“It feels like everyone else is doing the work.”
November 10
“That sounds… horrifying, Harry.” Dumbledore looked incredibly disturbed by what Harry told him, which was vindicating.
“It was,” Harry agreed. Harry took a deep breath before he looked down at the note on the table beside him. Harry read it while he twisted his wrist sharply and pointed his wand at the giant boulder in the center of the room. “Petraniffla Mutatio!”
The boulder shifted and became fur covered and brown, but was still a boulder.
“That’s no matter, you’re doing much better,” Dumbledore told Harry patiently. He held his wand out and slowly twisted his wrist, showing Harry the precise motion again. “More fluid, once more.”
Dumbledore flicked his wand at the boulder, making it look like a boulder once again.
Harry did the motion a few times before he looked at the parchment and read the incantation again.
“Petraniffla Mutatio!”
The boulder definitely became more animal shaped and soft with brown fur and even a long tail that time, but it wasn’t a niffler.
“Wonderful!” Dumbledore cried, as if Harry had done it correctly. “Dear boy, I’m certain that if you continue to practice diligently there’s no doubt that you will have this part mastered.”
That part, because Harry’s plan had two parts and Harry wasn’t exactly confident in either part. Harry actually wasn’t entirely certain what the second part was, he just knew that if it involved magic that he was a dead man. Dumbledore was confident though, which made Harry want to be confident.
“Sir, we’ve been practicing all morning and it’s still only a rock,” Harry pointed out, attempting to remain respectful instead of rude.
“Is it only a rock?” Dumbledore asked. He ran his hand down the side of the boulder and smiled. “Ah, it’s certainly a soft rock if so.”
Harry nodded, it wasn’t all that convincing of a nod though because Dumbledore straightened and gave Harry a very reassuring look.
“Harry, this is a NEWT level spell,” Dumbledore told him. “The fact that you are even obtaining fur and a tail on the first day of practice is quite the accomplishment. Now, why don’t we take a break and have lunch, hm? Remus should be with us shortly.”
Harry agreed, if only to not think about a dragon for a few minutes.
When Harry first started his lessons, he thought it might be uncomfortable spending so much time around the headmaster, but it wasn’t. It was nice, actually. Dumbledore was a rather patient teacher, a decent listener, and had a way of encouraging Harry that didn’t feel like just empty words.
Harry often enjoyed proving people wrong, but when Dumbledore said he believed Harry could do something - Harry actually wanted to prove him right. Harry wanted to show that all the time Dumbledore spent on Harry wasn’t being wasted.
If the bloody boulder would just cooperate…
Dumbledore was quiet for the first few minutes of their lunch though. They shared a plate of sandwiches and Harry was disturbed to realize that he knew if Dumbledore was quiet that it meant he was thinking deeply about something.
It was strange, knowing that. Harry wondered how many others spent enough time with the Headmaster to know such little and trivial things about him.
Harry wanted to ask Dumbledore if he had any luck with finding the person who entered Harry in the tournament, but he could wait. Harry assumed that if he had, he probably would have told Dean or Sam when the three of them arrived that morning though.
The two of them had a sandwich a piece by the time Dumbledore shook his head and fixed a smile on his face.
“I caught myself wondering what it is that I would have been granted by a djinn,” Dumbledore said, referring to the story Harry shared with him.
Harry’s lips quirked up in a grin. “Perhaps socks, sir?”
Dumbledore chuckled and tilted his head slightly as he took another sandwich.
“I think that, and I do trust that you would not share this as gossip, Harry, but if it were an impossible wish to be granted, mine would not be dissimilar to yours.”
Harry felt a happy twinge in his stomach at knowing that Dumbledore trusted him with something so personal. When they had discussed the mirror that Harry found in his first year, Dumbledore said that he saw himself with wool socks.
Even at eleven, Harry had known it was a lie. It felt nice to have grown and earned some measure of trust from a man he admired.
“I’d never tell anyone, sir,” Harry swore. “Er… could I ask a question about that though?”
“A question that I reserve the right to not answer?” Dumbledore was still smiling so Harry knew it wasn’t a reprimand, only a forewarning. “Certainly.”
“Did your parents pass away when you were very young?” Harry asked. It was a rather personal question, so Harry didn’t tack on a ‘sir’.
“By the time that I completed my school years, I lost both of my parents,” Dumbledore said simply. He didn’t sound sad about it, Harry figured it had been quite a long time ago. He did change the subject though, so Harry knew that was the end of the answer he would give.
“Now, may I ask you a question?” Dumbledore asked. His eyes twinkled when he added, “One that you may refuse me a direct answer on if you feel that it is too personal.”
Harry chuckled and nodded as he took another sandwich to eat.
“Did you share the details of your experience with your brothers?”
“Er…” Harry thought about that while he peeled the crust off his sandwich. Harry didn’t usually mind crusts, but Dumbledore liked bread that had seeds in the crust and Harry didn’t like how they crunched between his teeth.
“Some of it,” Harry said, trying to remember. Harry told Dean that he got his parents back and he told Sam about the two girlfriends bit. Harry also thought he might have told Dean how he made himself leave the world he’d been in, but that was foggy enough that it could have been a dream.
In Harry’s defense, he didn’t plan on telling Professor Dumbledore the entire story, it had just happened. Dumbledore asked Harry how his week had been and Harry found himself just talking.
It happened like that with Professor Dumbledore sometimes.
“I hope that, with time, of course, you might see that experience as a gift,” Dumbledore told Harry gently. “There is pain in seeing something so wonderful locked away behind the wall of tragedies that your family experienced, but seeing your parents as they should be? Hearing words of love that you can cherish forever? There is a gift in there, Harry.”
“Yes, sir.” Harry agreed, looking down at the sandwich he had lost his appetite for. It was nice, Harry’s recent dreams having his mum saying she loved him instead of screaming. It didn’t mean that it wasn’t still painful, in an entirely new way.
Dumbledore must have known that Harry no longer wanted to discuss the djinn though because he changed the subject after a moment.
“I had a meeting the other day with your brother, Sam,” Dumbledore said. “You know, Harry, all these years when I’ve had to listen to Professor Snape discuss your cheek and to think I could have told him that it was a family trait.”
Harry laughed and some of the gloom that had been lingering over him dissipated for the time being.
“You should hear Dean, sir,” Harry said with a grin. “I think that the professors would have had him in constant detention.”
“A relative of yours in detention? I don’t believe it,” Dumbledore said with a cheery wink. “I did find myself wondering where Sam would have been sorted if he had been a student. It’s a silly pastime of mine, a habit after so many years of watching sortings, I’m afraid.”
Harry considered it then. Sam was terribly brave, but he also enjoyed learning and researching. Dean was simpler to sort, if in Harry’s mind and not verbally.
“Dean would be a… a….” Harry trailed off when he realized the word he wanted wasn’t there. “Er… the same as me, sir.”
“A Gryffindor?” Dumbledore asked, relieving Harry to have the word back for the moment. Dumbledore seemed surprised by Harry’s assessment though. “I’m afraid we’ll have to agree to disagree, Harry. I’ve had your Dean down for Hufflepuff since the day we met.”
“What?” Harry nearly laughed again. “Sir, Dean’s favorite argument to use is that ‘he’s the oldest’. That’s not very fair of him, is it?”
“I think his strong sense of loyalty he feels toward his family would have pushed him to Hufflepuff,” Dumbledore disagreed brightly. “And, truly, yellow would be a wonderful color for him.”
Harry laughed again and did manage to eat another sandwich while Dumbledore told him he often thought that students should be sorted according to what color they look best in. Apparently, according to Dumbledore, it meant that Harry would have gone to Slytherin and the entire Weasley family would go in Ravenclaw.
There was a knock on the door they used as a classroom when Dumbledore had been enthusiastically explaining how he would have preferred Ravenclaw for himself.
So the blue ties could bring out his eyes, of course.
Dumbledore stood up to answer the door while Harry finished the last of his sandwich. The man who entered was familiar and Harry knew his name, it had just been said… It was…
“Remus,” Remus (Harry was certain that wasn’t the name he had written down) said as a greeting when he walked over to Harry. He sent a curious look at the boulder that sat in the middle of the room. “Transfiguration?” he guessed.
“We thought it might be best if Harry had an alternative means of fetching his egg,” Dumbledore told him. And by ‘we’, Dumbledore meant ‘he’ since Harry only agreed with the plan that was given to him.
“Sirius suggested Harry summons the egg,” Remus said as he swung the bag hanging over his hip off him and landing it on the table. “I assume that won’t work?”
Harry subtly ducked his head so that he could check his list - it was Lupin, not Remus. Magic LSD-Harry who grew up hearing stories from Lupin might call him Remus, but Harry wasn’t going to.
“It would not,” Dumbledore said to Lupin. “I’m surprised that Sirius thought of a simple spell first, surely he’s never tried anything the easy way as a starting point.”
And Harry was surprised that Sirius had any input at all. Despite Harry’s determination to repair his relationship with Sirius, he hadn’t actually tried calling him again. There were only so many rejections he could take. Harry kept the mirror on him at all times, in case Sirius called him, but it had stayed quiet.
“His first idea was actually that Harry masters the animagus transformation in a fortnight,” Lupin said drily. “His second was that Harry transfigured the dragon to a poodle. His third idea was that Harry levitated Severus in the arena to use as a distraction.”
Oooh. Harry smiled wistfully for a moment. That would be brilliant…
“I see.” Dumbledore didn’t laugh, but there was definitely amusement in the twitching of his beard. “What plan was it that he suggested summoning the egg?”
“Mmm. Tenth?” Lupin said. “Maybe eleventh.”
“And they say that men can’t change,” Dumbledore quipped. “Were you able to speak with Miss Granger, Remus? I’ve heard reports that Gryffindor is putting the other houses to shame in terms of inventing.”
“I have.” Lupin opened the flap of his bag and he pulled out a very strange item. It looked like a severed ear on a flesh-colored string. When Lupin offered it to Harry, Harry hesitated before taking it.
“Whose ear is that?” he asked, eyeing the ear skeptically.
Lupin chuckled. “No one’s, I assure you. This is a prototype, the final product is meant to be different. We’re only testing the distance of its transmission.”
Harry, with extreme reluctance, took the ear from Lupin. It felt rather real, which made Harry that much more uncomfortable when Lupin told him to put it against his own ear.
Harry did it though and he grimaced at the warmth of it.
“Gross,” he muttered.
“Tap it with your wand and say ‘Hermione Granger’,” Lupin told him, smirking at Harry’s disgusted expression.
Harry did as he was told, though it was awkward to hold the ear against his while he did it.
It was worth it though when there was a crackle in Harry’s ear just before he heard Hermione’s voice.
“Harry?” She sounded distant, as if they were speaking at opposite ends of a very long tunnel, but it was her. “It’s Hermione Granger. Is it working okay?”
“I think, and I can’t be sure, but I think this might be a bit obvious,” Harry said seriously, smiling wide at the success of it.
Hermione laughed and that was good too.
“This is only a modified version of what the twins, Fred and George Weasley, made,” she said, politely reminding Harry of their names.
Hermione then shot off half a dozen questions about Harry’s quality of hearing, how likely he thought it was that he would remember her name, and what activation word he would rather use.
“It can’t be something you’ll say during the task or it will disconnect on me,” Hermione told him.
Harry thought about it for a moment, considering his options. A word he wouldn’t accidentally use but something he wouldn’t forget either?
“Er… snitch?” Harry suggested. “No, that’s no good, I think about quidditch a lot…”
“We could do Ravenclaw?” Hermione suggested. “You aren’t really friends with anyone in that house, so I can’t imagine that you would use it. Cedric, the other Hogwarts champion, the seeker, he’s a Hufflepuff so that might come up in conversation and at any given time I think you’re thinking about Slytherins.”
“No… that’s probably not good either, I might forget the password in that case,” Harry said. It was easy, when he was talking with Hermione, to forget that there were other people in the room with him.
Not that Dumbledore or Lupin seemed to mind. Dumbledore was staring up at the ceiling and Lupin was pulling clothes from his bag.
“Oh! Is it all proper nouns then?” Hermione asked, sounding rather excited while Harry had no idea what she meant. “Okay, how about eagle?”
“How about mirror?” Harry said instead. It just popped up in his mind following his thought that his mirror was much easier to activate since all he had to do was read the name taped to the back of it.
“Perfect!” Hermione said. “I should have the final set ready next weekend. Oh, I wish I could see you today. You sound, hm. I can’t tell if you sound upset or if that’s the ears distorting things.”
“It’s the ears,” Harry said quickly. “I should go. I’ll see you next weekend. And - and… thank you, for this. You’re brilliant, truly.”
Harry didn’t need to see her to know that Hermione was smiling when she disconnected after asking what time Harry’s portkey left in the morning. Harry assumed it would be at five, since he was only staying the one day. Next weekend Harry would be there for two days - a day for his regular classes and a day for more tournament prep.
And the weekend after would be the tournament.
Fourteen days.
It didn’t seem like enough days.
Lupin clearly agreed because he dove straight into what he had been working on as soon as Harry returned the ear to him.
“I’ve checked and the only requirement for attire during the tournament is that you adhere to your school’s dress code,” Lupin said. “And since you’re technically a Hogwarts student, I assumed it was best that we stuck to the Hogwarts dress code for non-class days.”
Harry didn’t know that Hogwarts even had a dress code.
Lupin had Harry stand up and he nodded as he looked him over. “Yes, I thought you might fit… Here. I need no accolades, but I will say that I had to fight a house-elf with a knife to get this for you.”
Harry was bemused by that as he accepted the shirt he was given. It was long-sleeved, dark-red, with a golden ‘01’ on the front. When Harry turned it around, he blinked at the back of it in momentary confusion. Across the top, in large capital letters, it said ‘POTTER’ and just beneath that ‘Captain’.
It was a quidditch shirt, for Gryffindor, clearly. But Harry had never been captain of his team. Which meant…
“It was your dad’s, he once loaned it to Sirius and never got it back,” Lupin said. “The one reeks of James’s arrogance, but I thought it might bring you some luck as your father never lost a match when he was captain.”
“Oh.” Harry’s chest felt tight and he clutched the shirt a bit more possessively. “Thank you.”
“Of course.” Lupin smiled. “Now put it on so I can try and catch it on fire.”
Harry wondered if Lupin had also recently been in a car accident as he had clearly lost his mind.
Werewolf madness? Prolonged exposure to Sirius?
It was something anyway. Maybe Lupin needed lists of his own, starting with:
‘I will not catch Harry’s dead father’s clothes on fire’.
It took Lupin and Dumbledore both a few minutes to convince Harry to stand still so that he could be caught on fire. Lupin swore that it worked when he had been testing it (and what if it hadn’t?!) and that he would happily let Harry test it on him but the shirt couldn’t be enlarged or the fire-proof charms might fail.
Then Harry had to awkwardly change shirts. Dumbledore politely turned around, though Lupin peered at Harry’s chest curiously.
“You’ve got a tattoo,” he said, his voice strangled with surprise.
“Er… yeah, demons, you know,” Harry said, looking down at his tattoo. That was the one improvement in real life, Harry having the same tattoo his brothers did.
“Demons?” Lupin asked, watching while Harry pulled on his dad’s quidditch shirt. It was a bit big, Harry wasn’t tall, but Harry liked it.
“Yeah, one of them possessed…” Harry faltered on the name. Usually Harry spent so much time around his brothers that the names were in the front of his mind, but Harry couldn’t find it then.
“Er… Sam,” he said after pulling his list from his trouser pocket.
“Interesting,” Lupin commented. “Alright, stand very still Harry. Albus, if you’re ready?”
Harry didn’t think that he would personally ever be ready to be caught on fire, but he would prefer to test Lupin’s idea before he faced a dragon.
It still took an awful lot of willpower for Harry to not close his eyes when Lupin had a stream of flames pouring from his wand, aimed at Harry.
“Can you feel anything?” Lupin asked when Harry’s torso was actually on fire. Harry had his head tilted as far from the flames as he could, but he could still feel them licking upward toward him.
“Not my chest, no,” Harry said, speaking quickly. “Er… my face.”
Dumbledore had the flames gone in an instant and Harry immediately checked that the shirt hadn’t been damaged. It hadn’t, thankfully, it didn’t even have a single thread singed.
“This is excellent!” Lupin said, beaming at his own brilliance. “If you would bring a spare pair of trousers next weekend and the shoes you’re most comfortable in, I’ll fix them as well. Then, when you enter the arena, you’ll only touch your wand to your clothes and move your lips. Otherwise, you could be accused of cheating.”
Harry sent a furtive look at Dumbledore who only smiled serenely at him.
“Right,” Harry said sarcastically. “We wouldn’t want that.”
“Cheaters never prosper,” Lupin said seriously. “Now, why don’t we see how your transfiguration is coming along? And, Albus, I presume you’ve considered that Harry will need to distract the dragon in order to keep it from attacking the niffler?”
“I have.” Dumbledore smiled and even if he was a brilliant man who had very strange and sometimes hysterical ideas, he was still unsettling at times. “I have a wonderful plan for that.”
Like then… that was unsettling. Harry had asked at the beginning of the day what the second part of his plan would be, but Dumbledore said that it would be best if Harry only focused on the ‘most difficult part’ for the day.
And it was difficult, truly.
Even with two of the best professors Harry had ever known helping him, by the time four o’clock rolled around, Harry’s boulder was still not a niffler.
Harry found his brothers immediately after Dumbledore called it a day. Harry had the spell he needed written down (along with the counter-spell so there weren’t an odd assortment of boulders in his lawn) and tucked safely in his bag with his shirt. Harry hoped that he would get the spell down with two weeks to practice, especially since that would be the only spell he practiced.
And since Dumbledore said the second part of his plan was easy, Harry hoped it involved a spell he already mastered… like the light one.
Dean and Sam were sitting at a table in the corner of the pub, waiting on Harry. Sam had a stack of books that looked new in front of him and Dean had a bottle of something that he passed from hand to hand.
“Hey, how’d it go?” Dean asked as soon as he saw Harry and Lupin.
Dumbledore went out through the back as usual. Apparently, despite giving them a room to work in on weekends and a room for Harry and his brothers to sleep in, the barkeeper didn’t like Dumbledore.
“Quite well,” Lupin answered with a hand on Harry’s shoulder. “I think he’ll do fine.”
Harry pulled a face when Sam glanced at him over his book. Harry was glad the others were confident, because he was not.
“You think?” Dean repeated, his eyebrows showing what he thought of Lupin’s choice of words. “That’s not really going to work for us. Sammy, is that going to work for us?”
“Not even a little bit,” Sam said without looking away from his book.
“And what did I just say I was going to do if our brother got hurt by a dragon for a freaking game?”
“Salt this city and burn it down.”
“Exactly,” Dean said with a hard nod. “So tell me what’s your plan exactly?”
“I’ll let Harry explain it to you,” Lupin said, sounding much too amused. If he knew how dangerous Harry’s brothers could be, he might not be so amused. He squeezed Harry’s shoulder and nodded down at him. “I’ll see you next weekend. Don’t forget to bring clothes.”
“Hey, I’ll walk you out,” Dean said quickly, standing up. “I need some air anyway, Sam’s trying to bore me to death.”
Harry didn’t know what Dean was doing, but he doubted very much if it involved needing air. It was probably a Dean-Issue though, so Harry slid in his abandoned seat and sighed at Sam.
“I think when I die that you should make my room a library,” Harry told him. “You’re running out of book shelves.”
Sam wasn’t impressed by Harry’s comment, but Harry also wasn’t impressed by his next one.
“And I think you should lose your virginity before you face the dragon. Apparently, they’re drawn to purity.”
Harry went very red in the face and resolved to not make light of his future death around Sam anymore.
And when Harry did die, he hoped Dean made his room a weapons room or something; just so Sam couldn’t use it.
Dean didn’t stay outside with Lupin long and he asked for a tour of the village when he returned. Sam seemed content with his stack of books so Harry left his things with Sam to give Dean a tour.
It was rather chilly out, but quiet without the Hogwarts students around. Harry spent his time walking around, pointing out different things to Dean in between explaining Dumbledore’s plan for the task —
“This is that shack I told you about. Everyone calls it haunted, but it isn’t.”
“Nifflers like shiny things, Dean.”
“Oh, so this place that has the tunnel that connects to the school. Also, they’ve got the best sweets.”
“Well, if I use a large boulder, I’ll get a large niffler.”
“This is where I found out I had a godfather.”
Dean took everything in with interest and Harry rolled his eyes when they stopped in the Three Broomsticks for a quick butterbeer where Dean began flirting with the woman who worked there.
“Thanks, sweetheart,” he said when she brought them their drinks. Dean had a foot propped up on the chair Harry sat in and Harry was further annoyed by how the woman winked at Dean before striding away with her hips swinging.
“You’re ridiculous,” Harry told him.
“Hey, knowing how to flirt could save your life one day,” Dean said.
“Yeah?” Harry raised an eyebrow and lowered his voice. “You think I can just call the dragon sweetheart and it’ll decide to not shoot flames at me?”
Dean shrugged. “You never know until you try.”
It took a few seconds of Harry staring deadpan at Dean before Dean gave in with a grimace.
“Don’t actually do that, Harry,” he said. “We’ll call that plan Z, huh?”
“I wonder what the others will do,” Harry said, voicing a curiosity he’d had all day. “They can’t exactly plan in advance… I dunno what I would have done if I didn’t have time to plan.”
“Throw on the invisible sheet and run like hell?” Dean suggested.
“And risk having it caught on fire?” Harry scoffed. “No.”
“Oh! Do some magic mind control and have someone else get the egg?”
“I think that’s illegal.”
They went on like that for a few minutes while they finished their drinks. Their plans got progressively stupider, which actually went a ways towards boosting Harry’s confidence in his actual plan.
“It’s not a horrible plan, but let’s see what Sammy finds out,” Dean said when Harry told him just that on their walk back to the pub they left Sam in. “He’s going to be the dragon expert by the time he finishes those books.”
Sam seemed to be intent on finishing as many books as he could that day as he read all through dinner, occasionally pausing to make a note or to take a bite of food when Dean nagged him. He would make comments occasionally too, just nonsensical things that he didn’t seem to want any reply to:
“Gold only? Or would silver work?”
“But they have to have a - ah, belly.”
“How big…?”
Harry stayed quiet so that Sam could read and felt both grateful and guilty that Sam was putting so much work into researching dragons. Harry offered to take one of the books to read, but Sam seemed so offended by the offer that Harry dropped it.
“Sam likes to get his geek on,” Dean told Harry after dinner. The two of them had decided to call it a night after dinner and Harry felt even more guilty that Sam said he would be up later.
“It’s good for him to have something to focus on, and you’ve got the shittiest job anyway,” Dean said. There were only two beds in their room, no couch, so Harry planned on sharing a bed with Sam. Dean flopped on the bed by the door and kicked his boots off.
Harry did the same at the other bed, but neater.
“Do I?” Harry asked. “It feels like everyone else is doing the work. Though, I suppose I did have to stand in place while that bloke caught me on fire.”
“You have to… wait.” Dean flipped on his side so fast that it almost seemed instantaneous. “What ‘bloke’ caught you on fire?!”
Harry licked his lips nervously as he gauged Dean’s mood. Furious, clearly.
“You know, funnily enough, I don’t remember,” Harry said. He smiled charmingly. “Brain injury.”
At some point, it had to be useful for Harry to have rather than a constant annoyance.
Harry fell asleep rather quickly, even if he had been anxious to do so.
It was one thing when Harry had a nightmare that he was relieved to wake up from, it was something else entirely to have a dream so wonderful that waking was painful.
That was what happened again… Harry had been dreaming that he was playing quidditch with the sister that had never existed one second, cheerful and content, and the next thing he knew he was being prodded awake by his actual brother.
“Harry, hey.” Harry’s brother had his face directly in front of Harry’s so Harry could see him even in the darkness. Harry automatically scooted over, assuming that was what he wanted, and his brother shook his head.
“Come downstairs,” he whispered. “Grab your shoes.”
Harry didn’t want to go downstairs, he wanted to go back to sleep. But he assumed that his brother had a good reason for waking him up, so Harry ignored the pang of loss and dutifully followed him through the room, past where their other brother slept, and down the stairs.
The first thing that Harry noticed was that there was a lantern on the table in the corner where Harry and his brothers had been earlier. Since Sam’s books and notebook were still there, Harry assumed that he hadn’t actually been to bed yet.
The second thing that Harry noticed was his friend standing by that table, smiling widely at Harry.
“Hermione,” she said just before reaching out to hug Harry. Harry was startled, not fully awake, and only shook his head in bemusement when Hermione asked if he had his cloak.
Sam did though and he handed it over before he took his seat in front of his books again.
“It’s a bit past curfew,” Harry whispered to Hermione as they walked down the sidewalk in… that village.
Hermione grinned, maybe, Harry couldn’t really look at her as they were huddled close under the cloak and it was making Harry’s stomach do flips. It was probably nothing, Harry just remembered how it felt to kiss her and that made it slightly uncomfortable for him.
“I didn’t like the tone of your voice and couldn’t sleep,” Hermione said. “Also I want to know what the plan is because Professor Moody said something that I found quite interesting.”
“Oh?”
It didn’t seem planned, it was automatic when they took the turn toward the shack that wasn’t actually haunted.
“I’ll tell you about it when we get inside and I can light a fire,” Hermione promised. “And you can tell me what’s happened?”
That was the thing about Hermione; Harry didn’t have to say that something happened, she just knew. Maybe it was their years of friendship and shared adventures or that Hermione was a girl which usually meant Harry could talk to her more about feelings he had (Harry didn’t often have feelings, but he had too many to keep to himself the year before).
It also might have been a purely Hermione thing, which really made Magic LSD-Harry that much more of a prat for thinking he needed two girlfriends.
Three parents, four siblings, two girlfriends… He was greedy, honestly.
And tall.
Bastard.
Harry did show off a bit when they made it to the shack and he used his shoulder to bust open the door. It wasn’t hard, but it made Hermione grin.
“You’ll tear a muscle,” she said as she took the cloak off them.
“My brothers do it all the time,” Harry said.
“And they’ll be pain filled old men,” Hermione said with what seemed like a playful sniff of disapproval. “Come sit down, I’ll start a fire.”
Harry did, though he teased Hermione as he did it.
“Sneaking out, starting fires, who are you and what have you done with Hermione?” he joked.
Hermione hummed and had a small blue fire burning harmlessly just in front of where Harry sat. Harry worried for a moment that it would spread, but it seemed content to stay in place.
“I thought I would take a page out of the rule book whoever entered you in the tournament is using,” Hermione said. She sat down beside Harry and held her hands out toward the warm blue flames. “Which they have no leads on, by the way.”
“It’ll probably be whoever it is that’s teaching defense,” Harry said, half kidding. “First year, the bloke tried to kill me. Second year, the bloke tried to wipe my memory. Third year, well… you were there.”
“I hope not, since he’s the one that’s leading the investigation,” Hermione said, very seriously. She inched closer to Harry so they they were side-by-side. “I overheard him telling Professor Flitwick, the charms professor, Harry—”
Harry bit back a grin at Hermione’s over-explanation.
“—and he said that he interrogated Professor Snape, the wizard who teaches potions, and didn’t get any information. But then! Then I heard him ask Professor Flitwick if he thought that Professor Dumbledore, the headmaster, had taught you the summoning spell. And I thought that was peculiar, so I followed him to ask why he thought you needed that.”
“The egg can’t be summoned,” Harry told her, repeating what Dumbledore told him. It was actually easier to talk to Hermione than almost anyone as she used names and titles to describe everyone for him.
“No, I didn’t think so,” she said. “But he said that if you had one good trick that a simple spell was all that you would need.”
Harry pondered that for a moment. Did he have any good tricks?
“Er… I’m not sure what he thinks I could have done,” Harry said with a frown. “I’m not really good at anything.”
“Liar.” Hermione kicked Harry’s ankle and shook her head at him. “You’re good at many things, Harry. Ron, our friend with the red-hair who you met on the train? Ron thinks Professor Moody meant flying.”
“Oh.” Harry was actually a decent enough flier, good enough that he was made seeker in his first year. Not that Harry had flown since summer though.
“Is that what Professor Dumbledore thinks too?” Hermione turned to look at Harry and he saw the stress lines on her forehead again.
“No, we’ve got a much better plan,” Harry said, forcing himself to sound confident for her sake. “I think you’ll have to remind me what the spell is when the task starts though. I don’t fancy getting another tattoo.”
Hermione started to laugh, just a soft puff of air that was close enough that Harry could smell what must be mint toothpaste.
Though, that was when Harry noticed something strange at the same moment that Hermione must have picked up on the ‘another’ bit.
“You got a tattoo?!” Hermione screeched.
“Are your teeth different?” Harry asked at the same time.
Harry was sure her teeth were different, the front two anyway. They weren’t as large as usual, maybe? It was something that changed her smile just a bit.
Hermione covered her teeth with her lips and glared, which Harry was able to easily translate.
“My brothers have the same one,” Harry said as he pulled down the neck of his shirt so that Hermione could see the top of the design.
“Oh.” Hermione reached out to touch it and Harry felt goosebumps erupt on his arms at her light touch. “Does it mean something? I can’t tell. Let me see the entire thing.”
“I’d have to take my shirt off,” Harry pointed out, unhelpfully blushing at the idea.
Curse Sam and his comment about Harry’s virginity.
“You’ve seen me with a cat tail, I think I can see you without a shirt on,” Hermione said stubbornly despite her own blush.
“Oh… fine,” Harry huffed. He pulled his left arm out of the sleeve of his shirt so that he could lift it high enough to show Hermione the tattoo settled over his heart. Hermione didn’t touch it then but she did make a squeak of surprise.
It wasn’t unlike the squeak she made when she saw Harry’s oldest brother shirtless over the summer… which… yeah, that was brilliant.
“You told me you got a mark against demonic possession, you didn’t say it was that,” Hermione said when Harry yanked his shirt back on. Hermione’s eyes were lingering on where the tattoo was, though it was hidden from her by Harry’s shirt again.
“Didn’t I?” Harry asked, knowing full well that he had been purposefully evasive to her. Ron knew about it, he thought it was wicked.
“You didn’t tell me about your teeth,” Harry pointed out. He settled back on his hands to show complete patience for the story.
“Do they look okay?” Hermione smiled rather nervously. “I just had it done the other day. Ron and I got in a tiff with Malfoy, that’s Draco Malfoy, the blonde Slytherin boy who plays seeker? Anyway, I had to go see Madam Pomfrey, the medi-witch for Hogwarts, and Pansy, my friend in Slytherin? With the black hair? Well she went with me and sort of suggested I just let Madam Pomfrey shrink them a bit smaller than they had been. No one else has noticed… they don’t look bad, do they?”
“They look great,” Harry said quickly. “They’re different, but I’m sure I’ll get used to them. And, er… I’ve seen you smile a lot, you know? So maybe that’s why nobody else has noticed.”
“Ron’s seen me smile just as often as you have,” Hermione reminded Harry, which sounded quite sly when paired with the sideways look she added.
“You’re spending too much time with Pansy,” Harry said deadpan. “And Ron, er… maybe he did notice and didn’t want to say anything. He’s quite tactful when it comes to girls, you know.”
“Sure,” Hermione drawled, looking quite pleased.
They fell in an easy enough silence, even if Harry was still a bit embarrassed. It wasn’t until Hermione brought up her original concern that Harry felt any pressure to talk.
“You seem sad,” Hermione said quietly, her shoulder warm and solid against Harry’s side. “I don’t know why I think that, maybe you’re just under a lot put stress? But- but is everything alright?”
Harry pulled his knees up to wrap his arms around so he could rest his chin on them. Harry looked at the fire as he shrugged, unwilling to look at Hermione while he explained.
Because Harry would explain, much more candidly with Hermione than he had anyone else. With Dumbledore, Harry had given him a brief story about how different everything had been… with Hermione, Harry was free to elaborate as much as he wanted in places.
Hermione didn’t care if Harry sniffled some when he described how his mum had smelled or how his sister hadn’t wanted Harry to leave to see his brothers. Harry could admit, just to her, that it felt like a knife in his chest to have seen what his relationship with his godfather could have been.
Harry did not plan on telling Hermione that they had been dating in that life that never existed, though he did.
“Of course you were taller there,” Hermione said when Harry remarked on that oddity. She had her chin on Harry’s shoulder and an arm wrapped around his shoulders. Her voice was quite quivery, which meant she was trying hard to not cry.
“That was a place where you never slept in a cupboard or were deprived of meals,” Hermione said without judgement. “You’re not short now, but I’m not surprised that you could be taller if you hadn’t been abused.”
Harry’s neck started burning and itching so he chose a new aspect of that Harry’s life to change the subject, immediately.
“You and I were dating there,” Harry said, causing Hermione to jerk in surprise. “My sister didn’t like it, she wanted us to break up so I’d marry her friend.”
“What?” Hermione sounded absolutely floored, though she remained by Harry’s side. “You - in a… we were together?”
“Yup. Don’t be weird though, because that me was a dick and had another girlfriend too. Don’t ask me her name, I don’t remember it.”
“Oh.” Hermione was quiet for a few seconds before she swatted Harry’s arm playfully. “How dare you cheat on me, Harry? Honestly, how rude.”
Harry was glad she took that news well because she didn’t like how the story ended. By the time Harry told her how he knew his brothers would have to watch his real body slowly die and how nobody would know that Harry was perfectly happy where he was, they were both crying.
“So I left them, Hermione,” Harry said, his voice as pained as his chest felt at the choice he made. Harry turned his head and stared at Hermione’s wet eyes miserably. “How could I do that? How could I give all that up?”
“Oh, Harry.” Hermione’s initially loose embrace had already tightened but it became a full hug then. She put her head on Harry’s knees as well so their foreheads could touch. “It was very selfless and brave of you,” she said in a voice just louder than a whisper. “I - I can’t imagine how much it hurt though. God, Harry.”
It did hurt. It lessened some, the more that it felt like a dream instead of something that Harry had truly lived in, but it still hurt.
“It was everything I had ever wanted,” Harry said. “Everything.”
Hermione didn’t say anything for a while, she only held on to Harry while he cried for it all over again. If it were anyone else, Harry would be embarrassed. But it was Hermione, who had seen Harry cry before and never seemed to think any less of him for it.
She knew when Harry had reached his capacity on being hugged too. Harry only squirmed some before she was relaxing her hold on him and letting him sit back up.
“So… that was that,” Harry said as he awkwardly tried to turn his head to wipe his face on his shirt sleeve. “And now I get to face a dragon instead of…”
“Being tall and having two girlfriends,” Hermione said with a weak smile and a much appreciated stab at normalcy.
“Well I only kissed you,” Harry said as his own attempt at a joke. “Maybe the other girl was confused about our relationship.”
Hermione laughed and she truly was pretty, even if her eyes were puffy and Harry could see the tear tracks on her face in the firelight.
“Was I a good kisser?” Hermione asked him.
“Mm, better than the many other people I’ve kissed,” Harry grinned. “And who knows? Maybe you were dating loads of blokes behind my back. You could already be seeing someone for all I know.”
“I bet I wasn’t.” Hermione shifted and they were closer together. “I bet I was very… um… you know. I bet I was happy to be your girlfriend, even if your sister didn’t like me.”
“Yeah?” Harry asked. His stomach felt rather weak suddenly as he looked at Hermione’s eyes and saw the genuine affection that they had always had for each other.
Hermione was Harry’s best friend… but she was also a brilliant, pretty, thoughtful person who was saying that she would have been happy to snog Harry.
“I bet my other sister would have liked you,” Harry said, impressing himself with how clear his voice was despite the abrupt dryness of his throat. Harry lifted his head off his knees and then they were very close to each other.
“I would have worked very hard to make them all like me,” Hermione said softly. “I probably also would have cursed your other girlfriend, given her horrible acne or something.”
“You would too,” Harry said fondly. He reached out to tuck a stray curl behind Hermione’s ear. “You’re terrifying, you know.”
“And you’re - you’re the bravest person I’ve ever met,” Hermione said.
Their breaths mingled between them, and the air suddenly felt thick with what they had - and hadn’t - said. Time seemed to stand still for a moment as Harry leaned in, slow enough that Hermione could move if she wanted to.
Hermione met him halfway and their lips met for the first time in real life in a soft and tentative kiss.
It didn’t last an eternity, it didn’t feel deeply passionate as much as it felt… warm. It felt warm and there was something incredibly right in it too.
Harry didn’t know what it was, but he knew that it was the first good thing that happened to him lately and he didn’t want it to ever end.
When it did, Hermione smiled at Harry and her brown eyes were sparkling even in the darkness.
“I’m glad you came back,” she said.
Harry’s returning smile was slower, more shy, but it was a smile and it was real.
“Right now? I am too.”