Chapter Eleven
"Vjosa?" Harry said in shock as he lowered his wand. "What the hell are you doing here? More importantly, how the hell did you get inside my house?"
"Your wards are very good for a wizard of your stature," Vjosa said with a wry grin. "However, for someone who has been around as long as I have, I have learned that there are very few wards that are not vulnerable. Don't worry. Your home is safe. In fact, I will make some improvement to the wards when I leave."
"That's good," Harry replied. Of all the people that he could have expected to suddenly appear in his house, Vjosa was about as far from the top of the list as you could be.
"What are you doing here?" Hermione asked.
"I come with information on the man you know as Nikola Forrest."
Immediately, Harry's ears perked up. Forrest had been the one loose end in the series of murders that Voldemort had committed over the last few years that Harry had yet to solve. Forrest was a ghost, a non-entity. More or less, Forrest seemed to have simply sprouted up from the ground, fully formed with no history at all. Harry might have been fine with that explanation if not for the stacks of Muggle passports found in his apartment when he'd been murdered by Lord Voldemort.
"How did you know that I was looking for him?"
"The Scholomance has sources inside almost every Ministry in Eastern Europe," Vjosa replied, which explained nothing and yet everything.
"If you knew we were looking, then why has it taken you so long to come forward?" Hermione asked.
"Because Nikola Forrest is not a name that I know," Vjosa said. As it became clear that Vjosa had more information for them, Harry motioned for them to sit. Harry took a seat at his desk while Vjosa and Hermione sat on the other side.
"But you said that you have information about him," Harry pointed out. "How do you have information about a man that you don't know?"
"Because his name is not Nikola Forrest. His name, the one that he was born with, was Bohumir Cerny, a Czech wizard by birth. He was also a student at The Scholomance."
Harry couldn't say that he was surprised. He had always found it odd that Voldemort had left The Scholomance only to immediately kill Forrest. The connection seemed intentional, but one that Harry had been unable to confirm until now.
"How is The Scholomance doing?"
"It is recovering," Vjosa replied. "The damage that Voldemot did to the castle and its population will take some time to heal as all things do. However, I am confident that, given time, the school will return to form. Unfortunately, Voldemort's brief reign coincided with the deaths of several elders. While the ritual that they use for the transformation was written down, there were several other small rituals that were not. In time, we'll recover those as well, but it has not been an easy road."
"You say that this Cerny was a student at The Scholomance," Hermione said. "What did he study?"
"While at The Scholomance, Cerny focused most of his time on the application of magical runes, glyphs that could bear spells. After he left the castle, however, he became transfixed by the nature of time itself."
"Time? How so?" Harry asked.
"All facets interested him, but the manipulation of time was where he ended up focusing most of his time."
"The manipulation of time? Do you mean time travel?" Hermione asked.
"Indeed," Vjosa confirmed. "What we know of time suggests that time travel, while technically accurate, is still a bit of a misnomer. What we do is more like a shift in perspective. We visit a time in the past, but our actions have already occurred. We do not make changes, we simply participate in the moments from a different angle."
"We're...familiar with the concept," Hermione replied, giving Harry a slight wink.
"Over the last decade, Cerny worked mostly for the Ukranian Ministry as something like what you would call an Unspeakable. It is a common occupation for those that have studied at The Scholomance. During that time, he began his study of time and parlayed that into a theory. He called in the Time-Proximity Relevance Theory."
"That's kind of a mouthful," Harry replied.
"It is," Vjosa said.
"What is this theory?" Hermione asked.
Vjosa smiled. "As expected with this kind of work, the long and accurate answer could fill up many books."
"And the shorter and more vague answer?"
"Cerny believed that time was not quite as fixed as everyone thought," Vjosa explained. "You see, most people that travel through time, they use a Time Turner. Due to the nature of their construction and the magic that they hold, they're only capable of safely traveling five hours in time. According to Cerny's theory, time at that point is rigid like stone, the events fixed. You could go back five hours, every hour and never change a thing."
"But what if you could go back further? Say you could go back in time a year or ten years? According to the theory, time is more fluid. Not a true liquid, like water, but mud. You can move through it, but it is difficult and requires a great deal of effort. Most importantly, when you make changes to the mud, those changes hold."
"But it would still be mostly the same, right?" Hermione asked. "Even if you could go back a year, what you're saying is that wholesale changes wouldn't be possible unless you traveled back a significant period of time?"
"I can't confirm that, but that is largely what Cerny believed. Time wants to flow a certain way and unless the changes that you make are massive, most things should continue to happen as expected."
"How much of this theory can be confirmed?" Harry asked. "Why isn't this something that we know about it?"
"The wizarding world has largely condemned the study of time and time travel. The last significant experiment related to this theory was in 1899 when a British witch named Eloise Mintumble attempted to travel one whole day backwards in time. Instead, she ended up in the year 1402 for a period of five days."
"When she returned, her body aged five centuries and she died almost immediately," Hermione said, clearly aware of the story. "She also led to a series of people being unborn and some rather severe fluctuations in time. That story is classified."
"It is," Vjosa confirmed.
"Wait, you knew that this was a thing?" Harry asked.
"Mintumble died less than three hours after she returned. She never said a word and it was largely assumed that she had actually traveled forward in time five days rather than backwards in time. How do you know that she did?'
"Because Bohumir Cerny was the only person who interviewed her after she came back."
"You said that Cerny had been working on this for several years," Harry replied. "How long is several years?"
"Probably close to the last century," Vjosa admitted. "I should have clarified. Cerny was a guardian of The Scholomance like myself, albeit one who took time away from his sanctuary a bit more often than we would like."
"He's been working on time travel for the last century?"
"The theory," Vjosa corrected. "While Cerny might have been a bit of a rogue, he understood the nature of The Scholomance and our calling. He was intrigued by the theory, the idea that traveling through time was possible, but as far as we know, he never performed any experiments related to his theory after his failure with Mintumble. Rest assured, he was properly punished for his part in that fiasco."
"That's good to know since it was one hundred years ago," Harry said.
"Did Cerny have any thoughts about why Mintumble's experiment failed?"
"Nothing concrete," Vjosa said. "Years ago, he mentioned something about the experiment lacking stability, but he never expanded upon that. My assumption is that there was some part of the magic that was performed incorrectly, a spell miscast or a part out of tune. However, I have nothing more to go on than intuition."
"And how did Voldemort find out about it?" Hermione asked.
"Cerny was one of the elders who helped train Tom Riddle in our ways," Vjosa replied. "While it wasn't possible for Riddle to know the entirety of Cerny's work, he likely knew that Cerny had a certain fascination with time. More than likely, Riddle must have learned about Cerny's work from another source and then tracked Cerny down to discover what he had learned."
Then, without warning, Vjosa stood as he checked the clock on the far wall.
"Mr. Potter, is it true that you were the one who drove Riddle from The Scholomance?"
"I had help," Harry said humbly.
"Yes, I'm sure you did," Vjosa said. He smiled for a moment, but then a shadow seemed to pass over him. "This is the last time we shall meet, Harry Potter."
"Vjosa, you're hundreds of years old. I'm sure I'll swing out to Hungary at some point in the future."
"I am certain you will and, if you do, know that the doors of The Scholomance are always open to you and your friends. Alas, you will not find me there. I have been selected as the newest Grand Elder of The Scholomance."
"That's excellent news!" Harry exclaimed. "Congratulations!"
"Harry."
Harry turned to see that while Hermione was smiling, she did not appear happy. For a moment, Harry wondered what about that news could be considered saddening.
Then, it hit him.
"You'll be at The Scholomance itself," Harry realized. "You won't be at your Sanctuary, which means-"
"Which means that just like everyone, death will come for me," Vjosa replied. "Do not weep for me. I have lived many lives and served a purpose greater than any other. I will serve at The Scholomance until the day that I die. There, we have certain magics that can be used to slow my inevitable end. I imagine that I will live for another year or so and then, I will finally pass into the great beyond."
Harry stood and approached Vjosa. Harry extended his hand to Vjosa, who took it firmly.
"Thank you, Vjosa," Harry said warmly. "You saved Hermione and for that, I will always be in your debt."
"Nonsense. It has been a great honor to aide you, Harry Potter," Vjosa replied. "Tom Riddle has spent his life making a mockery of everything that The Scholomance holds dear. Until I die, I will aid you however I can, although I will be unable to leave the castle again."
Vjosa turned to Hermione.
"Miss Granger, I bid you farewell."
"Goodbye, Vjosa. Thank you again...for everything."
Vjosa embraced Hermione and then Harry. He then put a hand on each of their shoulders and leaned in between them, speaking to them as if they were suddenly small children again.
"Be smart, be safe, but most of all, be good to each other. After all these years of life, I have lost more loved ones than I can count. Appreciate them, savor the time that you have with them, and don't let them go."
Having said his piece, Vjosa lifted his hands off each of them and then Disapparated, leaving Harry and Hermione alone in his office once more.
Harry returned to his desk and collapsed into his chair, his mind racing. If Voldemort was capable of not just traversing time, but affecting it, he could do anything. Facing Voldemort was a tough enough prospect on his own, but this was a different animal entirely. Voldemort could slip into the past without anyone knowing.
He'd win the war and Harry would never even get a chance to put up a fight.
"This is it," Harry said softly. "This has to be what he was looking for."
"That does seem likely," Hermione admitted. "Do we think that he can actually pull it off?"
Harry nodded. "More than once, Albus and I talked about what Tom Riddle was like before his transformation. Obviously, he hid his darkness well. He opened The Chamber of Secrets and convinced The Scholomance to take him on. But Dumbledore said that Riddle was the greatest student that he'd ever taught and that includes you and me."
"Riddle was curious, he was incredibly powerful at a young age, and he inspired people to follow him. But before he truly became Lord Voldemort, his greatest skill was his intuition. He just seemed to understand magic in a way that was different from everyone else. If there's anyone that could manipulate magic in order to go back in time, it's Tom Riddle."
"But he can't do it yet," Hermione realized. "If he had stabilized the magic, he wouldn't have killed Dumbledore."
"He's missing something. He clearly knew what he wanted to do. That's why Cerny was his first target. But there was a large gap between when he killed Cerny and when he started killing the others. I think that he was looking into Cerny's research."
"When he realized that it wasn't complete, he started looking for ways to stabilize it," Hermione added. "Hence the other researchers."
"It's why their magic is all related but not exactly the same. He was exploring alternatives."
"Alternatives for what purpose though?" Hermione asked. "We know that he needs to stabilize something, but we don't really even have an idea of what that is."
"No, but that's the next goal. Now that we know that Forrest was actually Cerny, we can reach out to the Ukranians. Once they know that we know, I'm hoping that they'll give us Cerny's research. If we can come to even a rudimentary understanding of his work, we might just be able to understand just what Voldemort is looking for."
"Theoretically, if he could make it work, what would he change?" Hermione asked.
"I don't want to think about it," Harry replied. "If he gets that opportunity, then we've lost."
"You're not wrong," Hermione admitted, "but it might help us figure out where he'll go back from. Unless he's figured out a way to make his ritual move him across the Earth, he'll land in the exact spot where he performs the ritual. That means that it'll be easiest to be close to his target."
Harry couldn't disagree with her, even if he desperately did not want to talk about this.
"Fine," Harry said flippantly. "He could go back to any number of events. Hell, he could go back to 1945 and stop Dumbledore from beating Grindelwald."
"Why?"
"Voldemort probably believes that he could defeat Grindelwald. If Dumbledore is out of the way, then there's no one that he believes can stop him left."
"I suppose," Hermione replied. "I was thinking more about...Halloween."
"That would make sense," Harry said, pointedly not looking in her direction. It would make sense. If he could alter the events of that night, he could change everything.
"There's also The Graveyard," Harry added. "If he kills me then, the war is over before it begins."
"He could even stop Snape from hearing the Prophecy."
"That'd make it so that he never went to Godric's Hollow at all."
There were so many choices. That was the problem. They couldn't possibly figure out when Voldemort would travel back in time. Ultimately, they were going to have to find him and stop him before he even got the chance to go back in time.
"Hey, I'm going to write a letter to the Ukranians asking for Cerny's research and then I'm going to read through some of my notes."
It was rare that Harry told Hermione to leave and while he might not have used the words, Hermione was thankfully aware that Harry wanted simply to be alone. She walked around his desk and leaned against it next to him so that she sat a few inches above him, forcing him to look up into her eyes.
"Do you want me to come back later?" Hermione offered. He knew what she meant and while Harry was flattered for the offer, he needed some time to process everything that they had just learned. There would be time for sex with Hermione later.
"Thanks, but no," Harry replied. "I just...want to decompress a bit. This is a lot to learn."
"I know," Hermione said. "Just...don't shut me out."
"Never," Harry said with a smile.
"Good," Hermione said before she leaned forward and kissed him. "I love you, Harry. We're going to get through this."
"I...love you, too, Hermione," Harry whispered, his lips buzzing from where she had kissed him.
"I'm assuming that we're going to be meeting here tomorrow?" Hermione asked.
"You'd be correct," Harry replied.
"Good. I'll see you then."
The following morning, the members of the SAF gathered for a special meeting. Once they were all present, the meeting began with a brief explanation of the information that Vjosa had given them. While certain specifics (including the identity of his source or the presence of The Scholomance) were kept secret, the gist of the information was relayed to the members of the SAF.
Importantly, he did tell them about the Time-Proximity Relevance Theory. When he was finished, everyone in the room sat in silence, most of them avoiding eye contact with Harry. He knew what they were thinking. It was the same thing that he'd been thinking for the last twelve hours.
"Yes, Voldemort could theoretically use this to remove me from play without ever having to fight me," Harry said, addressing the hippogriff in the room.
"That's the endgame right there," Ron said. "He goes back in time and figures out a way to kill you before you can kill him in the present."
"That's what we're working against," Harry replied. "Right now, Hermione and I believe that he's searching for ways to stabilize whatever ritual he thinks will take him back in time."
"Why couldn't he just improve a Time-Turner to take him further back in time?" Goran asked.
"Time-Turners use Hour-Reversal Charms," Parvati explained. "There's no way to change them. Plus, if he wanted to go back in time, he'd have to turn a Time-Turner thousands of times."
"Not necessarily the most efficient use of his time," Kliner replied.
"It would provide a good target," Ron said. "He'd be really focused on making sure that he didn't lose count."
While the topic of conversation was funny as was the image of Voldemort turning a Time-Turner thousands of times, Harry needed their attention.
"Can we focus?" Harry said, bringing silence to the room. "I have an idea on how to stop Voldemort."
"You do?" Hermione said. Harry noted the tone of surprise in her voice. It wasn't that he had thought of an idea, but that he had thought of one without her. To be fair, if he had suggested this idea to her, she would have shut him down before he could even get it out.
"What kind of idea?" Ron asked.
"Voldemort needs time to finish figuring out how to go back and change the past," Harry reasoned. "That's going to require a great deal of attention and focus. I want to distract him."
"How do you propose we do that?" Daphne asked.
"We...encourage him to engage with us," Harry said. "We have a couple of theories about places where the Death Eaters might be hiding. We hit those places. Hard. Meanwhile, I can go public about how well we're doing against the Death Eaters."
"You want to goad Voldemort into an open war?" Hermione asked in disbelief.
"There's no way that we can get approval for that," Williamson said. "Tonks will shut you down before you even get started."
"That's only if I ask for permission," Harry replied. "I don't intend to do that."
Immediately, Williamson stood and Harry could tell that it was not to openly declare how much she supported Harry's idea.
"We follow you because Head Auror Tonks ordered us to. I know that your best friend and your girlfriend are on our team and I know that you're used to acting alone, but some of us follow orders."
"You won't be asked to do anything," Harry insisted.
"You'll lose your position at the Ministry," Hermione argued. "This will be Percy's chance to take you down with him."
"Only if it fails," said Harry firmly. "If we're able to stop whatever attack comes after this, Percy won't have a leg to stand on."
"And if we fail and the Death Eaters kill a bunch of people, you'll be lucky just to lose your position at the Ministry," Kliner argued. "It's no secret that the Minister hates you. He'll want you arrested."
"He can try," Harry said dismissively. "Listen, this is a risk. I'm well aware of that. But if we don't take any risks, then Voldemort wins. I know that this could fail. I know that if it does, I will be blamed for it. I should be; it's my idea. But if it slows Voldemort down and prevents him from working on whatever he intends to use to go back in time, then it's worth it."
Harry watched each of them as they considered Harry's words. As his eyes passed over Ron, Hermione, Kliner, Williamson, Daphne, and Goran, all of them seemed uncertain, unsure. Only one of them looked to have any confidence in the plan and it was the most surprising of all of them.
"I say you do it," Parvati said firmly. "I say that we take the fight to Voldemort. Maybe you can kill Voldemort before he even has a chance to go back in time?"
"Voldemort doesn't fight fair," Hermione countered. "Who's to say that he doesn't just massacre a bunch of Muggles in response? Civilians could be put in harm's way for no reason other than provoking a response out of Voldemort."
"I won't deny that there is a chance that could happen," Harry admitted. "We're just going to have to prepare for the eventuality that when Voldemort responds, we'll be ready. In either case, I'm not asking you to do something illegal. Your only responsibility will be to hit the Death Eaters. I'll take care of calling Voldemort out."
Harry could tell that they were uncomfortable with the idea, all of them but Parvati. But right now, Harry didn't need them to love the idea. He just needed them to be ready when Voldemort retaliated.
"Listen, I've already been asked to speak at the memorial service. I'm going to put Voldemort on notice and I don't need your permission for that. And don't worry about your positions, if this doesn't work, I'll take the fall for it."
"You're damn straight you will," Goran grunted.
And that was that. Harry could sense the general displeasure in the room, but he knew that they'd all come around if they were successful. The Death Eaters had slowly been escalating their activities since his return anyway. At least this way, they would largely be able to anticipate when the next attack would be.
As everyone got up to leave, Harry motioned for Parvati to stay. The room slowly cleared out, leaving Harry and Parvati standing on one side of the room with Hermione on the other.
"Can I have a word for a moment?" Hermione said sternly.
Harry motioned his apologies to Parvati and then walked to the far end of the room where a very unhappy Hermione was waiting for him.
"Are you planning on telling Tonks or Amelia or Percy about your brilliant idea to call Voldemort out in front of the entire wizarding world?"
"If I told them, what do you think they would say?" Harry asked.
"They would tell you to stop," Hermione replied.
"Do you think I would?" asked Harry. "Do you think that any of them could stop me from doing what I think is the right thing to do?"
"No."
"So, no, I won't tell them."
"What if I told you to stop?" questioned Hermione. "What if I told you that this was the stupidest idea that you've ever had and innocent people were going to get killed as a result?"
"I don't disagree, but you know that I wouldn't be doing this if I felt that we had a choice. We have to do something. If you come up with a better idea, let me know. Until then, we're going to go with mine. Now, I need to talk to Parvati."
"Fine," Hermione said, her disappointment obvious. "Send Hedwig if you need me for anything."
"Right," Harry said, uncertain if she meant things work related or things a bit more recreational in nature. In either case, Hermione left to go back to the Ministry and Harry was alone with Parvati for the first time in weeks.
Harry had expected to be nervous. But the realization that things simply weren't right between him and Parvati made this conversation much easier for him.
"Want some coffee?" Harry said as he led the two of them out of the room and into the kitchen down the hall. After Harry had made each of them a cup of coffee (black for Harry, two cream, no sugar for Parvati), they sat down at Harry's small dining table. For a little while, they sat in silence and sipped their coffee. Harry knew that Parvati likely was aware of what was coming. This wasn't the first time they had broken up before.
But it was the first time they would do it without some sort of huge blow-up, which Harry had to say that he very much appreciated.
"So, I don't think you're going to be surprised when I say that I've been uncertain about how things were going between us."
"Were?" Parvati mused. "Using past tense already?"
"Yeah," Harry replied. No use in beating around the bush at this point. "I think that we've both tried about as hard as we could. But we're clearly different people than we were when we started dating."
"We were still Gryffindors; we were children," Parvati commented. "We were bound to change at some point."
"I must say, you're being rather relaxed about this whole thing," Harry said, tacitly admitting that he had feared another verbal sparring session with her.
"It's March. You've been back since January. In that time, we've seen each other socially three times and one other time on accident that ended with you Disarming a dozen Death Eaters in an alley."
"And that was unfortunately probably the best date of the four of them."
"Yeah, we haven't necessarily been at our best recently," Parvati replied. "I knew that this was coming sooner or later. I was just too afraid to admit that we were ending things. You've been a part of my life, off and on, for the better part of five years now. You were the bridge between Hogwarts and adulthood."
"I just didn't want to believe that things couldn't work out," Harry said, adding his own thoughts. "I always believed that if the war ended, we'd fix things. But, it's not fair to either of us to force things when they're clearly not working."
"I can agree with that," Parvati whispered.
"Now, before we're officially done, there is something that I need to tell you," Harry said, a certain amount of dread forming in the pit of his stomach. "On Saturday night, Hermione and I went to Ginny's wedding together."
"Trust me, I heard."
"Of course you did," Harry said, embarrassed that he had never considered that Parvati would have heard about his choice in date. Everyone heard everything about Harry's life. Why should his date to a friend's wedding be any different, especially when it wasn't his girlfriend?
"Don't worry, I'm not mad."
"Well, not yet," Harry replied uneasily. "You see we left early. Molly Weasley gave me a bunch of grief about Percy and I didn't want to stay and ruin things. Hermione came back here with me. We ended up repairing the house."
"I noticed that some changes had been made," Parvati commented.
"Yeah, it took us about an hour and when we were done, I conjured a couch for us to rest on. We started talking about you and that's when I realized that things were done between us. That's when...I...we-"
"You slept with Hermione," Parvati said bluntly. When Harry had the audacity to look surprised, Parvati smiled at him. "Harry, I love you, but subtlety is still not your strong suit. You spent most of the meeting staring at her and then at me with a look that suggested I was going to jump up and swallow you whole. It doesn't take Hermione Granger to realize that something happened."
"Yeah, it wasn't...expected," Harry said. "But, it only happened after I realized we were through."
Parvati chuckled.
"Harry, I'm not your girlfriend anymore," Parvati said, a certain amount of peace and sadness mixed on her face. "You can sleep with whoever you want. Besides, absolutely no one will be surprised to learn that you finally slept with Hermione."
"Finally? What do you mean?"
"You can't be serious?" Parvati asked. "Harry, there have been people betting on whether you and Hermione would get married as far back as third year. The betting only got worse during fourth year after it was clear that Ron was pissed at you for the whole Goblet thing. I always wanted to believe that I was the one for you, but there was always a part of me that knew that it would be Hermione."
Harry felt like he'd been hit by the Hogwarts Express.
"Did I say that Hermione and I were getting married?" Harry asked, genuinely confused. "We had sex. Once. It was just sex."
"Harry," Parvati said warmly, "there's no world in which you just have sex with anyone, but especially not Hermione Granger. It's been clear to everyone else since you were twelve: if the two of you ever realized that you were in love with each other, no one else stood a chance."
"You're loony," Harry scoffed.
"You're lying to yourself," Parvati countered as Harry tried to force a reply. "You're lying to yourself, to me, and to everyone else and the fact that you can't string together two words right now tells me that you know that I'm telling the truth."
Harry couldn't think. The words that he wanted to say, the ones where he told Parvati that she was wrong, that she was the one who was lying to herself, wouldn't come. Instead, Harry sputtered out something that involved the words "wrong" and "no chance" with no meaningful words between them.
"One day, you'll realize that I'm right," Parvati said, stopping Harry's continued attempts to choke out a response. "When you do, I expect a thank you."
Harry wanted nothing more than to come back with something witty. Instead, he remained silent. There was no possible way that she was right, mostly because Hermione was half of the equation that Parvati was talking about. If Parvati was right, then Hermione would have figured it out years ago. She would have told him that they were over the moon for each other and that would have been it. That's how things worked between them.
But as much as Harry wanted to tell her that she was wrong, he couldn't ignore the fact that what should have been a single night of stress relief had already become a vivid memory in his mind, but not for the reasons that you might think. He remembered the feel of her lips, the smell of her hair, the sensation of her bare skin rubbing against his. None of it was about the sex. It was her. That's what he remembered.
Harry supposed that was simply because it was Hermione. It was just a stark change in their relationship. He supposed that, even if it was just sex, it should stick out in his mind more than a random encounter with a stranger.
"In other news, I'm quitting the Aurors," Parvati said, casually changing the subject. For a moment, Harry thought she was kidding. But she wasn't smiling. She'd been smiling when she'd been teasing Harry about Hermione, but the moment she said those words, her smile disappeared.
"You're what?"
"I'm quitting," Parvati repeated. "I just...can't do it anymore."
"Why?"
"Because you were right. Everyone was right. I don't have anything outside of the job. I barely know my sister. I've lost you."
"You haven't lost me," Harry said strongly. "I'm still here for you, just not the same way."
"That's sweet," Parvati replied in clear disbelief. "In either case, my life has been dedicated to the pursuit of Antonin Dolohov. Not only have I not caught him, I haven't even really come close. I've already lost Mom and Dad. I've lost you. I can't afford to lose anything else."
Normally, Parvati was one of the most honest people that Harry knew. But that was because she was direct. She knew what she wanted and she wasn't afraid to tell you what that was. But as she talked about her family, Harry sensed that there was something that she was talking around, something that she was not being entirely truthful about.
It was only a sense, not something that he could ask her about. But, Harry had spent most of the last few months lying to everyone closest to him, so he supposed that he wasn't the right person to judge anyone else for lying to him. Maybe she'd found someone else and she was unwilling to tell him. Maybe she was taking another job or doing something that she couldn't or wouldn't tell Harry about. In either case, it wasn't his business any longer.
"When do you leave?"
"My last day is tomorrow," Parvati replied. "I'll be passing all of my casework to Daphne. As far as I know, Tonks isn't intending to replace me."
"You'll be missed."
"I highly doubt that," Parvati chuckled. "I wasn't much of a team player. I didn't socialize with the rest of the force and my surly nature didn't really endear me to anyone who wasn't Ron, who only liked me because I was your girlfriend and because he's a good person."
"He is, isn't he?"
"He really is," Parvati admitted. "Without Ron, I probably would have gotten kicked out of the Aurors a half a dozen times. He's covered my ass more times than I could count."
"He got good at it during Hogwarts."
"I'm sure he did," Parvati replied.
"I'll miss you," Harry admitted. "Both on the force and...you know."
"I know. I'll miss you, too," Parvati replied. "Just promise me something?"
"Sure."
"Don't let Voldemort do to you what Dolohov's done to me."
"How do you know he hasn't done it already?" Harry asked.
"Because you're a good man and because both Hermione and I love you," Parvati responded. "I like your idea of being aggressive, but don't get so engrossed in the war that you let him drag you down to his level."
"I'll do what I can."
"You always do," Parvati replied. She finished the last sip of her coffee and then leaned across the table and kissed Harry on the cheek. "I'll see you around."
"I'm sure you will."
Harry didn't watch as Parvati stood and walked out of the room. While they had broken up several times in the past, this was the one that would stick. Harry didn't move for a while as his coffee got cold. He just sat and thought about Parvati Patil. Without her, he wasn't certain that he would have survived Godric's Hollow. He knew that he wouldn't have survived training with Dumbledore.
She had been his beacon, the light for him to follow for so long that Harry didn't know what to do without her there to guide him. Now, she was gone. Not only that, but she had the audacity to suggest that Harry loved Hermione. He did love Hermione, but it wasn't what she or anyone else thought. Hermione was a part of him, the other half to the puzzle that was Harry Potter.
About an hour later, Hermione walked into Harry's kitchen and sat down across from him.
"How did she take it?" she asked with concern.
"Better than I did," Harry admitted. "Of course, she thinks that I'm in love with you."
"Did you tell her we slept together?"
"I did."
"Well, that explains it," Hermione said. "People can't seem to separate sex from being in a relationship."
Hermione wasn't wrong about that. Most people struggled to separate sex from being in a relationship, Harry among them. But Parvati was smarter than that. He knew that if she told Harry that he loved Hermione, it was because she believed that he loved her, not because they had slept together once.
The look on Hermione's face told Harry the same thing. She knew that Parvati wasn't an idiot. She knew that Parvati wouldn't have said what she said unless she believed it.
"Come on, we've got work to do if you're going to coax Voldemort out into the open," Hermione said. She stood and then reached out to take Harry's hand before she froze, her eyes locked on his. Instead, she smiled hesitantly and then gave his shoulder a squeeze and then, a moment later, she was gone.
A few minutes later, Harry joined her and the rest of the SAF at the Ministry. But before he went to London, Harry sat and looked out the window, asking himself one question.
Was it possible that he was in love with Hermione Granger?