Chapter 6
Luna knocked on the door and waited patiently. She was standing outside the small home of Ron and Hermione Granger. It had become increasingly clear over the weekend that to get some of Harry’s backstory, he would have to go to people who had known him. Nicholas Flamel was dead, and Albus Dumbledore was hard to reach. That left Ron and Hermione. She knew from Harry that they hadn’t spoken, but Luna was still hoping that they could provide some answers.
The door opened, “Luna come in,” Hermione greeted, while holding an infant on her hip.
“Hello Hermione, hello Rose, right?” Luna checked.
“Yes her name is Rose,” Hermione said with a smile, “She’s six months now.”
“She’s beautiful,” complimented Luna as she walked inside.
“‘Ello Luna, nice to see you again,” greeted Ron as she entered the living room. He was sitting on one of the two large couches in their living room.
“Hi Ron,” Luna said. She had met the couple through Neville, and while she thought they were nice, she hadn’t ever spent time with them alone.
“You said you wanted to talk to us for a story?” Hermione prompted as she gestured for Luna to take a seat.
“Yes, if that’s alright,” Luna said, sitting down in an armchair and pulling out her notepad.
“What’s the story on?” Ron asked. Hermione took a seat next to him.
“Harry Potter,” Luna said simply. She watched as the two immediately exchanged a glance that held a lot of intensity. Luna couldn’t decipher what it meant though.
“Ah,” was all Hermione said.
“I don’t know if we’ll be much help, we’re no longer in contact with him, it’s probably been six years since we’ve seen him.” Ron said, and Luna could hear tension in his voice.
“That’s okay,” Luna said, “I have more questions about your past with him.”
“Alright,” Hermione said, shifting uncomfortably.
“You met him in your first year of Hogwarts?” Luna checked. They nodded. “Can you tell me about that?”
Hermione looked to Ron to speak. He cleared his throat.
“I met him on the train to Hogwarts, and then we were sorted into the same house. We were roommates.” Ron started, “We hung around each other a lot. Eventually Hermione started hanging around too.”
“And that continued through the first four years of Hogwarts?”
“Yes.”
“Did you ever fight with him?” Luna asked.
“Not really.” Hermione answered.
“Well, there was a time when we didn’t speak at the beginning of the fourth year, but that was a misunderstanding,” Ron added.
“What happened there?” Luna prompted.
“I thought he had lied to me about putting his name in the Goblet of Fire for the tournament, but he didn’t,” Ron explained.
“So you resolved that?” Luna asked.
“Yes, we did.” Ron nodded.
“So, after your fourth year, was everything normal between you?” Luna asked.
“Yes, as normal as it could have been with You-Know-Who returning,” Ron answered.
“Can you walk me through how you each found out about what happened that summer?” Luna asked. Everyone knew that Harry had defeated the Dark Lord, but there were only rumors on how he did it, or when.
Ron sighed, “Dumbledore contacted my father a few days after Harry’s birthday and explained that You-Know-Who had found Harry, but that Harry had destroyed him. He said Harry was injured and he was going to take him into his custody for his own protection, because of the escaped Death Eaters. Once Harry was better, he went to the Ministry to give his testimony of what had happened, and I asked my dad to let me go see him.”
“I was at home, and didn’t learn any of this until we got back to Hogwarts, I only knew what I saw in the papers because we were scared of passing information through owls.” Hermione said.
“Did you see him at the Ministry?” Luna asked Ron.
Ron nodded.
“What was that like?”
“Well, he was different. He was quiet, he didn’t smile. That’s odd for Harry, or it was anyways. He didn’t seem injured, but he just seemed… tired maybe? He didn’t want to talk much,” Ron explained.
“After his testimony, they decided to give him an award ceremony. Did you go to that too?” Luna asked.
Ron nodded again, “That time he really didn’t want to talk. He seemed angry almost at times.”
“Did he say why?”
“No, he told me he would tell me what was going on at school, that he couldn’t say anything more while we were there,” Ron said.
“Did you see him again after that?” Luna asked. They both shook their heads.
“There was something that happened right before the school year,” Ron said slowly, looking over to Hermione who nodded slightly.
“Sirius Black was captured and killed, right?” Luna asked. They both stayed silent for a moment.
“Well I suppose it doesn’t matter now does it?” Ron asked his wife.
Hermione shrugged, “I don’t think so.”
She turned to Luna, “Sirius Black was innocent. He was Harry’s godfather. He was in a safehouse that Dumbledore provided for him since he’d found us in our third year.”
Luna blinked. She had not been prepared for that.
“So what happened at the end of summer then?” She quickly recovered from her shock.
“We’re not entirely sure. Dumbledore wouldn’t talk about it afterwards. Some sort of interaction with death eaters and Harry occurred. I don’t know if they found him or what happened, but there was a fight, and Sirius came to defend him, and he died.” Hermione explained.
“How did you find out?”
“We were in contact with him, and my parents were friends with him at that point, also Remus Lupin, our old professor, they were close. So when he disappeared, we asked around and that was all we could gather. We begged to see Harry after that but apparently he had left,” Ron explained.
“Where did he go?”
Ron shrugged, “I don’t know, I never saw him again.”
“Did you receive any letters from him?” Luna asked. They both nodded.
“We did, we exchanged a few letters, but as I said earlier, it wasn’t safe to pass important information. All we knew was that he had been hurt and wouldn’t be coming back right away,” Hermione recalled.
“Did he make it sound like he would be coming back eventually?” Luna prompted.
“I thought so, but he never actually said that I guess,” Ron said thoughtfully, “After a few months passed and his letters stopped, we figured he would just be rejoining us for his sixth year. But then he didn’t.”
“So after the first few months, that’s when you lost contact with him?” Luna asked. They nodded. “And you haven’t heard anything since, not even when he started doing public appearances and such?”
“We thought about reaching out when he showed up a few years ago, but… so much had changed, and we didn’t know what to say. We were hoping he would reach out to us with some explanation,” Hermione said, “And now, well, he’s not really the type of person that we want around the family we are trying to build.”
“Are you saying you don’t approve of his reputation?” Luna checked.
“It doesn’t seem like the Harry we knew. He was kind and quiet. Very reserved. Not… well, not what you see in the tabloids,” Hermione answered carefully.
“What if he reached out to you?” Luna asked, “Would you be open to speaking to him? Or do you have hard feelings?”
“I would be open to a conversation, to see what he had to say for himself, but I wouldn’t make any promises about my feelings changing,” Ron said with conviction, “He was my best friend. He disappeared, and never told us what happened. Now he’s been back for a couple years, and he hasn’t made an effort. I don’t know how else I’m supposed to feel about that.”
Luna nodded.
“Have you spoken to him?” Hermione asked.
Luna nodded, “I did.”
“How did he seem… did he seem like he was doing well or… I don’t know, how was he doing?” Hermione asked.
Luna pondered what she should say. Harry had been nice, that was certain. He was polite and on time. But the people that surrounded him seemed toxic. They were using him, and she wasn’t sure that he had anyone who actually cared about his well being. The drug usage that she had witnessed didn’t seem healthy either, especially if Harry was doing that every night.
“He isn’t what I expected, that’s for sure. I think… he’s living an interesting lifestyle, but he’s been nothing but nice to me,” Luna said carefully.
“Well that’s good to hear I guess,” Hermione said.
“He came over to have dinner with Neville and I a few nights ago,” Luna said, “He seemed really interested in how everyone was doing.”
Silence fell for a few moments.
“Did he ask about us?” Ron asked quietly.
Luna nodded, “I don’t want to get in the middle of anything, but he did ask, and he did seem happy for you both when I mentioned your wedding and your daughter.”
“Interesting,” Ron said, looking at his wife. Luna could sense that a private conversation needed to take place.
“Well, for now that’s all I have, if I have more questions, would you mind if I reached out?” Luna asked, packing up her things.
“Yes of course,” Hermione said, standing to lead her to the door.
“And if you ever need anything, just let me know, thank you for doing this,” Luna said.
“You’re welcome, have a good rest of your day,” Hermione said as Luna exited the house.
Luna took a deep breath before she headed home. She had a lot of work to do.
Blaise carefully poured the beetle eyes into the cauldron and watched as the potion turned a bright shade of lime green. It was perfect. As he stirred clockwise, the potion darkerned, into a vibrant emerald color that reminded him of a very specific person’s eyes.
His date with Harry had gone extremely well. Blaise honestly didn’t know what had gotten into him when he asked Harry to dinner. It had been a spur of the moment decision. Blaise had spent all day with Harry on his mind. He was struggling to reconcile the image of Harry in the media with the person that he had spent the evening with.
He had seen Harry at Luna and Neville’s house, and he had seemed shy and polite, much like he had been the next day when they had bumped into each other. Harry was sweet, and quiet throughout dinner. He didn’t bask in his fame, or brag about anything. Instead, he was down to earth and humble. Most of the time, he actually seemed embarrassed by any extra attention.
He was guarded too, which Blaise did not expect. While Harry had answered all of his questions, Blaise could tell he was holding a lot back.
Harry had seemed extremely interested in Blaise as well, asking him all about his job and his life, and almost had seemed envious of the quiet life that he lived. Blaise wasn’t sure, but the other man did not seem overly fond of his own lifestyle.
Blaise knew that Harry had been hesitant about a second date, though he wasn’t sure why as he could tell that Harry had been invested in their conversation, and had blushed quite hard when Blaise had leaned in to give him a kiss. Blaise had no intentions in the moment of a real kiss, he could tell Harry wasn’t ready, but he still had wanted to show his feelings towards the smaller man. Harry seemed almost insecure, so Blaise wanted him to be sure that Blaise was interested.
Blaise had already owled Harry asking about a second date, and Harry had already responded, agreeing to coffee tomorrow morning.
“Oi!”
Theo’s voice broke his train of thought.
“You’re day-dreaming about him again mate,” teased Theo, “I don’t want you blowing up the place.”
“The only one who does that is you,” Blaise quipped.
“You may be right about that,” Theo admitted. Theo always did have a heavier hand when it came to making potions. Blaise was more precise, but Theo’s mistakes or miscalculations often led to discoveries that led to breakthroughs in potions theories. Theo wasn’t incompetent at potions at all, he just wasn’t as careful most of the time.
“I know,” Blaise muttered fondly.
“So are you taking him out again?” Theo inquired.
“Tomorrow for coffee,” Blaise answered with a nod.
“I can’t bloody believe it,” Theo said shaking his head, “You going out with Harry fuckin’ Potter.”
“Theo,” Blaise said tightly, “He’s not what the magazines paint him out to be.”
“How sure are you? You’ve met him once,” Theo said, “It’s okay mate, just be careful.”
“I’ve met him twice, and I am being careful, you can mind your own business,” Blaise said defensively. He knew he needed to be careful, and he was going to be. He was still going to give Harry a fair chance, and not hold his name against him.