Categories > Books > Harry Potter > Innocence Faded
Disclaimer: There's no 'I' in team. However, there is an 'i' in pie. And in meat pie. And 'meat' is and anagram for 'team.' And I have no idea where I'm going with this. If it was in the books it's not mine. Dream Theater lyrics belong to Dream Theater. Aggressive cat is aggressive. Defensive cat is defensive.
A/N: Day three, part two. This whole story is a brooding, introspective piece, and, as such, it moves at a very slow pace.
Some other entirely unconnected notes:
I already had plans to split this day before I was even half done with the previous chapter.
Dimmu Borgir is Symphonic Black Metal. You need to know that fact for a joke later on.
There might actually be aband that describes themselves as Symphonic Celtic Death Metal, but I wouldn't know. I just thought it sounded like a funny subgenre.*]
[*
Chapter 4: Goodnight Kiss
I want you to know I'd die for just one more moment
I'm just a poor girl
Afraid of this cruel world
Taken away from it all
--Dream Theater "Goodnight Kiss"
Hermione arrived in time to teach her last class of the day. It was a first year class, where all they were doing was practicing wand movements.
After class she slowly made her way to her office, but before she reached it she was intercepted by her oldest two. Jonas cleared his throat and said, "Mu--I mean Professor Granger," Hermione had chosen to go by her maiden name when teaching, feeling it would carry more of an impact academically than Weasley, "Can we talk? In private?" Jonas said. He was often called a'momma's boy,' and he would be first to admit that it was an accurate description, considering he took after her side of the family more than Harry's. He was the smarter of the two twins--granted, smarter was a relative term as they were both extremely bright--while Jenna was the more athletic--again, arelative term as they were both very athletic, with Jonas quite possibly being the best beater to play for the Gryffindor quidditch team since Fred and George Weasley left Hogwarts, evidenced by the fact that he was the first beater in over one hundred fifty years to captain a house quidditch team. He had, however, made it perfectly clear that he had no plans for going pro at it, opting instead to join the ranks of the Aurors. At 6'5" and 16 stone ten of pure muscle, he was a tall, broad young man, resembling his maternal grandfather who, in his youth, had been a rugby forward. Though usually quiet and reserved, he had been known to juggle cauldrons from time to time, to entertain first years--or show off his muscles to Brianna Carson, a girl in his year, only in Ravenclaw, that had caught his eye in his third year. She, unfortunately for him, thought he was an arrogant prat. It reminded Hermione of some stories she had heard about Harry's parents.
Jenna, on the other hand, was a short, slender girl. Hermione, at 5'4", towered over her daughter's elfin 4'10" frame. Many considered her very attractive, with her straight, shiny, blood red hair that fell just past her shoulders, emerald eyes, pale skin, and full lips. That, and a figure that made everyone take notice, be it attraction or jealousy. Though Hermione would never admit it to herself--much less anyone else--she was jealous of her oldest daughter's curves. Hermione had wondered how the girl had ended up being so short, until she did some research and found that Harry, at 5'10", was a full four inches taller than his father. Using that as reference, she took some measurements from some of Harry's photos of his parents and found that Lily had actually been only and inch taller than Jenna, though the margin of error was approximately two inches./ Also,/Hermione thought, my mother is five feet even. She still marveled at how different her oldest two looked. It reminded her of the movie /Twins/. Unsurprisingly, most people assumed that Jonas was the older one, when really Jenna was almost fifteen minutes older.
So deep in thought was she that she stood at the door to her office for a full thirty seconds, just thinking, before Jenna cleared her throat, "So, er, that's a nice door you've got there. I can only imagine what the rest of your office looks like." She met her mother's glare with a radiant, if mischievous, grin. Hermione opened her door, went to her CD player and put on the album"Spit" by Kittie.
"Must you listen to such moldy old music, Mum?" Jonas asked with a false air of disgust.
"I'll have you know your father and I almost named you Morgan and Mercedes, but decided not to when we couldn't agree on which one of you would be which." She shot them a mischievous smirk. "Now, I assume you didn't want to talk in private just to berate my taste in music, so what was it you wanted to talk to me about?" Hermione asked.
The twins shared a glance, communicating in a way that only twins can. That's not entirely true. Harry and I used to be able to have entire conversations in one fleeting glance, Hermione thought sadly. I do miss those days. Ron's been good to me all these years, but, Harry and I, we connected on a much deeper level. But is that still possible, after all that's happened? Hermione sighed, still unsure about what to do, bracing herself for the pleas she was about to hear, urging her to go back to Harry. In any other situation it would be odd that no one thinks for a second that Harry might stay with Ginny, but there's no way Harry is going to stay with that...that...Hermione couldn't think of a word that accurately described the woman she once considered a friend./]
"Has anyone told you how Dad's been doing since he found out?" Jonas asked.
"No, why?" Hermione asked. In her self-imposed exile of introspection she had completely forgotten about how Harry must have been taking it. She remembered the dead look in his eyes, and the only time she could think of that he looked anywhere near as bad as that was after the deaths of Sirius and Dumbledore.
Jenna spoke up, saying,"He's on suicide watch, and Madame Midgen won't let him out of the hospital wing for fear he might...do something to Ginny." Hermione was reminded of how the twins had never liked Ginny. How, when they were younger, they had often compared her to the wicked stepmother character in fairytales. [/They weren't far off, as it turns out. Why was it that no one noticed the signs? How did I/ not recognize the clues?/ Ginny's dislike of Jonas and Jenna from birth should have been an obvious clue. Hermione was shaken from her thoughts when Jenna spoke up again."James and Albus had to be taken to the hospital wing last night because they were almost as upset as Dad, and even Rose looked kind of subdued at lunch today."
Ginny didn't just do this to Harry and me. She did it to the entire Weasley clan as well, whether she realizes it or not. Hermione sorrowfully shook her head. "I'll go look in on him later," She said.
"Thanks, Mum," Jonas said as he gave her a hug.
------
Harry awoke to the sounds of "Sacrificed Sons," yet another song by Dream Theater, being played. Jeez, does Hermione write the playlists for this station? Then he remembered that Lee Jordan had bought the station shortly after the final battle. I forgot. Lee married Parvati shortly before I...well, before I left Hermione. And of course, being roommates with Hermione, she had to have learned to like Dream Theater just for the sake of her sanity. She probably turned him onto Dream Theater. Will this cycle never/ end?/
It was true that muggle music, particularly Hard Rock and Heavy Metal had gained popularity in the wizarding world in the almost two decades since the Final Battle. Even older witches and wizards were drawn to it. Harry still remembered waking in on Mr. Weasley listening to Dimmu Borgir's album "In Sorte Diaboli." He was playing air violin. There was even a band consisting of purebloods that had achieved considerable success in the muggle world in the past eight years. It was named Sectumsempra and was credited with creating the genre of Symphonic Celtic Death Metal.
'Sacrificed Sons' brought up memories of the time his Auror squad had seen action in Iraq. It still irked him that those American muggles got credit for finding Saddam. Damn it, I found him! The cover story was ridiculous; it would have worked for anyone, so why couldn't I have received credit where credit was due? Still, he did receive the Ace of Spades from the commemorative playing card deck the U.S. President used to keep track of the...of the...What was that deck of cards for anyway? Harry remembered remarking to Ron afterwards that the man was living proof of just how far an "Acceptable" student could go. He remembered how Ron had repeatedly called the American president 'President Shrub,' how after one of the times Harry corrected him, Ron actually asked the president of richest nation in the world if he was related to the people who made Budweiser. It was a shame that six years later the U.S. economy collapsed, creating the world's largest third world nation. The thought threatened to send his thoughts to a dark place, so he tried to think of happier things.
The trip itself had been fun, all things considered. In addition to meeting the president, they had toured several American cities. He chuckled at the memory of dropping dungbombs off of the observation deck of the Sears Tower. He thought of the stares they had gotten while walking around Detroit in the middle of January...wearing Hawaiian shirts and gothic makeup, with no coats. He remembered how Ginny--and just like that, the soap bubble that had been his building good mood burst, plummeting him back into his deep depression.
The door opened and Harry heard the voices of the two people he least expected to ever see walking the halls of Hogwarts. Shortly after the Final Battle Uncle Vernon had suffered a fatal heart attack, leaving Petunia without any means to support herself. Dudley still had a year to go at Smeltings, but he was going to forgo it in order to go to work to help pay the bills. Harry never would have known if he hadn't visited them at their new house--which the Order had set them up with after the battle--to invite them to his wedding. He hadn't wanted to, but Hermione had made him. He remembered it as though he was watching it through the wrong end of atelescope.
------/]
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He was walking down the very generic looking drive in the small community on the outskirts of London, not unlike Little Whinging to be sure, though the houses here were of a slightly different design. He struggled to find his destination amongst all the unnaturally perfect houses.
There. Number Six, Saxony Road.
He walked up the path through the garden--which, he noted, was not up to the standard of the one back at Privet Drive that he had maintained--and rang the doorbell remembering all the times his Uncle complained about people knocking when there was a perfectly good doorbell.
His aunt answered the door. "What do you want, boy?" she asked, somewhere between disgust, fear, and anger. There was something else in the mix, but he couldn't tell just what.
"Believe me, I'm not here because I want to be. I'm here because my fiancee told me I have to invite you. If it were up to me, you would never have heard from me again, but no,I've got to invite you to what should have been the happiest event of my life. And I've got to deliver the invitation in person no less!" Something struck him as odd, but he was too busy ranting to puzzle it over.
"What are you babbling on about boy?!" Aunt Petunia shouted. Harry, who had continued his litany internally, was interrupted from his silent ravings.
"Oh, sorry. I'm getting married on the twenty-fourth of August, and my fiancee wanted me to invite you. Don't worry, it's a normal ceremony in a normal church," he reassured her. Whatever was out of place was really bugging him.
/"She's one of /yourkind." It wasn't a question.
"Yes, you've seen her before. She's Hermione Granger," Harry said.
"Let me think... Short, with messy brown hair and big teeth?" She asked. Harry vaguely remembered Vernon making a similarly "Pot-Kettle-Black" statement.
"Well, she used to have big teeth. She got them fixed. Her parents are dentists, you see," he knew that by telling a vague half-truth Aunt Petunia would, according to Occham's Razor, choose the simpler, more palatable explanation.
"I bet they weren't happy when she used magic to fix those teeth of hers, in that case." Aunt Petunia replied.
Harry was semi stunned. Occham, you fool, you've failed me! he thought. That nagging sensation that was bugging him seemed to shout and point at something, but Harry wasn't sure what.
"Anyway, are you coming to the wedding?" Harry asked.
"Yes, tell your fiancee to add two more to the guest list," Aunt Petunia said sadly.
"So Dudley won't be able to make it?" Harry asked. The only reason he asked was because when they last parted company, Dudley actually seemed like he might be turning over a new leaf, becoming someone worth knowing.
Her eyes glazed over with tears, as she responded, "No, Dudley will be attending. Vernon...V-Vernon p-passed away," She threw her arms around him and started sobbing into his shoulder, right there on the front step.
Harry was stunned. Uncle Vernon was no mere man in his psyche. He was a force of nature, like an earthquake, or a volcano. He just couldn't equate death with his uncle. The Grim Reaper must have had a real fight on his hands when he took on Vernon Dursley, he thought. What he said was this, "I'm so sorry, Aunt Petunia. If there's anything I can do, just name it."
"Y-you'd be willing to help us? After all we did to you?" His aunt asked, and if she was afraid that he was playing some cruel joke.
"Yes, but more for what you did for me. You did take me in, even if you didn't treat me very well. You kept Vernon from throwing me out three years ago. Plus, Dudley seemed to be changing his ways last year. If I didn't help you now, I'd be no better than Vernon. Or the one who killed my parents," Harry said.
Aunt Petunia accepted, and Harry agreed to pay for Dudley's final year at Smelting's, and give Petunia a small monthly 'allowance,' of sorts.
As Harry was leaving, his aunt said, "I don't know how to thank you for this."
"You don't have to. You're all the family I have left. We may not have acted like family in the past, but, as they say, there's no time like the present," Harry said, and then turned and walked away, noting the'for sale' sign in front of the house next door.
Two weeks later, Harry bought the house next door for the Grangers upon their return to the U.K.
------
Harry wondered for an instant how they had found out. Hermione must have told her parents, who then told Aunt Petunia. Makes sense, I guess. Petunia and Cassandra, Hermione's mother, had become fast friends. Petunia had always been rather cold towards Ginny. I always assumed it was because she was a friend of Hermione's mother, but perhaps she could sense something.
As they came around the divider, Harry got up and greeted them, embracing Aunt Petunia and giving Dudley a firm handshake. Dudley, a former boxing Heavyweight Champion of the World, now owned, along with Harry, the controlling stake in Grunning's. "I never expected to see you two here. You just might be the first muggles to cross the threshold of Hogwarts for the better part of a millennium." Harry said. "So, why did you come to visit me? More importantly, how did you get here, anyway?"
"Cassandra told me what happened, Harry," Aunt Petunia said. "She said that she hadn't seen Hermione this broken up since the divorce. Poor dear, she's heartbroken."
Dudley said, "As for how, Mum sent the owl you gave her to your brother-in-law, er, George, I think it was--the one with only one ear--"
"That's George," Harry interrupted, nodding.
"Anyway, she sent her owl to him. I don't know why she sent it to him, except that she likes him more than the others, I guess. He came and got us and brought us here," Dudley said. "But we're not here to talk about us."
He took a deep breath, and said, "I can't even begin to imagine the heartache you must be going through right about now. We'll be there for you if you need us. Remember that." His words were filled with an empathy that Harry never would have believed possible for him nineteen years ago.
"I always knew there was something wrong about that Weasley girl. I never told you because you seemed so happy, and after all that Vernon, Dudley, and I put you through, I felt you deserved all the happiness you could get. Still, I never thought something like this was possible, even with magic," Aunt Petunia lamented.
They spoke for a while longer before Aunt Petunia and Dudley got up to leave. Just as they stood the door opened and Jonas and Jenna strode in. They saw the Dursleys and Jenna rushed forward to greet them, while Jonas strode over in a more dignified manner.
"Harry, your daughter just gets prettier and prettier every time I see her. Are you sure she's yours?" Dudley asked, grinning.
"I'm pretty sure," Harry responded. "Though that might explain the straight hair," he added in a thoughtful tone, giving Dudley a smile in return.
"Stop it, both of you," Petunia said. "Jenna, don't listen to them. You look so much like Lily did at your age." Petunia gave her nephew's daughter a hug. After the separated, she said, "Now, Jonas on the other hand, there's definitely no way he's yours. He's way too tall," she continued, ruffling Jonas's hair as he leaned over to give his great-aunt a kiss on the cheek. After exchanging pleasantries, the Dursleys left to find their escort.
"You know," Jenna said, "I think she's right, little brother. You're way too tall to be a Potter." She flashed a radiant--if mischievous--smile at her brother, and then looked at her father.
"So, Dad, how are you feeling today?" she asked.
"Better. Well, I'm feeling better /now/, anyway. This morning I had a fit of hysterics and had to restrain the urge to strangle Lily," he said, sadly. "They were separate incidents," he added, noticing their puzzled expressions.
When their looks of befuddlement didn't go away, he said, "She knew about the love potion." The puzzled expressions disappeared.
"You can't blame her, Dad. Even if she did know /about/it, she probably didn't know what it was. Ginny wouldn't have explained it to her, since she's another 'Daddy's little girl,'like Jenna here," Jonas said, almost dodging the kick aimed at his groin.
Again, he talked with his visitors for a bit, before they left. He settled down, and listened to the WWN, which had never been shut off. The station actually went the next forty five minutes playing only two songs, "In the Presence of Enemies" by Dream Theater, and"2112" by Rush.
As "2112" was winding down, he heard the door to the hospital wing open, and footsteps that made a beeline to his bed. What is this, Grand Central Station? His irritation melted away when his visitor came around the divider.
"Hi. I thought I'd come and see how you were doing," Hermione said softly. Harry wasn't sure it he should be happy or not. In the back of his mind he vaguely recognized the song that was now playing as being some ballad by The Scorpions.
"I've been better," Harry said dryly. In truth, he felt better than he had since before he found out about the love potion.
He suddenly realized what the song was and inwardly groaned, even as Klaus Meine wailed, "I'm still loving you!"
Hermione seemed to realize something was bothering Harry besides what Ginny had done. "What's wrong?" she asked.
"Oh, it's nothing important," Harry said, knowing that Hermione would press on anyway. He looked up to see her expectant gaze. "Fine, but you'll think I'm crazy."
"At this point that would be like the pot calling the kettle black," Hermione remarked dryly, with a look of nostalgia in her suddenly teary eyes.
"Pardon?" Harry asked. He had a nagging feeling that she was thinking of another one-on-one conversation between them.
"Remember the conversation in the library, just after the Final Battle, the one where you told me you loved me?" Harry looked as if he was struggling to remember. "You asked me what my excuse for not being with the Weasleys was. I told you I was doing some soul searching. When you asked what it was about, I told you that you'd think I was nuts. You told me that would be like the pot calling the kettle black."
"Oh. I'd forgotten that part," Harry said, eyes shining with unshed tears. He took a few moments to compose himself, then looked up and said, "Well, you'll still think I'm crazy. The radio station has been playing songs that...that resonate with my current mood. Yesterday they played 'Innocence Faded,' and I didn't recognize it as our song immediately. I just saw how the lyrics mirrored the situation I found myself in. This morning it was 'It Snows in Hell.' I think you can figure that one out yourself. And now...now it's..."
He waved at the WWN receiver, indicating for Hermione to listen for herself, just as Klaus gave along, drawn-out, anguished cry of, "I'm still loving yooouuu!"
Hermione had tears in her eyes as she looked back to Harry, asking, "Really?"
Harry nodded sadly, saying,"I don't think I ever stopped. Forgotten maybe, but never stopped. And now," his voice cracked, "it can never be as it was. You're with Ron, and I," he paused, blinking back tears, trying to compose himself, and failing utterly, "I-I've got no one."
"Harry, I...I never stopped loving you either. I wish Icould say that it would be easy to choose between you or Ron, but it isn't," at this point words failed her. She just wrapped her arms around him, sobbing into his chest. She finally was able to compose herself, if just barely enough to sob,"I just don't know what I'm going to do."
Harry reached out and lifted her chin, to where they were looking each other in the eye. "I'll tell you what you're going to do. You're going to follow your heart. If you do choose Ron, I-I'll survive, somehow," he said, though in his mind he knew he was lying. He couldn't bear the thought of losing her again.
They sat there, staring into each other's eyes, not looking away for several minutes. Slowly, Harry started leaning forward, his mouth moving towards hers. Hermione closed her eyes, her own head moving seemingly of it's own accord to meet him halfway, and as their lips met, a spark ran through them. All of a sudden, the last vestiges of the love potion were wiped from Harry's mind.
As the kiss deepened, Hermione broke free without warning, muttered an apology, and ran. /Great, /Harry thought. I guess that tells me what her decision is. If only they hadn't taken my wand. Sleep found Harry contemplating different methods for committing suicide, finding that none of them would work while he was still in the hospital wing.
------
Meanwhile, Hermione was roaming the corridors, thinking of what had just happened.
She had just kissed Harry, and it felt like the fights had never happened, she loved him now just as much as she had the day of their wedding. One thought, however, kept returning to the forefront of her consciousness, and it chilled her to think it, but she knew that she could not suppress it forever. She reached her quarters, and the anger that had been building in the last forty-eight hours exploded from her in a burst of wild magic, causing astorm of magic rivaling those which had occurred during the potion induced fights between her and Harry. She looked at the mess, caused by her and her alone in this instance, and allowed herself to embrace the thought she had been denying herself for the last ten minutes. Over and over, she thought that one thought, until it became her mantra.
Ginny's a dead woman.
------
A/N: I thought I was never going to finish this chapter. I only had one event that I wanted to happen, and getting to that point was quite a challenge. The word count for the chapter, not counting the Author's Notes, is 4081. I haven't even been trying to write longer chapters lately, but they are about the perfect length, in my opinion.
For those Americans that don't know get any meaning from the phrase "sixteen stone ten," it means 234 lbs. I rolled the weights of Jonas and Jenna, using the D&D 3.5 Ed. random height and weight adjustments for human male and elf female.
Before I Forget (good song by the way)
Questions? Comments? Plotholes? Just type them up in a review (please), and I'll try to respond to them. I do hope you liked this chapter
A/N: Day three, part two. This whole story is a brooding, introspective piece, and, as such, it moves at a very slow pace.
Some other entirely unconnected notes:
I already had plans to split this day before I was even half done with the previous chapter.
Dimmu Borgir is Symphonic Black Metal. You need to know that fact for a joke later on.
There might actually be aband that describes themselves as Symphonic Celtic Death Metal, but I wouldn't know. I just thought it sounded like a funny subgenre.*]
[*
Chapter 4: Goodnight Kiss
I want you to know I'd die for just one more moment
I'm just a poor girl
Afraid of this cruel world
Taken away from it all
--Dream Theater "Goodnight Kiss"
Hermione arrived in time to teach her last class of the day. It was a first year class, where all they were doing was practicing wand movements.
After class she slowly made her way to her office, but before she reached it she was intercepted by her oldest two. Jonas cleared his throat and said, "Mu--I mean Professor Granger," Hermione had chosen to go by her maiden name when teaching, feeling it would carry more of an impact academically than Weasley, "Can we talk? In private?" Jonas said. He was often called a'momma's boy,' and he would be first to admit that it was an accurate description, considering he took after her side of the family more than Harry's. He was the smarter of the two twins--granted, smarter was a relative term as they were both extremely bright--while Jenna was the more athletic--again, arelative term as they were both very athletic, with Jonas quite possibly being the best beater to play for the Gryffindor quidditch team since Fred and George Weasley left Hogwarts, evidenced by the fact that he was the first beater in over one hundred fifty years to captain a house quidditch team. He had, however, made it perfectly clear that he had no plans for going pro at it, opting instead to join the ranks of the Aurors. At 6'5" and 16 stone ten of pure muscle, he was a tall, broad young man, resembling his maternal grandfather who, in his youth, had been a rugby forward. Though usually quiet and reserved, he had been known to juggle cauldrons from time to time, to entertain first years--or show off his muscles to Brianna Carson, a girl in his year, only in Ravenclaw, that had caught his eye in his third year. She, unfortunately for him, thought he was an arrogant prat. It reminded Hermione of some stories she had heard about Harry's parents.
Jenna, on the other hand, was a short, slender girl. Hermione, at 5'4", towered over her daughter's elfin 4'10" frame. Many considered her very attractive, with her straight, shiny, blood red hair that fell just past her shoulders, emerald eyes, pale skin, and full lips. That, and a figure that made everyone take notice, be it attraction or jealousy. Though Hermione would never admit it to herself--much less anyone else--she was jealous of her oldest daughter's curves. Hermione had wondered how the girl had ended up being so short, until she did some research and found that Harry, at 5'10", was a full four inches taller than his father. Using that as reference, she took some measurements from some of Harry's photos of his parents and found that Lily had actually been only and inch taller than Jenna, though the margin of error was approximately two inches./ Also,/Hermione thought, my mother is five feet even. She still marveled at how different her oldest two looked. It reminded her of the movie /Twins/. Unsurprisingly, most people assumed that Jonas was the older one, when really Jenna was almost fifteen minutes older.
So deep in thought was she that she stood at the door to her office for a full thirty seconds, just thinking, before Jenna cleared her throat, "So, er, that's a nice door you've got there. I can only imagine what the rest of your office looks like." She met her mother's glare with a radiant, if mischievous, grin. Hermione opened her door, went to her CD player and put on the album"Spit" by Kittie.
"Must you listen to such moldy old music, Mum?" Jonas asked with a false air of disgust.
"I'll have you know your father and I almost named you Morgan and Mercedes, but decided not to when we couldn't agree on which one of you would be which." She shot them a mischievous smirk. "Now, I assume you didn't want to talk in private just to berate my taste in music, so what was it you wanted to talk to me about?" Hermione asked.
The twins shared a glance, communicating in a way that only twins can. That's not entirely true. Harry and I used to be able to have entire conversations in one fleeting glance, Hermione thought sadly. I do miss those days. Ron's been good to me all these years, but, Harry and I, we connected on a much deeper level. But is that still possible, after all that's happened? Hermione sighed, still unsure about what to do, bracing herself for the pleas she was about to hear, urging her to go back to Harry. In any other situation it would be odd that no one thinks for a second that Harry might stay with Ginny, but there's no way Harry is going to stay with that...that...Hermione couldn't think of a word that accurately described the woman she once considered a friend./]
"Has anyone told you how Dad's been doing since he found out?" Jonas asked.
"No, why?" Hermione asked. In her self-imposed exile of introspection she had completely forgotten about how Harry must have been taking it. She remembered the dead look in his eyes, and the only time she could think of that he looked anywhere near as bad as that was after the deaths of Sirius and Dumbledore.
Jenna spoke up, saying,"He's on suicide watch, and Madame Midgen won't let him out of the hospital wing for fear he might...do something to Ginny." Hermione was reminded of how the twins had never liked Ginny. How, when they were younger, they had often compared her to the wicked stepmother character in fairytales. [/They weren't far off, as it turns out. Why was it that no one noticed the signs? How did I/ not recognize the clues?/ Ginny's dislike of Jonas and Jenna from birth should have been an obvious clue. Hermione was shaken from her thoughts when Jenna spoke up again."James and Albus had to be taken to the hospital wing last night because they were almost as upset as Dad, and even Rose looked kind of subdued at lunch today."
Ginny didn't just do this to Harry and me. She did it to the entire Weasley clan as well, whether she realizes it or not. Hermione sorrowfully shook her head. "I'll go look in on him later," She said.
"Thanks, Mum," Jonas said as he gave her a hug.
------
Harry awoke to the sounds of "Sacrificed Sons," yet another song by Dream Theater, being played. Jeez, does Hermione write the playlists for this station? Then he remembered that Lee Jordan had bought the station shortly after the final battle. I forgot. Lee married Parvati shortly before I...well, before I left Hermione. And of course, being roommates with Hermione, she had to have learned to like Dream Theater just for the sake of her sanity. She probably turned him onto Dream Theater. Will this cycle never/ end?/
It was true that muggle music, particularly Hard Rock and Heavy Metal had gained popularity in the wizarding world in the almost two decades since the Final Battle. Even older witches and wizards were drawn to it. Harry still remembered waking in on Mr. Weasley listening to Dimmu Borgir's album "In Sorte Diaboli." He was playing air violin. There was even a band consisting of purebloods that had achieved considerable success in the muggle world in the past eight years. It was named Sectumsempra and was credited with creating the genre of Symphonic Celtic Death Metal.
'Sacrificed Sons' brought up memories of the time his Auror squad had seen action in Iraq. It still irked him that those American muggles got credit for finding Saddam. Damn it, I found him! The cover story was ridiculous; it would have worked for anyone, so why couldn't I have received credit where credit was due? Still, he did receive the Ace of Spades from the commemorative playing card deck the U.S. President used to keep track of the...of the...What was that deck of cards for anyway? Harry remembered remarking to Ron afterwards that the man was living proof of just how far an "Acceptable" student could go. He remembered how Ron had repeatedly called the American president 'President Shrub,' how after one of the times Harry corrected him, Ron actually asked the president of richest nation in the world if he was related to the people who made Budweiser. It was a shame that six years later the U.S. economy collapsed, creating the world's largest third world nation. The thought threatened to send his thoughts to a dark place, so he tried to think of happier things.
The trip itself had been fun, all things considered. In addition to meeting the president, they had toured several American cities. He chuckled at the memory of dropping dungbombs off of the observation deck of the Sears Tower. He thought of the stares they had gotten while walking around Detroit in the middle of January...wearing Hawaiian shirts and gothic makeup, with no coats. He remembered how Ginny--and just like that, the soap bubble that had been his building good mood burst, plummeting him back into his deep depression.
The door opened and Harry heard the voices of the two people he least expected to ever see walking the halls of Hogwarts. Shortly after the Final Battle Uncle Vernon had suffered a fatal heart attack, leaving Petunia without any means to support herself. Dudley still had a year to go at Smeltings, but he was going to forgo it in order to go to work to help pay the bills. Harry never would have known if he hadn't visited them at their new house--which the Order had set them up with after the battle--to invite them to his wedding. He hadn't wanted to, but Hermione had made him. He remembered it as though he was watching it through the wrong end of atelescope.
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He was walking down the very generic looking drive in the small community on the outskirts of London, not unlike Little Whinging to be sure, though the houses here were of a slightly different design. He struggled to find his destination amongst all the unnaturally perfect houses.
There. Number Six, Saxony Road.
He walked up the path through the garden--which, he noted, was not up to the standard of the one back at Privet Drive that he had maintained--and rang the doorbell remembering all the times his Uncle complained about people knocking when there was a perfectly good doorbell.
His aunt answered the door. "What do you want, boy?" she asked, somewhere between disgust, fear, and anger. There was something else in the mix, but he couldn't tell just what.
"Believe me, I'm not here because I want to be. I'm here because my fiancee told me I have to invite you. If it were up to me, you would never have heard from me again, but no,I've got to invite you to what should have been the happiest event of my life. And I've got to deliver the invitation in person no less!" Something struck him as odd, but he was too busy ranting to puzzle it over.
"What are you babbling on about boy?!" Aunt Petunia shouted. Harry, who had continued his litany internally, was interrupted from his silent ravings.
"Oh, sorry. I'm getting married on the twenty-fourth of August, and my fiancee wanted me to invite you. Don't worry, it's a normal ceremony in a normal church," he reassured her. Whatever was out of place was really bugging him.
/"She's one of /yourkind." It wasn't a question.
"Yes, you've seen her before. She's Hermione Granger," Harry said.
"Let me think... Short, with messy brown hair and big teeth?" She asked. Harry vaguely remembered Vernon making a similarly "Pot-Kettle-Black" statement.
"Well, she used to have big teeth. She got them fixed. Her parents are dentists, you see," he knew that by telling a vague half-truth Aunt Petunia would, according to Occham's Razor, choose the simpler, more palatable explanation.
"I bet they weren't happy when she used magic to fix those teeth of hers, in that case." Aunt Petunia replied.
Harry was semi stunned. Occham, you fool, you've failed me! he thought. That nagging sensation that was bugging him seemed to shout and point at something, but Harry wasn't sure what.
"Anyway, are you coming to the wedding?" Harry asked.
"Yes, tell your fiancee to add two more to the guest list," Aunt Petunia said sadly.
"So Dudley won't be able to make it?" Harry asked. The only reason he asked was because when they last parted company, Dudley actually seemed like he might be turning over a new leaf, becoming someone worth knowing.
Her eyes glazed over with tears, as she responded, "No, Dudley will be attending. Vernon...V-Vernon p-passed away," She threw her arms around him and started sobbing into his shoulder, right there on the front step.
Harry was stunned. Uncle Vernon was no mere man in his psyche. He was a force of nature, like an earthquake, or a volcano. He just couldn't equate death with his uncle. The Grim Reaper must have had a real fight on his hands when he took on Vernon Dursley, he thought. What he said was this, "I'm so sorry, Aunt Petunia. If there's anything I can do, just name it."
"Y-you'd be willing to help us? After all we did to you?" His aunt asked, and if she was afraid that he was playing some cruel joke.
"Yes, but more for what you did for me. You did take me in, even if you didn't treat me very well. You kept Vernon from throwing me out three years ago. Plus, Dudley seemed to be changing his ways last year. If I didn't help you now, I'd be no better than Vernon. Or the one who killed my parents," Harry said.
Aunt Petunia accepted, and Harry agreed to pay for Dudley's final year at Smelting's, and give Petunia a small monthly 'allowance,' of sorts.
As Harry was leaving, his aunt said, "I don't know how to thank you for this."
"You don't have to. You're all the family I have left. We may not have acted like family in the past, but, as they say, there's no time like the present," Harry said, and then turned and walked away, noting the'for sale' sign in front of the house next door.
Two weeks later, Harry bought the house next door for the Grangers upon their return to the U.K.
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Harry wondered for an instant how they had found out. Hermione must have told her parents, who then told Aunt Petunia. Makes sense, I guess. Petunia and Cassandra, Hermione's mother, had become fast friends. Petunia had always been rather cold towards Ginny. I always assumed it was because she was a friend of Hermione's mother, but perhaps she could sense something.
As they came around the divider, Harry got up and greeted them, embracing Aunt Petunia and giving Dudley a firm handshake. Dudley, a former boxing Heavyweight Champion of the World, now owned, along with Harry, the controlling stake in Grunning's. "I never expected to see you two here. You just might be the first muggles to cross the threshold of Hogwarts for the better part of a millennium." Harry said. "So, why did you come to visit me? More importantly, how did you get here, anyway?"
"Cassandra told me what happened, Harry," Aunt Petunia said. "She said that she hadn't seen Hermione this broken up since the divorce. Poor dear, she's heartbroken."
Dudley said, "As for how, Mum sent the owl you gave her to your brother-in-law, er, George, I think it was--the one with only one ear--"
"That's George," Harry interrupted, nodding.
"Anyway, she sent her owl to him. I don't know why she sent it to him, except that she likes him more than the others, I guess. He came and got us and brought us here," Dudley said. "But we're not here to talk about us."
He took a deep breath, and said, "I can't even begin to imagine the heartache you must be going through right about now. We'll be there for you if you need us. Remember that." His words were filled with an empathy that Harry never would have believed possible for him nineteen years ago.
"I always knew there was something wrong about that Weasley girl. I never told you because you seemed so happy, and after all that Vernon, Dudley, and I put you through, I felt you deserved all the happiness you could get. Still, I never thought something like this was possible, even with magic," Aunt Petunia lamented.
They spoke for a while longer before Aunt Petunia and Dudley got up to leave. Just as they stood the door opened and Jonas and Jenna strode in. They saw the Dursleys and Jenna rushed forward to greet them, while Jonas strode over in a more dignified manner.
"Harry, your daughter just gets prettier and prettier every time I see her. Are you sure she's yours?" Dudley asked, grinning.
"I'm pretty sure," Harry responded. "Though that might explain the straight hair," he added in a thoughtful tone, giving Dudley a smile in return.
"Stop it, both of you," Petunia said. "Jenna, don't listen to them. You look so much like Lily did at your age." Petunia gave her nephew's daughter a hug. After the separated, she said, "Now, Jonas on the other hand, there's definitely no way he's yours. He's way too tall," she continued, ruffling Jonas's hair as he leaned over to give his great-aunt a kiss on the cheek. After exchanging pleasantries, the Dursleys left to find their escort.
"You know," Jenna said, "I think she's right, little brother. You're way too tall to be a Potter." She flashed a radiant--if mischievous--smile at her brother, and then looked at her father.
"So, Dad, how are you feeling today?" she asked.
"Better. Well, I'm feeling better /now/, anyway. This morning I had a fit of hysterics and had to restrain the urge to strangle Lily," he said, sadly. "They were separate incidents," he added, noticing their puzzled expressions.
When their looks of befuddlement didn't go away, he said, "She knew about the love potion." The puzzled expressions disappeared.
"You can't blame her, Dad. Even if she did know /about/it, she probably didn't know what it was. Ginny wouldn't have explained it to her, since she's another 'Daddy's little girl,'like Jenna here," Jonas said, almost dodging the kick aimed at his groin.
Again, he talked with his visitors for a bit, before they left. He settled down, and listened to the WWN, which had never been shut off. The station actually went the next forty five minutes playing only two songs, "In the Presence of Enemies" by Dream Theater, and"2112" by Rush.
As "2112" was winding down, he heard the door to the hospital wing open, and footsteps that made a beeline to his bed. What is this, Grand Central Station? His irritation melted away when his visitor came around the divider.
"Hi. I thought I'd come and see how you were doing," Hermione said softly. Harry wasn't sure it he should be happy or not. In the back of his mind he vaguely recognized the song that was now playing as being some ballad by The Scorpions.
"I've been better," Harry said dryly. In truth, he felt better than he had since before he found out about the love potion.
He suddenly realized what the song was and inwardly groaned, even as Klaus Meine wailed, "I'm still loving you!"
Hermione seemed to realize something was bothering Harry besides what Ginny had done. "What's wrong?" she asked.
"Oh, it's nothing important," Harry said, knowing that Hermione would press on anyway. He looked up to see her expectant gaze. "Fine, but you'll think I'm crazy."
"At this point that would be like the pot calling the kettle black," Hermione remarked dryly, with a look of nostalgia in her suddenly teary eyes.
"Pardon?" Harry asked. He had a nagging feeling that she was thinking of another one-on-one conversation between them.
"Remember the conversation in the library, just after the Final Battle, the one where you told me you loved me?" Harry looked as if he was struggling to remember. "You asked me what my excuse for not being with the Weasleys was. I told you I was doing some soul searching. When you asked what it was about, I told you that you'd think I was nuts. You told me that would be like the pot calling the kettle black."
"Oh. I'd forgotten that part," Harry said, eyes shining with unshed tears. He took a few moments to compose himself, then looked up and said, "Well, you'll still think I'm crazy. The radio station has been playing songs that...that resonate with my current mood. Yesterday they played 'Innocence Faded,' and I didn't recognize it as our song immediately. I just saw how the lyrics mirrored the situation I found myself in. This morning it was 'It Snows in Hell.' I think you can figure that one out yourself. And now...now it's..."
He waved at the WWN receiver, indicating for Hermione to listen for herself, just as Klaus gave along, drawn-out, anguished cry of, "I'm still loving yooouuu!"
Hermione had tears in her eyes as she looked back to Harry, asking, "Really?"
Harry nodded sadly, saying,"I don't think I ever stopped. Forgotten maybe, but never stopped. And now," his voice cracked, "it can never be as it was. You're with Ron, and I," he paused, blinking back tears, trying to compose himself, and failing utterly, "I-I've got no one."
"Harry, I...I never stopped loving you either. I wish Icould say that it would be easy to choose between you or Ron, but it isn't," at this point words failed her. She just wrapped her arms around him, sobbing into his chest. She finally was able to compose herself, if just barely enough to sob,"I just don't know what I'm going to do."
Harry reached out and lifted her chin, to where they were looking each other in the eye. "I'll tell you what you're going to do. You're going to follow your heart. If you do choose Ron, I-I'll survive, somehow," he said, though in his mind he knew he was lying. He couldn't bear the thought of losing her again.
They sat there, staring into each other's eyes, not looking away for several minutes. Slowly, Harry started leaning forward, his mouth moving towards hers. Hermione closed her eyes, her own head moving seemingly of it's own accord to meet him halfway, and as their lips met, a spark ran through them. All of a sudden, the last vestiges of the love potion were wiped from Harry's mind.
As the kiss deepened, Hermione broke free without warning, muttered an apology, and ran. /Great, /Harry thought. I guess that tells me what her decision is. If only they hadn't taken my wand. Sleep found Harry contemplating different methods for committing suicide, finding that none of them would work while he was still in the hospital wing.
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Meanwhile, Hermione was roaming the corridors, thinking of what had just happened.
She had just kissed Harry, and it felt like the fights had never happened, she loved him now just as much as she had the day of their wedding. One thought, however, kept returning to the forefront of her consciousness, and it chilled her to think it, but she knew that she could not suppress it forever. She reached her quarters, and the anger that had been building in the last forty-eight hours exploded from her in a burst of wild magic, causing astorm of magic rivaling those which had occurred during the potion induced fights between her and Harry. She looked at the mess, caused by her and her alone in this instance, and allowed herself to embrace the thought she had been denying herself for the last ten minutes. Over and over, she thought that one thought, until it became her mantra.
Ginny's a dead woman.
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A/N: I thought I was never going to finish this chapter. I only had one event that I wanted to happen, and getting to that point was quite a challenge. The word count for the chapter, not counting the Author's Notes, is 4081. I haven't even been trying to write longer chapters lately, but they are about the perfect length, in my opinion.
For those Americans that don't know get any meaning from the phrase "sixteen stone ten," it means 234 lbs. I rolled the weights of Jonas and Jenna, using the D&D 3.5 Ed. random height and weight adjustments for human male and elf female.
Before I Forget (good song by the way)
Questions? Comments? Plotholes? Just type them up in a review (please), and I'll try to respond to them. I do hope you liked this chapter
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