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Lost and Found	By : Serranna Category: Harry Potter > Het - Male/Female > Harry/Hermione Views: 20338 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, nor any of the characters from the books or movies. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
- 1-Lost and Found
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I will be completely re-writing this story for the HarryHetBigBang at Livejournal. The Big Bang won't be publishing until August or September, but at least I'll have a completed story by the time I re-publish!

Thanks to everyone who reviewed!

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Hermione stood up from the dying flame wishing she’d just ignored the floo. Being around Harry when he was in such a state was difficult; she’d taken to avoiding him, the guilt that used to flare so bright at leaving Ron to bear the burden of his friendship having faded a long time ago.

He barged through the front door a moment later, not saying a word or even looking at her as he beelined towards the liquor cabinet and her last full bottle of fire whisky. Harry poured out a glass, and Hermione watched as a plump droplet of blood filled the space between his knuckles. It slid off when he knocked back the drink, joining a patchwork of red streaks across his hand. She cringed inside, not wanting to know but asking anyway.

“What did you do, Harry? You didn’t hit–”

“Of course not!” he spat, cutting her off before she said the name. “It’s all mine, courtesy of the bedroom wall.”

An uneasy silence enveloped them as Hermione retrieved her wand.   Those cuts would have to be tended to before Ron got home. If he even suspected Harry of hitting Ginny, there would be more than just a drop of blood on their floor. She half expected Harry to refuse her ministrations; he usually preferred remaining a martyr to his self-inflicted injuries. But tonight he let Hermione care for him as she would, his gaze tracking her movements with rapt intensity.

“All finished,” she announced when the last speck of blood was Scourgified. The cheer in her voice rang false, leaving her feeling awkward and looking for a distraction. Plucking up the bottle and a glass, she made for the sofa. “If you’re going to drink all of my whisky,” she threw back over her shoulder, “you can at least tell me what happened.”

Harry hung his head for a moment, staring into the swirl of amber in his hand. Shadows stood out beneath his eyes, proof of too many nights without sleep. Ginny never looked any better either. Somehow or another, this had to stop.

“It’s over this time, Hermione,” he said before draining his glass. Slumping into the living room, he dropped down beside her. “Ginny’s moving back to the Burrow. I’ve really fucked things up.”

Months of their fighting had worn everyone down, so all she could manage was a bit of hollow comfort. “Don’t be silly, Harry. You and Ginny fight all the time. You’ll patch things up.” Hermione leaned forward to fill her glass. “But to be perfectly honest, maybe a break is exactly what you two need right now.”

“What we need is a time machine," he said, and Hermione felt a rod of tension lodge in her spine. "Go back before that sick bastard …”

Hermione sprang forward to the edge of the cushion, ready to end this conversation. Why he insisted on wallowing in those memories, she’d never understand. Harry knew the dangers. If he wanted kill himself reliving the past, so be it. But she’d be damned if he pulled her down with him.

“I don’t know why you keep on torturing yourself. Talking about it isn’t going to change anything.”

“No, of course it won’t,” he growled before snatching up the bottle. “I guess I should just stuff everything down and pretend like it never happened. How’s that working out, by the way?”

Emotion clouded Hermione’s thoughts, keeping her seated even though she knew better. They were headed for an argument, and that was the last thing either of them needed. But truth be told, she was sick of him getting away with saying whatever mean thing that sprang to his mind. Harry couldn’t help himself, which meant she always had to be the bigger person; she always had to take the high road; she always had to –

“At least Ron is happy,” she said around a mouthful of bitterness.

Harry didn’t miss a beat, as if he’d been waiting for her to say those exact words. “Yeah, well, if Ginny was as daft as Ron she’d probably be happy too.”

Hermione clenched her jaw, not trusting herself with the venomous barb on her tongue. It would be easy enough to cut Harry down. He was an open wound on display, and Hermione knew all of his hurts in intimate detail. But she knew something else, too: Harry wanted her to lash out. He wanted her to cut him. Because if she did, it would be proof that she still shared his pain and hadn’t actually put things behind her the way everyone thought.

And part of her wanted to let loose, to let fly with her own explosion of rage and biting words designed to hurt him as much as he always hurt her. But if she let herself go to that place, then the careful façade she’d erected might start to chip and crack, making her vulnerable to the same torrent of emotions that was ruining Harry. And she couldn’t do that to Ron, not after seeing what it had done to Ginny.

“I’m not going to do this with you,” she said as she stood up to take her glass to the sink.

“No, of course you’re not,” he snarled as he followed her into the kitchen. “Because then you’d have to admit to the world that you’re not the perfect, sweet Hermione Granger that everyone remembers. Brightest witch of her fucking age, my arse.”

“Stop it!” she screamed, her hand whipping out and punctuating her cry with a sharp slap to Harry’s cheek.

Watching her palm print bloom across his face, Hermione was caught between apologizing and decorating the other cheek when Harry’s hand flashed out, snagged her by the back of the head and pulled her into a kiss.

The shock of his mouth sent her reeling. Logic fled in the wake of memory and emotion; when he pushed her back against the sink, with the hard length of him pressing tight, any semblance of control was lost. Surrendering to the heat of his lips, her senses rejoiced, savoring every rough thrust of his tongue and demanding that she relearn every inch of his flesh. Hermione clawed at his clothes, desperate to get to the skin underneath. Muscles hardened by torment and despair trembled beneath her touch, and she wanted nothing more than to soothe him with her body, to let him heal in the gentle warmth of her arms.

A brief respite of sanity cut through the haze of lust, warning of the destruction that hung on his kiss. Harry’s touch was better off forgotten. Struggling to break free, it took three shoves before he withdrew his mouth. But the pressure at the back of her head failed to relent, keeping her immobile as he whispered against her lips:

“I knew you hadn’t forgotten. You might be able to hide from everyone else, but you’ll never be able to hide from me. Hurts, doesn’t it?”

The pop of Ron’s Apparation from the other room killed the curse on her lips and loosened Harry’s grip on her head.   She pushed him the rest of the way off and shoved past him, shouting, “You deal with him!” in Ron’s direction before slamming her bedroom door.

Harry Potter and Hermione Granger vanished on December 13^th, 1998 mere minutes after being issued an official Ministry Portkey destined for Durmstrang. Several witnesses watched them grasp the enchanted device, but Ron and Ginny Weasley, who had gone ahead and were waiting at the Portkey’s terminus, reported them missing shortly after they failed to materialize.

The news of their disappearance came as a terrible blow to the wizarding community, which was still recovering from the shock of Voldemort. Everyone assumed that they’d been taken by a Death Eater, which led to a round-up of the lucky few who’d earned pardons from Azkaban. But there was nothing to be found. Not a hint or a whisper, as if Harry and Hermione just vanished into the magical ether.

It was a puzzling case indeed, with all sorts of theories circulating as to how the Portkey could have been altered between its making and Harry and Hermione’s hands. After months of searches and interrogations each theory had been dismissed, and only a scant few held out any hope for their return. But those who did defended their faith like a precious jewel, ready to use fist, foot and wand against anyone who suggested that Harry and Hermione had charmed the Portkey themselves in order to run off together like scoundrels in the night.

Gossip, in all its insidious glory, spread rampant, blackening tongues that only months prior had been singing Harry and Hermione’s praises. Ron was especially tormented by the turn, usually only a breath away from hexing the witch or wizard who dared look on him with pity. Doubt never penetrated the Burrow or Grimmauld Place, though, which meant that when Ron wasn’t searching with the Aurors, he was rarely elsewhere.

Ginny reacted to their disappearance by turning part hound, running down any lead no matter how far-fetched or dangerous. Her appearance grew just as haggard as her mood, her hair tangling into ropes of red filth. Molly would take her wand to Ginny’s head the minute she caught her daughter still, always clucking like a hen over the mess. Ginny’s jaw would clench, a childhood of moderately well-enforced obedience having taught her tongue not to take certain tones. It was only after the snarl had been swallowed that she would explain, carefully and precisely, that the search took precedence and Molly could cut the lot of it off for all she cared.

Both Ron and Ginny’s lives spun off into different orbits of pain and denial. They avoided each other, not wanting to see the same exact hurt reflected in the other’s eye. The absence was tolerable, not putting a dent into the tidal wave of grief pressing at their backs.

But when Arthur Weasley heard that Harry had been seen carrying Hermione into a muggle hospital in Scotland and he gathered his family together to await its verification, it was Ron’s hand that Ginny’s slid into, her thin fingers trembling as she fought against the hope.

The rumors turned out to be true, and the Ministry swooped in before the muggle doctors had even finished their examinations. Harry and Hermione, gone six months and eleven days, spent a week in St. Mungos healing from a variety of old and new injuries that neither of them were the least bit willing to elaborate upon or even acknowledge. Upon discharge, Harry retreated within the protective walls of Grimmauld Place, but Hermione fled to Australia, joining her parents who had decided to stay after their memories had been restored. It was only after several months of exhausted owls and pleading visits that Ron convinced Hermione to return.

And to everyone’s surprise, she didn’t seem much changed from memory, falling back into her old life with ease, almost as if she’d never been gone. Which only made Harry’s behavior that much stranger.

To Be Continued ...
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Lost and Found