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What it comes down to	By : melinda1293 Category: Harry Potter > Threesomes/Moresomes Views: 115219 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 7
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, nor the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
- 22
- 23
- 24
Chapter 23. Facing Fears

“Bellatrix,” she said bracingly, “I think Bellatrix Lestrange has one.”
“You’ve kept that quiet!” Ron said loudly in astonished disbelief, staring openly at her, but she only had eyes for Harry.
Hermione watched him closely, trying to gauge his reaction. He’d gone briefly white, gripping the arms of his chair before he squeezed his eyes shut and breathed deeply.
He looked shocked at hearing her name spoken out loud — the same reaction most people gave when Harry boldly spoke Voldemort’s name — but not at her revelation, she thought. She narrowed her gaze.
“You already think so, too, don’t you?” she asked quietly.
Harry opened his eyes, staring at her, searching her face for a moment before he relaxed his grip on the chair arms.
“Yes,” he admitted finally.
“What the hell?” Ron yelped, astonished.
“I wasn’t ready. I couldn’t think…I couldn’t talk about it yet,” he explained, looking fearful.
“I understand, Harry,” she said sympathetically. “It’s why I haven’t brought it up either. If we’re wrong…I’m not keen on tangling with her again either.”   She shuddered at the idea.
“It’s just about the last thing in the world I want to do,” she told them, and she meant it.
Facing Bellatrix again was almost as fearsome as facing You Know Who himself. The woman was completely and utterly deranged, capable of anything and wholly without conscience, a true sociopath, incapable of empathy or remorse.
“Uh…when did we decide that Bellatrix had a Horcrux?” Ron asked in confused irritation.
Harry flinched again at hearing her name.
“She said some things to Harry…right after she’d made him…”
Her voice trailed off as the images from that day flooded her mind again. She was unable to say out loud what Harry was forced to do to her, to articulate the words. She could not say “Harry raped me.” She couldn’t put the words together in a sentence. She could say “after the rape,” or “when I was raped,” maybe, but she couldn’t say to him, “You raped me.” She simply could not condemn him for that crime, even if, technically, he was guilty of it, because it certainly wasn’t a voluntary act on either of their parts.
Saying the word out loud made her flinch, like saying Voldemort for Ron, or Bellatrix for Harry. It had become her taboo. The sound of the word assaulted her senses when it was spoken.
RAPE. It startled her, like having the lights thrown on in the middle of the night. It made her feel queasy, sending a swooping sensation in her stomach as if she’d missed a step going downstairs, that momentary feeling of panic. She’d like to strike it from their vocabulary altogether, and then maybe she could get past it, maybe they all could.
The fear, the pain and the terror of that day was still so vivid for all of them, always on the periphery of their minds, waiting to seep into their thoughts.
They’d all gone pale, sitting there in their make-believe common room, discussing these horrible things. This was the first time they’d all spoken of the events of that day. They’d briefly skirted it, or tentatively discussed what happened before or after, but not an open discussion of those moments of their lives that changed everything between them forever. She was no longer worried about plunging Harry back into darkness with their discussion. Now she feared they’d all leap into the black abyss.
“Right before she planted her foot in my face,” Harry said bitterly, picking up the thread of her explanation and trying himself to pinpoint the time while still avoiding saying what happened before.
“When she broke your nose?” Ron asked, playing along with their game now, too, it appeared.
“Yes, my nose and my jaw,” he said thoughtfully, going quiet a minute as he ran his fingers along his jawbone at the memory.
“You know, I’ve had my nose broken before. I’m not saying it feels great, or anything, but it just sits there in the middle of your face. It throbs and all, of course, but having your jaw broken? Fuck that hurts,” he told them. “It still aches when I chew sometimes, and I can hear it popping if I open it too wide, like it’s permanently out of alignment now, or something.”
He still spoke with that same uncharacteristic openness from this morning, musing out loud again as if he didn’t even realize he was doing it. Maybe he didn’t, she considered. Maybe Harry was completely unaware that his thoughts were being broadcast to the room. It unnerved her, made her worry for his state of mind. He was normally so private.
“Your nose was pouring blood. I didn’t know your jaw was even broken until Madame Pomfrey told us. Your whole face was swollen something awful the next day, though,” Ron said, wincing, his face screwed up in sympathy.
“She’d torn your lip to shreds, too,” he added.
Then his morbid curiosity appeared to have taken over, derailing their talk of Horcruxes. The need to understand the profundity of what Harry went through when they took him away from them every day in the dungeons overriding all else. Wanting more images to agonize over, to beat himself up with, more guilt to heap on himself, she thought.
“Who broke your ribs?” he asked, sounding dangerous.
He’d told her about the list in Harry’s journal, the names of the Death Eaters he’d written, like a revenge list, but she hadn’t seen it for herself. It seemed Ron wanted to know the details of the crimes committed against Harry by each of the people on that list, to gauge the amount of outrage and fury he should feel towards each of them for what they had inflicted on Harry, creating his own hierarchy for revenge, knowing the depths of the acts he had to avenge.
“Rabastan cracked one or two of them first, I think, judging by how much it hurt to breathe after he finished with me. He came with Avery, but he just liked to cast spells. The Cruciatus mostly, but occasionally he got a bit more creative,” he told Ron.
“Dolohov and another Death Eater, Selwyn was his name, maybe, came along a day or so later and finished the job. I didn’t really recognize him. It was him or Travers, though; one of the two that were at the Lovegood’s when the whole place came down around our ears. I remembered his voice,” he explained.
“Dolohov broke my leg then, too. He got really pissed and kicked the shit out of it, and it just snapped and folded underneath me. I couldn’t get up again after that, and they started kicking me. I think that did it for my ribs, and maybe my kidneys, too. Christ,” he said, now rubbing his lower back at the memory. “One of them was wearing some fantastically hard boots.”
Tears had sprung in Hermione’s eyes again at his casual description of his torture, at the dispassionate description of the terrible beatings he endured. She pictured his body after they had brought him back to their cell every night, the bruises and gashes she was cataloging growing as the days wore on. His exposed battered flesh had turned black and purple, matted and crusted with his own blood as the violence against him increased, layering new wounds over old. But that day with Dolohov, that was surely the day they didn’t bring Harry back. The night when she and Ron feared for his life as the evening wore on with no Harry, because the sight of him that next morning was a terrible shock.
“Draco fixed my leg, I think. If I’m remembering it right. I was passing out. Someone did, though. He was yelling at them to stop before they killed me.”
“That fucking ferret!” Ron growled savagely, his fists clenched on the arms of his chair. “Did he just come to watch the show?”
“No, he brought me some food and water,” Harry said. “They turned up while he was waiting for me to finish eating. They told him to leave, but he didn’t, so I guess he did stay to watch it. They might have killed me if he hadn’t stopped them, though. They were sure giving it a hell of a try. Then she came, and I spent the rest of the night with her. Then it was Snape the next morning. You know the rest after that,” he finished with a dismissive wave of his hand.
“He’s still a piece of shit. He brought us food as well, but he wouldn’t help us,” Ron said bitterly.
“Hermione begged him. If he would’ve just freed us, we could have come for you and made a run for it,” he said, his voice full of anguish. “Maybe we could have stopped most of it.”
“Draco may not have helped us, Ron,” she said, “but he had plenty of opportunities to harm Harry or us, and he didn’t.”
“Too big a coward, if you ask me.” Ron muttered.
“Plus, he gave us back our wands in the end. He never even tried to stop us leaving.”
“If you were Draco and you’d just seen what Harry did to your Death Eater mates, would you have tried to stop him?” he asked incredulously. “Jesus, he probably wet himself when Harry turned to look at him. He may not have done anything directly, but he didn’t stop it either. He knew what was going on in his own house. He knew what they were doing to Harry, and he didn’t lift a finger to help us.”
“Well…” she said, though she couldn’t come up with an argument against it, couldn’t disagree with Ron, and so she closed her mouth.
Draco’s own father was brutalizing Harry, torturing him, not to mention his aunt. To defy them would have taken courage she knew Draco didn’t possess. It would have been paramount to suicide for him to have tried, even if he’d wanted to, which she wasn’t sure he did.
“Avery practically dragged you in that day,” Ron said then, turning back to Harry. “How did you get up from that?” he asked, sounding awed. “When she kicked you, how the fuck did you get back on your feet after that?”
“She was torturing you. I had to stop her. She would’ve killed you both,” Harry said with a shrug of his shoulders, as if it were that simple, that obvious. “Kill you or torture you into insanity, like she did Neville’s parents. I couldn’t let her. I wasn’t going to let her kill you in front of me.”
“But…” Ron started, and then seemed to give it up with a shake of his head.
They sat quietly a few minutes, all of them lost in their own memories of those terrible days, before Dobby poked his head around the corner.
“Lunch is ready, Harry Potter, sir. Would you like Dobby to serve it in here, or in the kitchen?” he asked.
“Thanks, Dobby. We’ll take it in the kitchen. There’s no need for you to bring it in here,” Harry said as he got to his feet.
Ron mirrored him, standing up quickly. Hermione assumed it was out of an eagerness to eat, still hungry after his meager breakfast, perhaps, but he immediately went to Harry to help him stand.
“Um…I’m fine, Ron. I can make it on my own now, you know,” Harry said, sounding amused and a tiny bit annoyed, as well.
“Yeah, I guess I forgot. Talking about all of that again, you know. It made me forget a minute just how far you’ve come.” He shrugged his shoulders in apology.
“You really are much better, aren’t you?” he asked, his hand at Harry’s elbow, looking him up and down critically.
“Yeah, I was telling Hermione this morning how much better I feel. It’s remarkable, really. I think I’d forgotten what it feels like not to be in complete agony all the damn time.”
“You made me hurt just talking about it,” Ron replied. Then he paused before asking, “Which leg?”
“What?”
“Which leg did Dolohov break?”
Harry’s eyebrows met as he wrinkled his forehead in both surprise and confusion. Then a tiny smirk broke across his face as he stared quizzically at Ron.
“Does it matter?” he asked.
Ron shrugged again. “Does to me,” he said.
Harry continued to stare at him a minute longer in that same bemused sort of way. Then he pointed to his right leg. Both she and Ron stared at it, as if they could see the evidence of the injury through his jeans.
“We should’ve killed Dolohov and Rowle instead of just wiping their memories in that coffee shop, Harry. We should have just ended them there. Then they wouldn’t have been able—”
“Ron, don’t say things like that.”
“Dolohov almost killed you in the Department of Mysteries, Hermione. He didn’t deserve any more chances. We’ve got to start being more ruthless. Like them. The next time I get a chance to put one of them down, they’re staying down,” he said defiantly, his tone a promise in every syllable, making the hairs stand up on her arms.
While Harry woke this morning in a better mood than she could remember in a long time, Ron seemed to have woken bent on revenge. He clearly hadn’t slept well last night, and he woke feeling aggressive today, she thought.
She decided, on the whole, to keep her mouth shut. Trying to argue with him this morning seemed a bad idea. Harry must have felt along the same lines as she did, because he neither agreed with Ron nor challenged him. Maybe he felt that Ron was merely stating a fact and, therefore, didn’t require a rebuttal.
Harry stepped past Ron then without a word and headed for the stairs. Ron glanced at her a moment, his expression unreadable, and then hurried after Harry before she’d even gotten to her feet. She was left in the drawing room feeling stunned, feeling like she’d opened Pandora’s Box this morning when she decided to discuss the Horcruxes and now deeply regretting it.
Both Harry and Ron were acting out-of-character this morning, making her fear that she’d made a huge tactical mistake by broaching the subject today. She’d been given the same gift of curiosity the gods had given Pandora, however, and she was just as incapable of suppressing that curiosity. She just hoped that it wouldn’t bring them all to ruin because of it.
Her brain finally managed to get the message to her feet to move, and she turned to catch up with Harry and Ron, praying that unlike the Greek myth, all the evil hadn’t been released from the box and hope remained left behind. They were going to need some hope. She hurried out and caught up to them halfway down the stairs.
Ron sat on her left, and Harry sat down opposite them, across the table, when they arrived in the kitchen. Now that Harry was feeling better, she thought, he needed to work at putting back on some of the weight he’d lost. Dobby would be doing them all a great service if he could help Harry gain back his strength as quickly as Madame Pomfrey had helped him gain back his health. He was still much too skinny, and the last few days of nourishment potions hadn’t done anything to help that. He ate huge meals yesterday, though, as well as breakfast this morning. He ate with so much enthusiasm, it made her think she’d dined with Ron instead of Harry. She didn’t think he could possibly be hungry again now, but she certainly wasn’t going to complain.
Once they’d settled into their shepherd’s pie, Ron finally spoke again, bringing them back to the topic of Horcruxes.
“Let’s talk about this Horcrux again,” he said after he washed down a mouthful of his meat pie with pumpkin juice, “I got a little sidetracked earlier. I don’t remember everything that happened before we escaped. Actually I only just remembered some of what she’d said last night.” He glanced nervously at Harry again. “She mentioned Snape.”
“Yes,” Harry agreed with a nod of his head, “after…after what I did…to Hermione.”
He let out a huff of breath, the words seemingly difficult to get out, like they were too big for his mouth. He stared intently across the table at her, his eyes telling her their game of avoidance was over now, and that he’d gotten as close to it as he could, said it as plainly as he was able.
“She said she was going to make me do to you, what Snape made me do to him,” he said, his intense eyes now on Ron, who looked uncomfortable again, shifting in his seat. “But she’d changed her mind once he tried to help me escape. She said she thought it was an act, or something, that maybe we’d planned it together,” he finished, shoveling a forkful of steaming lamb and potato into his mouth.
“Yeah, that’s the part I was remembering last night.” Ron said, his ears turning deeply red. “But I can’t remember her saying anything about a Horcrux. Though admittedly, I don’t really remember much after that. She kicked you in the face, and then she hit me with the Cruciatus again. I was just bloody screaming after that until you cast that shield.”
“She kicked me and cursed you because I said his name again,” Harry told him, using his fork to gesture between Ron and himself. “She was finished playing with us after that, I guess, and decided to finally get down to business.”
“Yeah, yeah, I remember that now, Harry. You said she was crazy, or something—”
“Delusional,” Hermione interrupted. “Harry said she was delusional.”
“I’m surprised you remember anything that was said right after…” Harry said, staring at her again.
“I’m surprised you remember anything at all,” she replied. “You were beaten nearly to death, Harry. You were burning with fever, too. I could feel it coming off you…”
She stopped, sucking in a shaky breath and then clamped her mouth shut, looking down at her own plate to hide the tremble of her lips. She remembered vividly the heat of his body, the fever shining in his bloodshot, glassy eyes, his pupils enormously dilated from the effects of the potion as he’d pressed his forehead to hers. He’d smelled of dirt and fear, a heady mixture of sex, blood, and sweat soured on his skin. He smelled like a body in decay, bruised like an overripe fruit.
She put her fork down, unable to eat anymore, feeling Harry’s eyes on her now. She could see Ron turned to her in her peripheral vision, too, staring at her. Ron slid his hand over hers on the table and she squeezed his fingers, needing him to anchor her as she forced her eyes back up again.
They were all there together in the dungeons. They’d all been forced to endure their own thoughts of that day, each of them reliving the horrors from their own memories, their own perspectives.
“I don’t even know how you were conscious, much less coherent, Harry,” she said, forcing herself to finish, though her voice sounded watery.
Harry laid his fork on his plate and sat back in his chair, watching Ron’s thumb stroking her hand, his eyes full of regret again before they clouded over.
“I remember every word,” he said quietly. “From the moment they dragged me back into that room. As soon as I realized you two were still alive.”
He turned his left arm over to stare at the terrible scar, running a finger up the jagged path he’d carved into his own skin.
“I remember too much of what happened there. Sometimes my head aches trying to hold all of it. When all the memories start crowding my mind, when they start competing in my nightmares, it feels like it might explode. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to forget any of it. God, I wish I could,” he said softly. “I’m so sorry, Hermione.”
“Stop it,” she snapped with a little more anger than she’d meant, determined to keep this day from spiraling into a giant pity party for the three of them.
Harry jumped at her voice, his eyes darting back to hers. They stared at each other a few minutes, her heart squeezing painfully at his words so she felt like she couldn’t breathe. She knew they were both remembering their conversation in bed this morning.
He’d saved all of their lives and that was it as far as she was concerned. She’d told him that. There was nothing to forgive.
“I still don’t see…” Ron started again after clearing his throat to break the silence. “The Horcrux?”
He’d stopped stroking her hand, but squeezed her fingers at Harry’s words. He, too, seemed to be trying to pull them out of the vortex they kept being sucked into, unable to break away from the darkness of their memories long enough to focus on the Horcrux.
“Bellatrix said the Dark Lord would know his faith in her wasn’t unfounded. She said that Snape and Lucius had failed him, and that she was his most faithful servant.” Hermione explained, speaking quickly. “She said the Dark Lord had trusted her with his most prized possession.”
“And you think this prized possession is a Horcrux?” Ron asked for clarification, finally releasing his grip on her.
“Yes. It’s what led me, and obviously Harry, too, to believe that You Know Who gave her a Horcrux for safe-keeping, like he did Lucius. Maybe years ago, before Harry defeated him as a baby, just like the diary he gave to Lucius Malfoy.”
“Exactly,” Harry agreed with a nod of his head, picking up his fork again to continue his lunch. “His most secret of secrets, his most prized of possessions. That’s what she said. What else could it be? He gave one to Lucius. He definitely could have given one to her.”
“The question now, is which one? Hufflepuff’s cup or the unknown one of Ravenclaw’s?” she interjected.
“Assuming Riddle even managed to get his hands on anything of Ravenclaw’s,” Harry added, making Ron’s head swivel back and forth between them as if he were watching a tennis match as they spoke. “And if he gave her one, where is it? If he asked her to keep one safe, where would she have put it? She was locked up in Azkaban for more than a decade, she and her husband both. Wouldn’t the Ministry have done a search of their home or something to confiscate any dark objects? If they were known convicted supporters of Riddle, wouldn’t the Ministry have some recourse to seize their property to pay restitution to, say, Neville’s family, or something, for what they’d done to his parents?”
Both Ron and Harry turned to her now, waiting for an answer.
“Well,” she said. “I’m certainly no expert, but the Ministry couldn’t seize their home or property unless they could prove the objects were dark in nature, or had been gained by some ill-gotten means. Like if they had stolen it or acquired it illegally or during the commission of a crime, let's say. If they could prove they’d profited from their crimes, then yes, they could seize those profits,” she told them.
“As for Neville’s parents, if a judgment had been rendered against them in a civil claim, gold could be confiscated from their vaults to pay the damages awarded to Neville and his grandmother.”
“Do you think she has it stashed somewhere in her home then?” Ron asked.
“I don’t know. If it’s Ravenclaw’s artifact, we have no idea what it is. It might be another piece of jewelry, like Slytherin’s locket or the ring. If that’s the case, she may be wearing it. Though, after Lucius was so careless with the diary, I doubt You Know Who would let her walk around with it pinned to her corset, or something.” Hermione said.
“No, you’re right,” Harry agreed. “She’d want to keep it somewhere safe, even if she doesn’t know what it is. And I’m sure Tom would have wanted to make sure it was safe after he’d learned about the diary. Her home is as good a location as any, or maybe in her vault at Gringotts. That’s certainly well protected. So the next question is; how do we find out where she lives?”
“If my dad was still at the Ministry, he could’ve gotten us that information,” Ron said.
“Yeah, or maybe Percy,” Harry added. “He still works there, right?”
“No bleeding way Percy would tell us that,” Ron said contemptuously. “The prat! He’s still not speaking to anyone in the family. He’d probably sound the alarm if he caught sight of any one of us.”
“Ron,” she admonished quietly. “He’s your brother.”
“Well, I’m not feeling a lot of brotherly love towards him right now, ‘Mione. The rest of the family’s in hiding for being in the Order and trying to help Harry get rid of You Know Who, and he’s going to work every day as if he doesn’t even know who we are.”
Once again, she couldn’t argue with him and so she kept her mouth shut.
Neither she nor Harry had any brothers or sisters. Harry certainly couldn’t count his cousin as a brother when he himself hadn’t even been treated as well as a family pet by his aunt and uncle. They’d functioned more as his jailors than his family.
She had loving parents, but she’d been very lonely before starting Hogwarts. She had no sister to share her secrets with or fight over clothes with, no brother to tease her, no one that she could confide her feelings to. She’d actually had very few friends before she met Ron and Harry. She’d been ostracized by her peers at her muggle school, and so she worked doubly hard to please the adults that surrounded her: her parents, her teachers. Without friends or siblings, she really hadn’t known how to behave like a child.
She couldn’t really understand the sibling dynamics that Ron had grown up with, the bonds and the rivalries between them. She’d said before that Harry felt like a brother to her and Ginny a sister, but she really didn’t know what those terms meant. She only knew that the Weasley’s were a very loyal, close-knit family who loved and protected each other fiercely.
She was jealous of the gifts Ron had, and yet he always believed himself so poor. Their vaults may have been empty, but their home certainly wasn’t. She and Harry had been invited into that family, had been enveloped into that protection and love, Harry especially, and it hurt her soul that Percy was estranged from them all.
In some ways, he was a kindred spirit for her. She could relate to his ambition and love of rules so much more than she could with the blatant lawlessness of the twins. She couldn’t abide by his methods, however, abandoning his family for his career. That was unacceptable, and she hoped dearly that he would come to his senses soon, and that his family would forgive him and welcome him back when he did.
They finished their lunch and returned to the drawing room, where they continued discussing the location of the Horcrux. Harry suggested Tonks’ mum as a source for where Bellatrix might be living. He’d met her when they’d escaped Privet drive. Tonks’ parents’ house was the safe house Harry and Hagrid had been assigned to as their rendezvous point.
“I almost freaked out when she came in the room. She looks so much like her sister,” he said. “I actually yelled and was searching for my wand to curse her when Tonks’ dad told me who she was. She looks remarkably similar, much more so than Draco’s mum,” he told them.
They didn’t have high hopes that she would really have that much information, however, as the Black family had disowned her when she married Ted Tonks. She’d had no contact with either of her sisters since then. Still, they decided it was worth asking Lupin the next time they saw him. Trying to sneak back into the Ministry to get the information was ruled out almost immediately as a possibility.
“Are we really planning to break into Bellatrix’s house?” Ron asked nervously, drumming his fingers restlessly on his thighs while Harry squeezed his eyes closed briefly, his mildest reaction yet to the sound of her name so far today. “I mean, I know we broke into the Ministry and all, but I have to say that this makes me a lot more nervous. We’ve never gone after a Death Eater directly before, especially not someone like her.”
“Well, we know it’s not here in Grimmauld Place, and we’re not likely to find it camping all over the countryside in the tent either,” Harry said sarcastically. “It’s the best lead we’ve got. It’s that or the vault, and frankly, her house has got to be easier than trying to break into Gringotts, unless it’s under the Fidelius charm. I don’t know where else she would have kept it.”
“We need more information,” Hermione said in frustration. “We don’t have nearly enough to go on.”
Harry’s angry comment the other day about none of their ideas being good ones kept echoing in her head. He was right, of course. They had narrowly escaped the Ministry, and going to Godric’s Hollow had just been foolish. They’d made mistake after mistake and were lucky to be alive, actually. Their last one had cost them all dearly.
She wanted to make sure they explored every avenue before leaping this time, gathering all the information possible. More than anything, she now understood that their lives depended on it, the fear no longer a vague concern, but a very real threat to their survival.
“Yeah,” Ron agreed. “We don’t even know which Horcrux she has. We could search the place top to bottom, but if it’s not the cup, how will we even know what we’re looking for? I don’t think she’s likely to have it in a box labeled ‘Top Secret’ or anything,” he said derisively.
They discussed the subject for the next few hours and all through dinner, until they were merely re-hashing the same possibilities over and over again and becoming more frustrated for it. Over dessert (which was indeed a treacle tart) they’d all agreed that they simply needed more information. They really needed to know what the last Horcrux was. Without that information, they’d be searching blindly, and they couldn’t afford that. If they were going into Bellatrix’s home, they needed to know what exactly they were risking their lives for so they could get in and get out as quickly as they could, limiting their exposure as much as possible.
She pulled out her copy of Hogwarts, A History from her beaded bag, though she’d read it numerous times, to see if she could glean any more details about the founders and any objects associated with them when they’d returned again to the drawing room. She found nothing, of course, and though she didn’t expect to find anything useful, they searched the Black Family Library for books or documents that might be in anyway helpful, but there was nothing there either.
After the boys had given up and returned to the drawing room, she continued to poke around the dusty volumes. She took a few of them just for some light reading, to help pass the time. It was as if she couldn’t help it; even though the books in the Black library were dark and not generally to her taste, beggars couldn’t be choosers, and she was desperate.
She returned to the drawing room with three large books tucked to her chest. Ron and Harry were engaged in a game of chess with Ron’s new set. Both of them were smiling, which was nice to see after the darkness of their earlier discussions. There were already-vanquished pieces scattered beside the chess board, casualties of the battle. She stood in the doorway and watched them unnoticed for several long minutes. It reminded her so much of their time at Hogwarts in their transfigured drawing room. She wished they were truly back there and they could just start all over. The longing to return to those days nearly overwhelmed her.
Ron uttered a cry of dismay when one of Harry’s pieces went on the attack. She couldn’t tell which one from here, but the move must have come as a bit of a surprise to Ron. He normally beat Harry fairly easily.
“Are you losing your touch, Ron?” she asked him as she came into the room finally and dropped the books in one of the chairs.
His ears went strangely red again.
“I’m doing just fine,” he replied, sounding mildly outraged at her lack of confidence in him. “Harry’s just changed up his play style a bit since the last time we played. Maybe learned a few things from Ginny, but I’ll have him in the end,” he told her confidently.
“Hermione, have you been in the library all this time?” Harry asked with a laugh, looking at the books she’d dropped in the chair. Ron grinned as well at the familiarity of the scene.
Harry’s words seemed to echo at her from across the years, having been spoken so often within the walls of Hogwarts that the nostalgia that spread over her was almost suffocating.
“Come to give us a telling off for skivving off our homework?” Ron teased.
“Oh, shut it. It’s not as if there’s much else to do here,” she replied.
“Yeah, you must be going into withdrawals, though, to pick something out from that library to read.”
“I’ll admit there isn’t much there that’s appealing, and I don’t really feel like starting one of them right now, either. I think I’ll write a letter to Ginny instead,” she said.
The smile slid suddenly off Harry’s face.
“Why?” he asked suspiciously. “You aren’t thinking of inviting her back again, are you?”
“I wouldn’t do that, Harry. I’ve learned my lesson, believe me. But we do need to send Pigwidgeon back to them. We can’t have him following us around or leave him here, and if you aren’t planning to write back, then Ron or I should. I don’t know if you know this about her, Harry, but Ginny can be a bit stubborn,” she said in a conspiratorial whisper. “I don’t fancy getting another howler from her. If she doesn’t hear from one of us, she’s likely to come storming back over here on her own, invited or not.”
Harry didn’t respond. Apparently, he had no argument against it, though he continued to stare at her as she gathered herself some parchment and borrowed his quill and inkwell. She could feel his eyes on her while she wrote, but Ron eventually got him back into the game, and they finished about the time she wrapped up her letter to Ginny. Ron beat him handily, though. Harry’s earlier concentration had evidently been lost, his mind no longer focused on chess. She could see him darting glances at her out of the corner of her eye as she wrote.
“What did you say to her?” he asked her as she was rolling up the letter and sealing it with her wand.
“That’s between Ginny and me,” she answered curtly. “If you have something you’d like to say, you can write her yourself. I’d be glad to hold off sending it until you’ve finished.”
“I’m serious.”
“So am I. It’s not your business what I write in my letters to friends,” she told him, but then relented slightly. “I did tell her that you weren’t ready to write back, and asked her to please keep Pig for us a while longer,” she said, which was perfectly true, though she also told Ginny not to give up on Harry either, and she couldn’t resist telling her how much he’d improved since their last visit, but Harry didn’t need to know that.
She missed Ginny. They’d grown close over the years. She was the only female friend Hermione really had, and when your best friends were two boys, you sometimes needed a female perspective, or a break from all the testosterone and talk of Quidditch. Ginny surely felt the same, growing up with six brothers, though she was just as eager to discuss Quidditch.
Seeing her the other day had been both wonderful and stressful. Hermione couldn’t stop the recent, now-familiar gut-gnawing feelings of jealousy that crept up on her at seeing Harry’s reaction to Ginny, though. How easily she moved around him, how captivated he was at the sight of her.
Ginny had a way with Harry that no one else did. She could just be with him untroubled, helping him forget his own. She could calm him and take his mind off the immense pressures of being The Chosen One. She didn’t try to coddle him as so many of the rest of them did, and she didn’t let him pity himself either, but most importantly, she didn’t cling. She simply let Harry get on with the business of being Harry.
Hermione had done nothing but encourage their relationship from the beginning, counseling Ginny early on when Harry was too obtuse to see what Ginny really meant to him. Reveling in it when he’d finally come to his senses in sixth year, and encouraging Harry this morning to reach out to her. Even in the letter to Ginny she still held in her hand, she told Ginny to hold out hope for him, but still, a part of her was at war with that sentiment. She still fought the conflict within her about the depth of her feelings for Harry, still so confused by them.
Her words felt disingenuous, and that made her feel guilty, wanting Harry’s happiness with Ginny, but also wishing against it with that small, selfish part of herself that had emerged from the dungeons and grown here in their time at Grimmauld Place. Hermione wanted to be able to fill that void, that loneliness in him. She kept trying to suppress it, but she couldn’t seem to snuff it out.
“I also asked her to get word to Lupin that we’d like a quick visit with him when he’s able,” she finished.
It appeared Harry could find no fault with her responses, and so he nodded his head as if giving his permission. She brushed against Ron’s legs as she walked past him to Pigwidgeon’s cage, and Harry got suddenly to his feet.
“I think I’m going to bed,” he announced as she was tying the scroll to the owl’s leg.
“What?” Ron asked. “It’s only like, seven-thirty, or something.”
“Yeah, but I didn’t get up at noon today. I’ve been up a bit longer than you, Ron.” Harry replied with a smirk.
“Okay then,” Ron agreed, starting to stand.
“No, it’s all right, you stay here. I’m just tired,” he said, but Hermione suspected it was a lie.
He wanted to leave them alone together, she thought. He was trying to give them some privacy.
“I just feel like tucking in early tonight. You two stay,” Harry suggested, collecting his journal.
“Nah,” Ron argued. “We’ll come, too, if you’re ready for bed.”
“We’re not Fluffy,” Harry replied, his eyes finding hers to stare pointedly at her.“Right?”
“Huh?” Ron asked in confusion.
“Never mind,” Harry muttered. “I’ll be just fine. Really,” he added when Ron continued to stare at him, frozen still half-in-half-out of his chair.
“You sure?” Ron asked. “You don’t need any help on the stairs, or anything?”
“For God’s sake, Ron, I’m fine,” Harry said, rolling his eyes in exasperation. “Stop smothering me, you git. The beds have been separated now anyway, so if it’s that you’re eager to get your hands on me again, you’re out of luck.”
Ron’s neck and ears went red again, and his mouth opened slightly in shock before he finally found his voice.
“I was bloody well asleep, wasn’t I? It sounds to me like you’re the one who’s fixated on having my hands on you,” he grumbled.
Harry’s face broke into a huge grin.
“Maybe,” he confessed, as he waggled his eyebrows at Ron. “I’ll admit the memory is still quite vivid. It’s making me feel all tingly.”
His eyes darted back to hers, and she felt her own face reddening like Ron’s now, too, making her wish acutely that she’d never answered his query this morning and given him so much ammunition to use against her. Harry smirked at the pair of them a moment longer, apparently satisfied with himself, before heading up to bed, leaving Ron and her alone in the drawing room.
Hermione smiled through her embarrassment. Maybe hope hadn’t been left in the box after all, she thought. God, she wished this new Harry stayed around awhile. Though, that kind of cheek couldn’t be left unchallenged. She was hardly as mischievous as the twins, or even Ginny, but that required some form of retaliation.
“Wanker,” Ron called after him.
Hermione could hear Harry snorting with suppressed laughter as he mounted the stairs. Yes, she decided, they’d need to work on that.
“Did I really have my hands all over him this morning?” Ron asked her then, sounding worried as he turned back to her.
“Yeah, you did,” she said with a laugh before walking to the window to let Pigwidgeon out.
“Bloody hell,” he moaned.

~ . ~

I'm sorry this took such a long time. The truth is, I've been procrastinating. With the last movie coming out so soon, there is just so much media, videos and interviews that I had a hard time writing when I sat down at the computer. After I see the movie this weekend I may have a week or so of mourning, too, so its likely to be a bit sporadic on the next few updates before I get my head on straight again.
Greycie
Rogue - Uh...masterpiece? Ok, wow. No pressure! But Thank you!
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What it comes down to

Chapter 23. Facing Fears