequently as of late, she stared at him and saw that he was deep in thought about Ron's comments regarding Malfoy. He looked so serious, so endearing, so—

"Harry Potter?"

A girl Hermione did not know had opened their compartment door. She was nervously holding on to two rolls of parchment. "I'm supposed to deliver this to you," she said, holding out the scroll to him with a slightly shaking arm. As Harry took it from her, Hermione noticed that the girl's face had turned scarlet and her own eyes widened in shameful realization. Was this how she looked when she was around Harry lately? So embarrassed, so flustered, so…silly?

The girl glanced down at the remaining scroll in her hand. The redness in her face had lessened and she now looked to the rest of the room. "This one is for Neville Longbottom." After handing over the note to Neville, she promptly left their compartment, seemingly dazed.

"What's that?" Hermione said, as Harry and Neville unrolled their letters.

"It's from Slughorn. Invitation," Harry said as he scanned it.

Neville looked thoroughly puzzled. "Why me?"

"I might have an idea…" Harry said, looking around the compartment. "We'll see you later, I guess."

"But we just got here!" Hermione said. From the corner of her eye, she saw Ron raise an eyebrow at the tone of protest in her voice.

Harry shrugged. "Sorry." He turned to Neville. "Let's go."

Hermione watched them leave with disappointment. Now deprived of what she had been planning to look at, she settled for staring out the train window and her thoughts drifted once again to the moment when she had realized she had fallen for her best friend. It had been the third time that summer she had found herself waking up on the kitchen floor with no memory as to what had happened. However, this time one thing was new; there had been a faint, terrifying vision of being swallowed up by sand. The fear had been the first thing to greet her as she had come to her senses. She had desperately sought to escape it and had found Harry's green eyes staring back into hers. Before she knew it, she had reached for him and had found herself tightly clutching him. The realization of being in love had hit her not long after, once the pain in her head had subsided. And the rest of the summer was spent grappling with the idea and what—if anything—she could do about it.

Now however, her thoughts took her back to the memory of how that night, hours after dinner, Ginny had pulled her to the side.

"How are you feeling?" Ginny asked, after she had dragged Hermione away to a secluded part of the house.

"Fine," Hermione said in puzzlement.

"Okay," Ginny said. She crossed her arms and scowled. "Because we're talking. Now."

"Ginny, what is this?"

"Hermione…I saw you disappear!"

"…What?"

"Earlier today, you were in front of our cupboard, just opening and closing it over and over. And all of a sudden…you were gone. It was like you Disapparated!"

Hermione scrunched up her face in thought. Yes… she remembered opening and closing the cupboard. Growing frustrated that nothing was happening. And then sensing that Harry had something to do with the whole affair, she had opened the cupboard one last time. But after that… there was a gap. The next thing she knew, she had been shaken awake, finding herself sprawled out on the kitchen floor.

"Disapparated?" Hermione repeated.

Ginny's eyes were now round and fearful. "Can you PLEASE explain what's going on?"

"Going on?" Hermione repeated.

Ginny seemed to be on the verge of tears. "I watched you disappear in front of my eyes in our kitchen. I had to run outside to tell Harry and Ron something was wrong—I don't even know if they understood me—I must have babbling some type of nonsense. Harry kind of just ran ahead of us, but by the time we all got back, you were lying on the floor with a packed bag next to you! I swear I thought I was going mad! I mean, this is in our house! If there's some strange enchantment we're under or dark magic—"

"I'm sure it's nothing like that," Hermione interrupted. But the truth was that she had no idea what to make of it. Her mind was now racing, attempting to fit this new bit of information into her head. She was gathering pieces of possible explanations. How strange that she did not feel panicked, simply...peculiar. Perhaps it was because it felt so far away, because she did not remember—had not felt—this disappearance that Ginny was talking about.

"You don't sound so sure," Ginny said. "But you were lying to me before, weren't you? There's definitely something going on. Unless you want me to believe that just the two of us are losing it."

Hermione could not see how she could deny it this time. Not if as Ginny had said, she had really "disappeared." She looked at Ginny. "I thought you left the room though."

"I did…but I came back like a second later. Did you really think I would leave you alone after what you said? But now it feels like I've been roped into something. We should really tell Mum. Maybe she'll know what's going on."

"I don't think so," Hermione said, shaking her head. "This seems beyond just some spell or enchantment. Maybe even beyond magic." She looked intensely into Ginny's face and the ghostly, unintelligible voice filled her head with whispers. "But I can feel it. This has something to do with…Harry."

"Harry?"

Hermione felt her heart beating faster. And for just an instant, her mind became the tiniest bit clearer. Hearing the words come out of her mouth made her certain.

"Yes," she breathed. "It has something to do with him."

She moved her arms around a clearly confused Ginny and squeezed tight. "Thanks for your concern, Ginny. I'm still not completely sure what's going on. But I promise I'll find out. And when I do, you'll be the first to know."

Back in the compartment of the Hogwarts Express, Hermione waited for Harry to walk back in. But the sun had begun to set and he had still not returned. Finally, the compartment door slid open and she eagerly turned her head towards the corridor. She stifled her disappointment when she saw Neville by himself.

"Neville? Where's Harry?" she asked.

Neville frowned. "He said he wanted to check something."

Hermione frowned back. "What could there possibly be to check?" She turned to Ron. "What do you think he's up to?"

Ron shrugged.

"Brilliant," she snapped. She pushed her irritation to the side to think. What on earth was he up to? Honestly, he could be so exhausting sometimes.

They all soon changed into their robes and eventually, the train stopped. But Harry had still not returned.

"Why hasn't he come back?" Hermione asked the others in the compartment.

"He probably went ahead without us," Ron said.

"But why?" she stressed, struggling to see the logic.

"Maybe he got called to do something. Professor told him something or—"

"It's probably nothing," Neville said.

"Or he could be stuck," Luna remarked casually.

Hermione, Ron and Neville turned their heads towards Luna.

"Why would you say that?" Hermione said.

"I suppose a Kocky Snorgle got him?" Ron remarked sarcastically.

"The Crumple-Horned Sn—" Luna began.

"Not the time, Luna," Hermione snapped. "You think someone attacked him?"

"Attacked?" Luna said with surprise. "I said stuck. There are quite a lot of people on the train, you know. Maybe he got caught—"

"By someone after him?" Neville said.

"—between them," Luna finished. "He probably can't move since they're all so close together. It can get very crowded, you know."

"Oh!" Neville suddenly remarked. "He was putting on a cloak after we came out of Slughorn's."

At these words, Hermione and Ron glanced at each other with knowing looks. Now, it certainly seemed possible that Harry had gotten himself into a troublesome situation.

Hermione felt a slight tremor in her head and Luna's words repeated themselves in her mind until the ghostly voice that had been in her all summer repeated one word over and over again. Stuck. Stuck. Stuck. Stuck. Stuck. Stuck.

She abruptly stood up. "I'm going looking for him," she said to the others.

"I'll go too," Ron said.

"I need you to cover for me in case it takes longer than I thought."

"We could search more ground if both of us went," Ron pointed out. "And if he's really in trouble—"

"You'll need to take our luggage out to the platform. And…I need someone to watch Crookshanks."

"If you think I'm really going to let you go off by yourself—"

"I can take care of myself, Ron!"

"I wasn't saying you couldn't! But—"

"It's probably nothing anyway. I'll find him quickly and we'll be right out. And if it takes just a little longer…save us seats," she said, making her way out the door and waving to a bemused Neville and Luna.

Ron glared.

As the rest of the students began to exit the train, Hermione briskly walked down the corridors, squeezing past the stragglers and keeping her eyes open for the untidy hair she knew so well. When he still seemed to be evading her vision, she proceeded to check every compartment she came across from then on, keeping in mind that he could be invisible. "Harry?" she called into a seemingly empty compartment.

There was no response.