Chapter 10
The exuberance was palpable as students rushed out of the entrance hall toward the waiting coaches. As usual, Hermione stayed next to him as he waited patiently for the initial rush to peter out, and calmly walked toward the carriages.
"I didn't notice those before." Hermione said as they neared a free coach.
"Maybe you're just more aware in general now then." He suggested, "They've been pulling the coaches every time the coaches were used this year."
"Hm." She snorted. "I know I pay a lot more attention to my surroundings now, thanks to you and training. I must have just missed them before." She stopped to pet the noses of the leathery, winged, skeletal horses, then rejoined him so they could enter the carriage. "Carnivores." She said. "Cutting incisors and shearing molars like a wolf."
"Interesting." 80 said. "I'm sure we'll run across what they are as we work our way through the library."
"That's going to be -" She stopped as the door to their coach opened and four large Slytherin boys entered. One sat beside him, and the other three opposite them. The last one in slammed the door shut.
It wasn't difficult to see what they wanted or where the situation was headed. He nodded to Hermione, and silently and wandlessly cast a body bind on the one next to him and the one across. He could feel Hermione do the same to the other two.
"You were saying?" He prompted.
"I was saying it's going to be a pleasure to be able to read and learn at my own pace for a change." She finished.
"To be fair, your pace is fairly blistering. You'd leave me behind if I weren't so far ahead."
"That's alright, I'd wait for you. Oh, speaking of which, we're getting married the week after your sixteenth birthday. We can pick out a nice quiet place here in Scotland somewhere, since we can get married at sixteen instead of eighteen."
He smiled back at her. Of course she'd have it all worked out already. Something to look forward to. "That makes me wonder how everyone at Westminster will react. Something else to find out later."
Hermione stared at the boy across from her, who was staring hatred at the both of them, the same way he had in the Great Hall. "Do you ever get the urge to carve something in their foreheads?" She asked him, "Something fitting like ass, or idiot." One of her knives was suddenly in her hand as she leaned forward.
"Sometimes, yes." He agreed, "But it would be a waste of time and just make more people to kill down the road."
"Hm." She made the noise in her throat as she thought about it, and for the first time in his life, he thought it was cute. Just the certain lilt of her voice while she considered was absolutely adorable, and it made him want to hug her.
Her knife disappeared again, and she sat back to relax against him again. "No sense making ourselves busy when there's already so much work." She decided.
The carriage started to move then, and the ten minute ride to Hogsmeade passed quietly while he tried to make sense of why Hermione's hair smelled suddenly interesting , when it hadn't any of the other times he'd smelled it.
When they arrived at Hogsmeade station, he held the door for Hermione, and once they were on the ground they both silently cancelled the body binds on their uninvited guests.
"Gentlemen." He said as they all filed out and toward the waiting train. Not one of them looked inclined to reply, they just hurried forward onto the train.
He reached out to take Hermione's hand, and smiled at the smile it gave her, and they walked onto the train together, close to the rear of the train. They found themselves an empty compartment, and pulled the shades.
He sat next to her, but didn't bother to relax. "Back in a tick." He said, and pulled himself outside time.
He'd debated for a long time whether or not to appear in front of Dumbledore and let him know who it was who had killed him. He'd thought about taunting the headmaster for not having figured out how he'd killed the troll, or how they'd killed the Azkaban prisoners. He'd even thought about saying something pithy, like "Say hello to my parents when they come to roast your miserable hide."
In the end, he'd decided it was unprofessional.
The headmaster was seated in his overstuffed throne behind his desk when 80 arrived, a freshly-poured glass of whiskey on the desk in front of him.
80 bent the old man forward over the top of his desk, and parted the long white hair. He carefully severed the man's spinal cord between the first and second cervical vertebrae, then healed the muscles and skin and vanished the blood. He combed the hair back where it had been with his fingers, and sat the man back up into his original position.
With a last look around, he closed the door behind him on the way out, and rejoined Hermione on the train. After changing out of his work clothes and making sure they were properly cared for, he sat next to her and rejoined the timestream.
"Did you miss me? He asked with a wink.
"Nope." She smiled, and wrapped her arms around him. "I got you first try."
He liked that.
He had no idea why, but it made him feel things.
"So that's done then?" She asked.
"Contract complete." He replied.
They raised the shades again, and relaxed for the long trip back to London.
Neville Longbottom opened the door to their compartment before either of them could pull out a book to read.
"Do you mind if I sit with you?" He asked timidly, like he was afraid of being ridiculed.
Hermione raised her eyebrows at him, and he smiled back at her in return.
"Of course, Neville, come in." Hermione said with a smile. "Make yourself comfortable. Have a good year?"
Neville's face took a moment to register shock that he wasn't yelled at, and then a shy smile as he heaved his trunk onto the rack above the seat.
"Thanks." He said as he sat down, "It was an alright year I suppose."
"Bit shocking if you ask me." Hermione said, "The Minister and his undersecretary disappearing, most of the Wizengamot getting murdered by terrorists, werewolves turning up decapitated!" She didn't mention Snape or Quirrell, as Dumbledore had swept their deaths under the rug and not informed the student body at all.
"When you put it like that, it does sound pretty terrible." Neville admitted. "My Gran and Susan's aunt are the only ones of the Wizengamot left alive. I was quite worried for the longest while."
"Yes, I can imagine." Hermione said with some sympathy. "It's all been too much for me, my parents are pulling me out, I'm enrolled in a different school next year."
"Oh." Neville looked disappointed.
"We're going to the same one." 80 said. "I finally made a friend, so I'm going to whatever school she goes to."
Neville looked like he didn't really know how to feel about that.
"Hopefully you don't have another year like that next year!" Hermione laughed.
"There couldn't be another one, surely!" He said, and gave Neville his welcoming smile.
Neville perked up a bit, and managed a shy smile of his own.
The three of them chatted off and on throughout the trip, played games like twenty questions, and got to know Neville a little as he got to know them. When the train finally pulled into Kings Cross station, 80 held his hand out to Neville, and Neville shook it.
"I'm sorry we didn't get to be friends earlier in the year." He said. "At least we managed it before the end."
"Are we... friends then?" Neville asked.
"Of course Neville, don't be silly." Hermione admonished, "I'm sorry we didn't speak more before now as well."
"We probably won't be able to see you much, but at least we can send letters. Maybe we can get together and do something fun during the summer." He offered.
Neville smiled brightly at that. "I'd like that." He said.
"Perfect." Hermione smiled. "We'll see you later, Neville."
80 helped Neville with his trunk, and scant minutes later waved goodbye to him as he and his Grandmother disappeared in a flash of green flames.
"That was nice." Hermione said softly.
"Neville seems to be a good person. You are a good person, you want me to be a good person. Knowing more good people can't be a bad thing." He said.
Hermione didn't say anything, she just hugged him.
"If nothing else, I figure he can at least help me learn how to be normal."
She stopped, and since she was wrapped around him, he stopped. "You don't have to be normal if you don't want to be." She said seriously, "I like you as you are."
One of those non-practiced smiles pushed onto his face then. "I like you as you are too, but you make me want to be a better me."
She smiled at him then, and launched into motion, half-dragging him through the barrier toward a man and a woman who tried to be nonchalant while they stood in one spot in a busy train station.
"Mum! Dad!" Hermione let go of him and waved at them. She ran at them when they noticed her, and she slammed into her mother to hug her, and then her father.
80 stood quietly at a respectful distance, until Hermione grabbed his arm and pulled him forward.
"Mum, Dad, this is Harry Potter, he's the boy I'm going to marry."
The smile fell off her father's face and shattered on the floor.