A Grim Stay At Grimmauld Place
Splash!
Harry bent over onto his knees, coughing and wheezing, his lungs shocked from the harsh experience of apparition but also surprised by the sudden freshness of the air around them. Except he wasn’t the only one; he could hear, all around him, his friends coughing as well. Most importantly, Ron and Ginny, which meant -
“Finally, they wake!” One of the twin’s clapped his hands together while the other slapped the viciously coughing Ron against the back with a grin. “Honestly, you were sleeping heavier than the morning after game night.”
Harry looked around at their surroundings, trying to decipher where the twin’s had taken them, but it wasn’t hard to identify the mucky puddle he was standing in, the cobbled streets, and the uniform houses before him. It was Grimmauld Place.
“The Headquarters to the Order of the Phoenix will be found at Number Twelve Grimmauld Place.” It had been almost an entire year since Harry had heard those words, but he still recognized them word for word as the password to reveal the secret headquarters and Sirius’s childhood home, so wasn’t surprised as some of his friends around him were when the two buildings before them, Number 11 and Number 13, spread apart to making way for an older, ivy covered building with a wrought iron gate.
“Come on, Mum’s already waiting,” This twin was taller, so Harry knew him to be Fred speaking as he gestured a hand towards the building and led them through the gate, up the steps and to the door. He pressed a finger to his lips briefly, and Harry turned to do the same Pansy, Cedric, and Neville behind him, who couldn’t see, and the group crept into the narrow hallway slowly but surely, George holding his wand out to light it up with Lumos.
Cedric was the last to be helped through, not able to walk on his own on his legs, and once the door closed, they heard a gasp somewhere down the hall, and turned to see Molly Weasley standing at the top of the stairs to the kitchen, gaping at them.
“Hey, Mum,” Fred called as quietly as he could across the hall, and the woman beamed with relief and love, sprinting forwards to wrap Ron and Ginny both into tight hugs.
“You’re alive! Oh, thank goodness you two are alive!” She exclaimed, still whispering as much as she could despite her clear excitement. “I was getting so worried! Oh, I’ll have to tell your Godfather right away, Harry,” At that, she let go of her children to turn to Harry and Hermione and now pull them into tight hugs. “Oh you kids are in so much trouble! Arthur and I are proud of course, very proud, but you are grounded all summer you two,” She glared at her youngest kids over Harry and Hermione’s shoulders. “All summer.”
“C’mon, Mum!” Ron protested, hooking his arm around Ginny’s neck to bring her closer and add flair to his next words, “We almost died ten times. Can’t you leave the howlers till morning, at least?” Mrs. Weasley merely scoffed in response, placing her hands on her hips and remarking, “It nearly is morning, Ronald.”
“Is Sirius here?” Harry was still caught on Mrs. Weasley’s exclamation earlier, craning his neck to look behind her at the hall beyond, searching for his Godfather still, as he had all night, it seemed. Feeling as if he was still trapped in that room full of glass balls, searching for a man he knew would never appear.
“No, I’m sorry, he’s not. He’s still at the Ministry. They were hurrying to get you - you see, Severus Snape messaged each of the Order to say you and a group of students had left the school in search of Sirius. He said you thought he was captured in the Department of Mysteries. Of course, Dumbledore knew at once what that meant,” Beside him, Draco flinched, but masked it with a harsh cough, which was believable. They were all still covered in soot and felt as if the smoke still clogged their lungs. “He said something about You-Know-Who playing tricks on your mind, and tried to get the Order assembled as quickly as he could to be sent to the Ministry, but you must understand how hard these things can be, Harry. The Order works in secret, and Dumbledore couldn’t send out messages in broad daylight - because it was still, by all means, daylight. It got worse when Snape sent a second message; apparently, Hogwarts has been breached as well. Eager to protect his school, Dumbledore went with Remus Lupin there immediately, ordering his team to go to the Ministry as quickly as they could. We haven’t heard a word from Dumbledore or Lupin since, but the Order arrived too late. You and the Death Eater’s were already gone. We’ve been searching desperately since. Even Fudge has gotten involved, and Percy has had to go out and leave Tess with the triplets - they’re upstairs now - we were all so scared.”
“We were too.” It was a plain, dry statement, as dry as any other Pansy had made that night, but when you looked over at her, clutching her arm with one bruised hand, staring through watery, reddened eyes, caked in soot and beaten and bruised in every place the Death Eater’s could reach, you were forced to look at the other kids around her as well, and face the reality of how scared they really had been - Molly could see it in their eyes, behind all those tears - and it was an ugly, cruel thing.
Molly looked as if she might cry from the sight, but Harry couldn’t let that happen. Not with how serious the situation was. Not with all he needed to tell her.
“Mrs. Weasley,” He stepped forward, grabbing her arm lightly and staring into her intently, shaking slightly on legs exhausted from endless running, running, running, “I have to tell you something.”
“You probably have so much to tell me, Harry,” She said empathetically, smiling softly at him and raising a hand to cup his face in her cheek. It only made the crack across Harry’s heart widen some more, worse so as he felt cold and bony fingers worm their way into his palm, and turned to see Draco had taken his hand, staring at a wall fixedly, tears welling up in his reddened eyes already. “I do, but this… this is bad. It’s about Dumbledore.” Mrs. Weasley turned serious in a second.
“What is it, Harry?” The boy licked his lips, glancing around the hall. At the cloaked portraits. At the cobwebs. At the troll foot/umbrella stand. Anywhere but into those soft, motherly eyes, so scared and so worried, and so not worried to hear what they needed to hear. “Where is he?”
“He’s dead, Mrs. Weasley. He was killed tonight at Hogwarts.” They all snapped their heads around to Draco, still speaking to the drab wallpaper, but the blonde slowly turned to face the older woman and give his final statement, tears running down his cheeks and driving watery paths through the soot stuck there. “He was killed by Barty Crouch Jr… and me.”
A long pause of silence, and Harry was prepared to repeat the statement, in case, in the shock of Draco’s first words, Molly hadn’t heard it, but then she released a sob, louder than any Harry had heard before, and one that echoed horribly against the empty halls and awakened Sirius’s grandmother’s portrait, and so all they heard was screaming and sobbing, as Molly Weasley fell to her knees, the first of many to mourn the loss of Albus Dumbledore.
-*-*-*-
Maybe it was just the grief of the still too soon news, or maybe she was to busy making food for every rapidly arriving guest to Grimmauld Place, but Molly miraculously didn't question the kids on whatever they had been doing that was making them cough so much, instead heeding to their orders that they couldn't have anything hot.
Not when Harry could still feel the fire burning in his lungs whenever he descended into a coughing fit. Again, Molly didn't ask questions, and so here they sat on the floor of the bedroom Harry and Ron had slept in all those months ago, sitting in a circle with bowls of salad in their laps, chomping along so that the air was filled with the crunching of lettuce instead of a tense silence no one knew how to fill.
Cedric was lying on one of the twin beds and Ginny on the other, the two labeled by their friends as "incapacitated" and therefore the ones who deserved to get the comfy cushioning, while everyone else was prepared to sleep on the floor.
Because eyes, at past eleven at night, they all were fully prepared to be sleeping here, even Pansy, who longed for the green blankets of her bed back in the Slytherin common room, but understood the severity of what they were all dealing with, and the necessity of staying in this safehouse for at least one night.
"You know," Everyone slowly turned towards Ron, stirring his fork around his bowl, curious as to what he had to say as he gnawed at his bottom lip thoughtfully. "I completely forgot we had O.W.L’s this morning," He looked up at them all, eyes wide. "Isn’t that crazy? Six hours ago we were finishing our last exam."
It was crazy, and Hermione looked as if she was about to erupt into spontaneous crying just because of it, but instead she swallowed her bite of salad and laid her head on Ron's shoulder. He flinched, just a moment, bending his head to whisper something in her ear, but she just snuggled closer, shifting on the floor to sit closer to him. Both of their faces had gone a bright pink, but they seemed comfortable, and so Ron ran a hand through Hermione's hair, and kissed her on the forehead.
Harry's jaw hit the floor.
"Er -" Neville coughed into his fist, mouth still full of food, and swallowed before asking, "What was that?"
"We should probably tell them," Hermione whispered, and Merlin knew what that was supposed to mean. "After all that's happened… no point in hiding it any longer, right?" She seemed to not be talking to Ron anymore, instead looking directly at Ginny, who swallowed her food in something that was suspiciously similar to a gulp.
"A - a - are you sure?" She asked and Hermione nodded, eyes drooping sleepily as she shifted so close to Ron now Harry had a good idea what they were going to tell him, but he wasn’t sure he was ready. Ginny sucked in a shaky breath as Ron straightened up, hand slipping into Hermione’s so that their fingers entwined tightly.
“Hermione and I… we’re a thing.”
Silence.
“We have been for… quite some time now, actually…”
Cedric whistled softly and Neville slowly raised a fist in the air, letting out a quiet, “Woo, hoo..!” Harry, meanwhile, stayed frozenly staring at his best friend’s hands, wrapped in each other tightly.
“If you’ve been together for a while,” He slowly raised his eyes to meet the wide, and terrified ones, probably expecting him to blow up at him at any second. Why shouldn’t he, though? They kept this a secret, didn’t they, even though he was their closest friend, who got told everything - “Why didn’t you tell us?”
“We thought you had enough going on,” Hermione remarked, a silent tear slipping down her cheek. “You all did. We didn’t want to be a burden.” “You were never a burden, Hermione,” Ginny remarked from her place on the bed above. “Just in love.”
Her face went bright red. “Well, I don’t think -” She sputtered at the same time Ron blurted, “We haven’t put a label on it yet!” Ginny simply raised an eyebrow, smirking. Meanwhile Harry felt something red hot, not unlike golden flames that had almost engulfed them all, spread up from his heart to his tongue.
“She knew?” He snapped, voice fiery and harsh, and his friends turned their heads to him in an instant, no longer blushing, but scared once more. “You told her but you couldn’t tell me -”
“It was an accident, Harry,” Ginny snapped back, speaking not with the careful fear his friends always used when he was like this, tiptoeing around him like he was a some bomb ready to blow, but instead speaking sternly with her chin high, aware that he was no bomb, but someone that needed to be put in check. “I found them kissing in a broom cupboard when they were supposed to be doing rounds as Prefects. They’re not very good at hiding this, you know.” She gestured a hand to the snuggling before them, and once more, the pair were blushing ferociously.
“Parvati and Lavender found out too. They were up studying and we kissed on the couch. We didn’t know they were there.” Ron explained, shrugging his shoulders though Harry couldn’t imagine any reality where you could go about your business and not know the pair of giggling teenagers were in a room with you. “But that was just two days ago.”
“Weeks ago was Dean and Seamus. They caught us up in your dorm. You and Neville were down at the Room of Requirement early, and we thought they would be too. That was the day the four of us were late, remember?” Harry did, and hadn’t thought much of it at the time. Then again, he hadn’t thought much of ‘Cedric’s’ poor Quidditch performance, and look how that turned out.
Life and dreams… Claims at a wall… We both know you are far smarter than that…
“Excuse me,” Harry couldn’t do this. He couldn’t watch the pair of blushing teens before him and pretend to be happy for them after all they’d done, after all he’d gone through, and be forced to listen to his mind raging on and on - Instead, he stood and headed for the door, ignoring the scattering of feet behind him indicating someone was following him. Further proof of this; when he swung the door back behind him it didn’t slam, so clearly someone had stopped it from doing so.
He had a good guess on who, too, but didn’t dare turn his head to look into Draco’s eyes. He didn’t know, and was quite scared of what he might find in those gray orbs - better to postpone having to face them as long as he could, right?
He stepped into the bathroom, pushing back the green curtained window to let in moonlight and running the tap. When he rose his head from bending over to splash his face with water, scrubbing at the soot still stuck there, he didn't’ just see his own face in the mirror, still showing the scars of grime Sirius had wiped away in his efforts to renovate the place, but a pale, pointed face next to it as well.
Draco raised an eyebrow, and asked, “Hiding from your friends again, Scarhead? Typical.”
“You’re one to talk,” Harry scoffed, turning to sneer at the boy behind him who only raised his chin higher in response, as if that was something one was supposed to be proud of; “Abandoning your friends for months?” He shouldered past him for the doorway. “Pardon me if I don’t want to hear it from you, Malfoy.” If he was gonna resort to the old surname days, Harry would too.
“Hey,” Draco hadn’t spent two years being his friend for nothing, however, and could tell when something was off with Harry a bit too easily for his liking. Ron usually noticed and pretended to ignore it, whilst Hermione just didn’t understand half the time. Couldn’t, being a girl and all. Draco had always been the one he could share even a few things in common with; the Goblet of Fire, the graveyard, both having come face to face with Voldemort - they were the only kids who had. Save Ginny, though Tom Riddle… In an unexplainable way, that was different, yet too much the same. “Don’t shut me out. What’s wrong?” Which was why when Draco grabbed Harry by the wrists, fingers touching his palm as if yearning to hold it then flinching away in a second, Harry didn’t tear his arm away.
Instead, he let his shoulders slump, his eyes flick to the blonde at his shoulder, and then his whole body fell to the floor. Draco followed, so that it was as if they were brought back to the blank Room of Requirement wall of his birthday, except now Draco was shifting forward, asking all the questions, and offering all the comfort. Even though he probably still needed more than he’d ever known.
“Talk to me. What’s so wrong with Granger and Weasley? They’re your best friends - I thought you might be happy about this?”
Harry hugged his knees to his chest and rested his chin on them, staring blankly at the toilet seated across from them and rising his shoulders. “I dunno…” He mumbled, letting them fall again.
He felt those cold fingers again, and glanced over to see Draco rested a hand on his, tucking around his legs, and smiled softly at the boy, noting the tinge of pink to his cheeks and finding it strangely endearing. Perhaps he was just amused by the embarrassment on a former bully’s face. Yeah, that was it. “You can tell me.”
“Fine,” He released a sigh, letting himself let go of his legs and instead stretched them out across the tiles, leaning his head against the cabinet behind them. “I… I’m tired of finding out I’ve been told a lie. It makes me feel dumb, and gullible. The thing with you included! You -” Harry choked on his words. ‘Killed someone’ had been on the tip of his tongue but not set in his heart yet. It still felt impossible to believe; that Draco had actually killed someone.
“You didn’t really do it… did you?” Harry asked quietly, and Draco looked away. Harry, if only to not be forced to look at that broken face any longer, also followed his eyes to the window and the crescent moon beyond it. “No. Crouch Jr did. I dropped my wand.”
Draco bit his lip as the memories flooded back to him, along with all Dumbledore had told him to tell Harry now. Now was not the time for that. The funeral, maybe, if there ever was one, and if not, whatever day seemed appropriate for grieving. But this was all the same night - the wounds were too fresh to give him so much information at once. Besides, Dumbledore most likely wouldn’t have wanted that, if he would ever tell Harry in the first place.
“I’m sorry.” He settled for saying, turning his head back to Harry, and was grateful to have those brilliant emeralds shift to him again, and soften with clear forgiveness. “I’m sorry too,” He said, sighing deeply. “I should’ve been able to tell how much you were hurting.”
“No, no you didn’t have to,” Draco immediately shook his head, but paused as he wasn’t sure exactly what he was going to say next but knew he had to say something. Just by looking at the brokenness to those once bright and happy emerald eyes was enough to bathe him in guilt. “I should have said something.” He finally said softly, with a sudden sort of clarity from that guilt, and Harry raised an eyebrow.
“You would’ve gotten taken to Azkaban.” He pointed out but Draco shook his head, waving a hand, and making a mistake of waving the arm with the Dark Mark, still burning with Voldemort’s call for all Death Eater’s to unite. “No, no, not with Fudge. I should have told him in the Three Broomsticks. Both times we were there, but both times…” He shook his head, lowering it to his knees and scratching at the back of his head, though not caring as much as he should about the nervous tick as his hair and already gotten messed beyond help.
“I’ve done some… really bad things, Harry…” “It’s okay,” The response was a little too quick to be believable - or, at least, that’s what the darker parts of Draco’s thoughts said - but he still raised his head to smile as much as he could at Harry when he said them, and he nodded, smiling back. “You didn’t have a choice.”
“I’ve got no choice!”
The words had been too true.
“Draco, years ago I knew a boy who made all the wrong choices. Please don’t make the same mistakes he did.”
But so had they.
Draco bit down on his lip, hard, for the second time tonight as he tried to force back tears as he had on the Astronomy Tower, letting his head fall onto Harry’s shoulders as he sniffled, and whimpered, faintly, “He’s gone. He’s really gone.”
He felt Harry lay his chin on his head slowly, and when he heard his response, it too was muffled, but with a hard sniff from him, he knew Harry had better luck banishing the unshed tears. “Yeah, he is Draco. I guess he is…”
-*-*-*-
They must have been in that bathroom for a good long while, because when someone finally came to find them, it was Tess getting ready for bed, claiming her babies were finally asleep. Harry felt an urge to go up and meet Ron’s new nieces and nephew, then, but knew to save it for the morning as he could hear Mrs. Weasley coming up the stairs and saw the bags under Tess’ eyes; it was time for bed for all of them, and they deserved it after such a long night.
Every couch and spare bed in the house was offered for the kids to sleep on, but everyone refused. Instead, Luna and Ginny shared one of the twin beds, the smallest of the group and easily able to fit, while Hermione and Ron slept beside each other in the space between the two beds. Neville, Pansy, Draco, and Harry crammed in on the ground around the room, and they all were provided with blankets and pillows Harry gladly transfigured for them.
He didn’t know how long the spell would last, however, and warned them they might wake up on the hardwood floors. No one seemed to care, however, far too tired after an all too long day.
Harry had just rolled over on his side towards the window, prepared to rest his eyes and hopefully enjoy his first night in a year with no nightmares, when a hand stretched out to his shoulder, and he turned and, in the darkness, could only see a pair of gray eyes just starting to regain their light blinking at him.
“Thanks for saving me.” Draco whispered.
“Call it even.” Harry whispered back, winking, and, as Draco could also see a pair of emerald eyes in the dark, he saw it clearly, and was grateful to the night so that Harry couldn’t see the way his cheeks flushed pink in an instant.
-*-*-*-
Sun is shinin’ in the sky,
There ain’t a cloud in sight
It’s stopped rainin’, everybody in the play
And don’t you know,
It’s a beautiful new day? Hey…
Releasing a long yawn, Harry rubbed his palms into his eyes and remembered how much he did not miss that loud muggle stereo, and the strange songs it would play to ruin the mood of Grimmauld Place.
Runnin’ down the avenue,
See how the sun shines brightly in the city
Seriously, he was considering swapping rooms with Percy and Tess, if it wasn’t for the fact that they had newborn babies. He could always ask Sirius and Remus, but something told him they didn’t mind the room with only one bed…
On the streets where once was pity
Mr. Blue Sky is living here today, hey
But damn if that music didn’t ruin the mood.
Just as he had suspected, the blankets and pillows had vanished, which didn't stop Ginny from a deep sleep on her comfy looking bed, while all around him Harry’s friends began to sit up and stretch out the cricks in their bones from all those hours spent on the hardwood floor. Luna, Hermione, and Ron were the only ones not present, no doubt a group of early risers, despite their experiences the night before. And, despite the fact that Harry had never seen Ron get up that early in his life.
“Er - Harry?” Neville must have come to the very same conclusion, sitting up straight and cracking his neck before pointing to the empty spot on the floor where their Gryffindor friends should be, and asking, “Where’s Ron?”
“I’m right here,” They didn’t have to wonder long, however, as a moment later Ron himself pushed the door open with a bowl of something steaming hot in his hand, looking sullen. “No need to get worried about me. It’s Hermione we should be worried about.” And he did look worried about her, frowning deeply as he walked over to Ginny’s bed and sat down on it, elbowing his little sister in the side so that she kicked him back, proving that the feisty girl was simply feigning sleep.
“Gin, get up, we aren’t gonna get all secretive around you. We aren’t Mum and Dad, for Merlin’s sake.” Ron said and she sat up with a mischievous smirk, pushing her hair back and remarking innocently, “Maybe not, but can’t blame a girl for trying.” Ron rolled his eyes. “I swear you need to quit spending so much time with Fred and George,” he said, to which his sister simply rolled her eyes and gave him a hard punch in the shoulder while saying, “And you sound like Percy.”
“And what’s wrong with that?” The creaking of the stairs told them he was coming before he did poke his head through the doorway, but the timing was still perfect, and in their squabbling, the youngest Weasley’s didn’t notice, jumping and turning around to glare at him.
“Percy!” They both exclaimed, exasperated. “Shouldn’t you be at work?” Ron demanded whilst Ginny mocked, “Yeah, what happened to ‘Mr. Fudge is in dire need of my assistance at this dark time.’” Percy frowned at her, pointing a finger and saying, “You need to quit eavesdropping, young lady,” then folding his arms as he leaned against the doorframe to yawn. “But if you really must know, I’m off for the day until tonight, then I’m going with Mr. Fudge to Hogwarts. You, all, er -” He choked on his words, glancing around at them awkwardly before fixing Harry with a strange stare. “Probably know why.”
Everyone fell silent, so that Harry was forced to have to listen to that damn song once more.
Hey there, Mr. Blue
We're so pleased to be with you
Look around, see what you do
Everybody smiles at you
“What happened to Hermione?” If only to try to get away from that song as those same lyrics repeated once more, Harry looked to Ron to ask this question and break the deafening silence. It worked, because if Harry was talking - Harry, who everyone always had to pity, and probably wouldn’t stop pitying now that Dumbledore was… - then they should probably move on. Ron once again looked just as upset as he had when he walked in, poking at the substance in his bowl with a spoon.
“She wasn’t… She was feeling really sick, and then she was screaming and grabbing her ribs and then just… passed out. Dad’s taking her to St. Mungo’s, since he’s got a check-up there on Fridays anyway, but Mum told me to stay and eat. He waved the bowl for emphasis, and jammed a bite of what appeared to be porridge or oatmeal into his mouth.
“I do hope she feels better,” Came a faint voice, and Luna pushed past Percy into the room, also carrying a steaming bowl. As she sat crisscrossed at the foot of Ginny’s bed, she turned back to look up at the bespeckled Weasley and say, “I just said ‘hello’ to your children. They’re quite charming.”
“Charming?” Percy gave an unimpressed laugh, but still immediately brightened with the light of a new father who loved his children very, very much. “That’s one word for them.”
Harry turned from the contendly chatting friends and family to Draco, stretching out his arms silently while staring at the empty portrait on the wall which he knew to be the home of former Headmaster Phineas Nigellus Black.
“It’s strange,” Draco remarked out loud, no doubt feeling Harry’s eyes on him, “The last time I was here… things were so different.” He looked down, picking at a piece of the dusty rug beneath him with his fingers. “I bet that’s how my parents felt, coming back here. They changed so much as children. I’ve seen pictures of my family at Hogwarts. Mom was a Seeker, you know,” He turned to smile faintly, like a boy recalling a pleasant dream, towards Harry, but not quite looking at him. “That’s how my dad met her.”
“The story goes she flew past him at the opening match, and he had been dragged to watch Regulus Black play by his friend Rabastan. She zoomed right past him before catching that snitch, winning the game for Slytherin, and my father exclaimed, ‘Lestrange, mark my words I’m going to marry that woman.’” Draco grinned broadly now, and Harry let himself release a short laugh at the amusing image of Lucius Malfoy making that sort of declaration as a young teen.
“And he did, of course, which my grandparents weren’t very happy about. Mom was supposed to marry this French man, but once Aunt Bellatrix joined with Vol -” Draco swallowed hard, here, shaking his head. “Things got thrown into chaos, and my parents were too in love to listen to reason.” He leaned back on his hands, gazing up at the ceiling thoughtfully with a tilt of his head, “I guess that’s what You-Know-Who doesn’t get, you know? Love. He was so angry at my dad for not risking Azkaban… couldn’t even comprehend the wife and kid he had at home. Me.”
There was no need to wonder who that ‘he’ was, and Harry was more than fine with Draco’s inability to say Voldemort’s name.
“Love…” He instead said aloud, just as thoughtfully. “It’s pretty powerful, I guess, isn’t it?” Their eyes met, and Draco nodded. “Yeah, it is…”
There was something in his eyes… They sparkled, in a way they had so many times before. In the moonlight in the forest at the Quidditch World Cup, whenever they thought of a new plot, or a fun trick, or just at rare moments of staring at him, Harry… He felt a strange flip in his stomach, like he was back on a Quidditch broom, watching Cho Chang spiral in the air, but that had been different, surely. This was just natural.
He felt flips in his gut when Cedric’s hair sparkled like that, and when Oliver removed his shirt at a particular hot practice in Third Year that suddenly got a lot hotter. He also had no problem seeing what Anya Sallow did in Hugo Olsson, and the coupling of Draco and Anthony for a brief time didn’t make him uncomfortable but jealous. But why be jealous? Being attracted to someone was one thing, but being jealous…
Maybe he just thought they were stealing the spotlight from him and Cho. That had to be it, right? (Or maybe, just maybe, his brain had been so riddled with bigger, more important things, it neglected to think on such trivial issues such as attractions to boys, when it didn’t even focus on his actual girlfriend)
His head hurt, but now it wasn’t because of a scar or Voldemort.
“Harry?” He must’ve been thinking a bit too long, though, because now Draco was snapping his fingers in front of his face, looking concerned. “Pots? Potter? You alright there, Scarhead? You aren’t in… his head again, are you?”
“Oh trust me, Malfoy,” Neville said from across the room, mid laughing at some joke Ron had just made that was getting Luna doubled over in laughter just as she had been on the train ride. “You’ll know when he’s having a ‘nightmare.’” He put the last part in quotes, and that’s all it took to wipe all thoughts of strange feelings from Harry’s mind as he turned to scowl at his roommate. “Hey! Not cool, Neville, not cool.” He exclaimed as Draco laughed heartily beside him, eyes still sparkling.
-*-*-*-
It was decided, after a yell from Molly summoned them all downstairs, that the group of kids would go back to Hogwarts with Percy and Fudge via train ride that night, but for now they were allowed as much relaxation as needed, and while Harry felt he should go to St. Mungo’s to check on Hermione, as was the nice, best friend thing, he was made to feel completely fine with staying and waiting for the Order to come back, and that was fine by him.
He needed to see Sirius.
Neville, Ginny, and Ron all went to St. Mungo’s, while Draco, still wallowing in self guilt, locked himself in a room upstairs labeled ‘R.A.B’ that Sirius had told them all to ignore in their cleaning of the house, and Luna was in Buckbeak’s room introducing him to Pansy. She had requested to introduce the triplets to the Hippogriff too, to which Percy had nearly fainted at the suggestion of and Tess had attempted to berate her, but beratement tended to never work on Luna Lovegood.
Harry was left up in Percy and Tess’s room while the couple cleaned up after lunch in the kitchen, staring down at the crib the triplets shared, occasionally making faces or playing as much as he knew how to. He’d never interacted with a baby before, however, so he was treading new ground here.
He was able to learn that he agreed with Luna’s statement that they were ‘charming’, however, as they blew bubbles, giggled, and threw their little fists out at him, trying to reach his fingers he happily leaned down for them to hold, though once Molly II got his finger, than Johannes wanted it, and Lucy was left fighting her siblings to get his attention. You would think, with Hans being the smallest, he’d be beaten down quickest, and yet he seemed the most fiery of the bunch.
As shown in the pictures, the twin girls bore the most resemblance to their father while Hans looked like his mother, and now that they were a month and a half old they could open their eyes, showing matching pairs of Tess's brown eyes. They were beautiful, holding in them so much life and bringing so much joy to a family who had suffered already, and no doubt would keep suffering as the war went on. Because Voldemort knew how he and Harry were connected, now, and would stop at nothing to kill him.
So he'd just have to find a way to beat him to it, since -
“Neither can live while the other survives.” He spun on his heel, startling the triplets but not enough to make them cry as he relaxed at the sight of just Sirius standing in the doorway, relaxed with his hands in his pockets, smiling faintly back at his Godson. “Hey, ‘Chosen One.’”
Within seconds Harry had crossed the distance across the room to Sirius to be wrapped in his comforting embrace, exclaiming, “Sirius!” Into his shoulder and clinging to gin tightly, willing him to stay, because he was here, not dead, not being tortured, and far from the Department of Mysteries.
"So, Draco told you?" He asked after a minute, pulling back to look in Sirius's eye, and feeling bad for ruining his mood as his smile fell, his eyes dulling to the familiar haunted look he'd always had since Azkaban. Harry was painfully reminded of Bellatrix Lestrange having much the same look. "Yeah… The whole prophecy… I'm sorry I wasn't able to tell you that's what we've been after, Harry. But Molly -"
"It's fine," Harry said sternly, gripping Sirius's arms a little tighter. "You're fine. We're here, that's all that matters. For a while I thought…" He bit his lip, the images of Voldemort's red eyes and hot, much too close golden flames itching at his lungs overpowering his thoughts for a moment, and he stumbled backwards away from his Godfather, leaning against the triplets crib and whispering, “I thought we were dead.”
“Hey,” In a second, Sirius was beside him, leaning on the crib and rocking it back and forth steadily. “You can’t die yet, Harry. Not before you get rid of Voldemort for us.”
But Sirius wasn’t perfect, and this was exactly the wrong thing to say, as Harry looked into the baby's eyes, imagining them growing up in their parents arms, becoming old enough to go to Hogwarts, and getting sorted. Experiencing all the joys of being a student, before growing into an adult Harry never expected to be with how his life had turned out. But now it was bigger than just him against Voldemrot. If he died, the world would be doomed, and these triplets would never get those happy days at Hogwarts.
“That’s the thing, Sirius…” He shook his head, running a hand through his hair as he stared up at the ceiling to say, “It’s just me, right? I’m the one who has to do this. I’m his equal.” Harry couldn’t possibly imagine a world where he was the equal to Lord Voldemort, so scoffed here, pinching the bridge of his nose, exhausted. “And if I can’t kill him -”
“Don’t think about that,” Sirius was just as quick to comfort his godson as before, now finally getting a hang on the right thing to say in this conversation, as he looked him straight in the eye and told him sternly, “You’re just a kid right now, Harry. Trust the Order, alright? We’ll get you ready for him, we’ll prepare you, and one day you will be able to face him, just as you have all those brave times before, and you won’t get out of it by luck or chance, but by the strength of this right here,” He tapped a finger on Harry’s chest, smiling at his godson now with love and wonder at how great of a man he was, “You were born from the two strongest peoples I have ever met, and you carry them with you every day. They believe in you, I believe in you, and you know what, Harry? Dumbledore believed in you too.”
“He’s right, you know,” Harry turned around slowly, not at all surprised to see Draco in the doorway. He went where he pleased. “Dumbledore he… Before Crouch showed up he told me some stuff. Important things that…” He glanced over at Sirius cautiously as he began to make his way over to Harry and the man raised his hands, nodding in understanding, “That you can’t tell me. I get it.” Draco coked an eyebrow. “You aren’t mad?” “When it comes to Dumbledore… you tend to get used to it.”
“Well, the last thing he said was probably the most important of all. Harry,” The memory was still fresh on Draco’s mind, so fresh that it haunted his dreams, and when he closed his eyes he could still see the pure, grieving old man staring back at him as he spoke those words. “He told me to tell you that…” Draco swallowed hard, squeezing his eyes shut and envisioning it for just a second before opening them again to make sure Harry had someone to comfort him as he heard this, “He cared for you very, very much.”
Harry wasn’t someone who cried very often, or ever. The Dursley’s had gotten that beaten out of him early on, and wet eyes didn’t bode well in the dusty cupboard anyway. But those words… Those simple words that said so much, because of who they came from, when they were spoken, and what they meant… Dumbledore hadn’t even looked at him all year, so Harry had thought, horribly, selfishly…
And now he’s gone. And he loved him, Harry, but he was never coming back.
It was a good thing Draco had opened his eyes, because Harry did need that comforting now, as he leaned forwards and collapsed against his friends, who held him tight as if they were suffering from the aftermath of Viktor’s death all over again, letting him cry so that his robes became damp, just as Draco had done the same before the Fourth Task, and not complaining.
He caught Sirius’s eye briefly, as he hugged him, to see him nod slowly, a hint of a smile turning up the corner of his lips, and Draco nodded back, gnawing at the inside of his cheek with conflicting feelings on his disowned cousin. So much of his perception of life and his family had changed in the past year… He had met his disowned Aunt and learned she was a very nice lady, for Merlin’s sake… What was acceptance of Sirius Black as family, when he’d befriend muggleborns, gotten pay for House-Elves at Hogwarts, and even -
By Merlin, he liked Harry freakin Potter.
So he smiled back at his cousin, saying as much as he could without words, ‘Yeah, you’re alright, Black.’ and he was.
-*-*-*-
If Percy looked like he hadn’t gotten a wink of sleep throughout the entire experience of the hellish night before, and the kids all looked like they had been straight through hell itself and come back to tell the tale, than Harry didn’t have a clue what to describe the disheveled man stepping out of the limousine before them, but it was neither of those, and probably something worse.
Cornelius Fudge was certainly recognizable to the conformed Minister he used to be; pinstripe robes, bowler hat spinning rapidly in his hands, but those hands were shaky now, and his hair wasn’t combed or even gelled, instead hanging flat and limp against a face growing the beginnings of facial hair Harry doubted was transfigured this time. What could make it worse? Eye bags deeper than Draco’s, sagging down his face so that he looked ten years older than he probably was (though in truth Harry didn’t have a single guess for his exact age).
At the sight of the line up of familiar kids, however (Hermione included, standing half leaned against Ron for support and layered in bandages around her ribs beneath her clothes), Fudge instantly brightened, placing his hat back on his head so that the could clap his hand hands and grin at them.
“Ah, my favorite teenagers.” He paled, looking very uncomfortable as he mumbled, “That didn’t sound right…” and Ron declared, “Nope!” popping the ‘p’ but grinning all the same. “It’s good to see you, Minister,” Harry said, biting back a laugh as his friends around him chuckled, and Fudge relaxed, stepping forward to rest a hand on Harry’s shoulder and say, “Thank you, Mr. Potter.”
And it was good to see him, because somehow, someway, through all of the chaos he’d been tossed through this year since first accepting Voldemort’s return inside the Hospital Wing at Hogwarts, Fudge had shaped up to be something like nice company between two different Three Broomsticks meetings and a newspaper being made in between. One might say, even if nothing else had succeeded this year, his goal for bringing a group of kids together to back him certainly did.
“So, when are we going to do it?” Neville asked as the crew all piled into the limo, and for a moment, Fudge blinked blankly at him, but then the dots connected in his brain and his eyes lit up once more. “Ah, right! It. Yes, I assume with You-Know-Who breaking into the Ministry the public is going to want answers… And I fully intend to give it to them. With,” He raised a questioning eyebrow at the kids around him. “The Hogwarts Order of Defense’s full support, I presume?”
“We’ve made it this far, haven’t we?” Hermione said, wincing as she shifted her weight off of Ron to sit straight in her seat and declare, “We’re behind you the whole way, Minister.” Fudge smiled.
The ride to King's Cross was long and silent, so that Harry found himself staring out the window and getting lost in the scenery, a past time he had grown to enjoy when staring out the window to the Dursley's car, trying in vain to drone out their chastising tones. Eventually, they pulled up to the familiar station, though the journey became strange. He was so used to only coming here twice a year, with crates of luggage at that, that just striding in through the mostly empty halls of the station, following the bowler-hatted head of the Minister of Magic before him… The past twenty four hours had been chaotic, but this was a new level of strange.
Past the barrier, the station was still mostly empty, and checking his watch Harry wasn’t surprised by why - it was 7:30 at night. But one worker stood in full uniform at the stairs to the first carriage, beaming at the Minister, his assistant, and the teens behind them.
“Welcome, Minister. We’ve had this car reserved for you.” The man said with a rigid nod and Fudge smiled, shaking his hand and passing a handful of sickles with it. “Thank you, Joey. Now, it’s late, you best be getting home to that wife of yours.” The man Harry assumed was named Joey batted a hand, calling, “Bah! She’s got the kid in her stomach to keep her company, right?” after the group as they filed onto the train car.
“I never thought he’d be so…. I dunno…” Neville mumbled into Harry’s ear once Percy slid the door shut behind them, and Harry finished his thought for him with, “Normal?” “Yeah, I guess. He doesn’t act like a Minister at all.”
“No,” Hermione cut in, listening beside them and smiling softly as they watched Fudge converse with the train conductor in the doorway just as casually as the man from before, though this one was divorced with two kids, they learned quickly. “He doesn’t.”
Fudge turned around, paling at the sets of eyes all on him, then spotted Hermione’s smirk and raised an eyebrow. “Whispering about me behind my back, Miss Granger?” He asked and she shrugged, “Blackmailers tend to do that, you know.” She said nonchalantly though it caused most of the group to whip their heads to her in fright. Fudge immediately raised his hands in a calming manner, explaining, “No need to worry, it’s only a joke.” He then pointed to the compartments around them. “We best start getting comfortable before the train gets moving.”
Too late, with a whistle the train began to chug and Fudge shrugged his shoulders helplessly, the group all splitting off to different compartments hurriedly, though it was hard in a cramped space like this.
Fudge and Percy sat in one and Neville, Ginny, and Luna took another, whilst Cedric and Pansy took the third, Cedric having to take the handi-cap compartment that couldn’t fit as many people. That left the Quartet together again in the final compartment, shifting awkwardly and staring at various points in the space, but never each other.
Slowly, Hermione’s fingers inched towards Ron’s, and Harry really didn’t realize he was doing the same to Draco’s until they landed on skin. He glanced over awkwardly then, feeling his face grow hot, but relaxed at the sight of Draco’s soft little smile beginning to grow on his lips. That smile began to grow even larger as Harry’s face got hotter, then those lips opened and a giggle came pouring out.
A giggle. A laugh so full of joy it was impossible for Harry not to laugh too. And soon, the whole Quartet was back to laughing, and for one long, bright moment, bright enough to outshine the darkness of all the halls in the Department of Mysteries, the smoke of Malfoy Manor on fire, or the depths of the night outside. A bright moment, that almost brought them right back to the beginning of the year, before anything could shatter their hearts, and when they were just a group of fifteen year olds, happy to go back to Hogwarts.
And they still were happy to go back to Hogwarts, but now three of them were sixteen, two an official couple, and the other something both secretly hoped would become more. Everything had changed so much, and yet they were laughing again. If nothing else, Harry saw that as a sign that there wasn’t just a dreadful war ahead, because his friends were still beside him, and that’s all that mattered now, in this bright, joyful, blush-filled moment.