Categories > Books > Harry Potter > Shadowlands
Chapter 6: A motherly advice
Still breathing heavily, I sat there, before the fireplace, for what seemed an eternity and tried to render my thoughts conscious. I was totally messed up by my emotions and exhausted as hell from having walked the Dreamscape for so long. I would have never expected that my first meeting with my baby girl would completely drain me.
After a good fifteen minutes I managed to bring my heart-rate back to normal and tried to sum up the results, summoning a quill and a sheet of parchment.
“First of all, Lily hates being a baby and wants to be a big girl, otherwise she wouldn't have assumed the form of a three-year old in her dream,” I wrote on the parchment. That must have been true, seeing the way she was talking. She seemed more mature to me there, sitting on the bench, than any girl of her age. “Must be her mother's influence,” I thought and a smile formed on my face as I recalled the sweet caresses and kisses of the previous night. The very fact of me sitting here and taking systematical notes on things was also one of the footprints my years with Hermione had left on me. How many evenings, nights had we spent in the Common Room or in the Library, doing homework, preparing for the Triwizard Tournament, studying for our exams!
“Second, Lily is aware of not having a Dad and wishes she had one. She's jealous of her friends.” Now, that was a more disturbing issue. Obviously Hermione is a wonderful mother and she can always count on Augusta and Simon, her parents. Nevertheless, a child would always need his father. That one I'd learned from personal experience.
The quill scraped another line on the parchment in the light of the toyful flames in the fireplace. “Sidenote: Why is Bobby calling my Lily these names? Whose influence is this? Talk to Ginny/Ron!” Well, this was one of the tasks I certainly wasn't looking forward to. Hell, I can't just appear in Ginny's dreams and play Grand Inquisitor! This one needed a more subtle approach and I had to work out a good strategy for it.
What's more important was that our Lily most probably had great magical potential. I was still dumbfunded at the ease how she'd levitated that soda can with a borrowed wand – my wand, that is – using a nonverbal incantation. Heck, she was even capable of sensing that I'd hurt people with my wand! If that was no proof, what else? Of course, Hermione used various household charms every day Lily could witness, so her mind simply accumulated these sightings in her subconscious. Drawing a simple conclusion, after a minute of careful thinking, I added the next bullet point, “Third, Lily meets every condition to become a powerful witch.” My task as father would have been to ensure this.
In my train of thoughts I came now to the main point, which was becoming more and more confusing as time went by. Putting down the quill, I closed my eyes and massaged my aching temples for a while. Drawing a sharp breath, I wrote on. “Fourth, I love Hermione and Lily. I desperately want to reunite with them.” This one, I was sure as Hell about. I already knew from Dumbledore, after Sirius' death, that the dead can't be brought back, so my chances to join them in the world of the living were next to nothing. About the other possibililty, the possibility of something unthinkable happening to both my girls, I flatly refused to think. Suddenly, I remembered that morning, a week after Luna's confession, and my thoughts suddenly raced away.
I felt a sudden urge take control of me as I put down the next line. “What does the sentence on my bathroom mirror 'There's a way back from behind the Veil' means? Ask Luna!” Yes, I was sure that was Luna's work. The capital “L” was enough proof of it. Would that mean that she knew anything other, more capable wizards including my parents, Remus, Sirius, even Dumbledore didn't?
Sweet Luna. She was always a faithful friend and I must admit there were times she was the only one I could turn to. I always felt we had more in common than one would have thought. We both were considered freaks, outcasts; people used to laugh at us, point their fingers at us and we had no one else who would understand us. At times I felt drawn to her, at times a random touch of our fingers would electrify the air and cause us to blush, but we never thought it would go that far.
When I saw her new Patronus, I understood that she must have been very much in love with me. I knew of two cases when someone's Patronus had changed: Severus and Tonks. Both were head over heels, their endless love initiating this change at the very heart of their magical core. I had to admit that I hadn't expected this and I didn't know how to react. I had warm feelings towards Luna but I wasn't sure I was capable of answering her love.
Having reached this point, the events of this night started to take their toll on me and I couldn't suppress several powerful yawns. I summoned a blanket from my bed and curled up on the rug, watching the dying embers. Before I fell steadily asleep, my hand, almost unknowingly, managed to scrape another unsteady line on the parchment.
“I...love...Luna...and...don't...want...to...lose...her...”
I locked myself up in my small house for the two coming days. Being utterly confused and helpless wouldn't correctly describe my mental state. I closed down the Floo network, set up anti-Apparition wards around the house and spent these two days digesting the mess I'd gotten myself into. “Dying changes everything” said a wise Muggle once; I could have sworn he'd never reckoned the existence of the side effects my dying suddenly had implied on me.
Here I was, a very properly dead and buried young wizard. I was helplessly in love with my wonderful wife, my best mate of eight Hogwarts years, the mother of our beautiful daughter, and - at the same time, completely out of my hand - with another witch, somewhat eccentric and weird, nevertheless with a heart the size of the Atlantic Ocean, who had been silently in love with me for quite a number of years. Someone who always understood me, someone who always supported me when there was nobody and nothing else to rely on.
I had read and re-read that blasted piece of parchment for about a thousand times and the more often I read it, the more confused I got. Finally, on the third evening, I unlocked the Floo network and threw a pinch of Floo powder into the fireplace.
“Potter Manor, Godric's Hollow,” I cried out in a trembling voice. “Mum, are you there? Mum, I need you!”
I heard excited voices on the other side of the connection. Then, the face of the person I craved most to see this moment, Lily Potter's freckled face appeared in the fireplace, surrounded by a halo of gorgeous red hair. At first, she had a look of someone who'd just seen ghosts. Quite understandably, here in the Shadowlands. Then, she glanced at me with a look only mothers are capable of; mothers, concerned by their children's well-being.
“I'm here, sweetheart, I'm here,” she started to speak in her soothing voice, very much like I was still a one-year old boy troubled by those tummy issues. Then, she turned away for a second and shooed away Dad from the fireplace.
“Men...always sticking their nose into other people's business,” she emitted a somewhat nervous, forced laugh. “I'll tell him later. What's up, Harry?”
“Mum, I need your advice,” I mumbled, examining the pattern on the Persian rug, then looked up to meet her glance.
Carefully examining my face, she nodded understandingly. “Women. I guess the usage of 'Plural' is just correct.” Seeing my disbelief, she giggled as a little schoolgirl. “Come on, I've seen enough grief-strucken boys at Hogwarts! You all are as easy to read as my first-year Potions book.”
I suppressed the urge to make an uncivilized comment on Potions books and on the subject of Potions in general. I knew she was a brilliant Potions student and one of old Sluggy's favourites, yet, she could have found a more acceptable comparison to the subject of my headache. Then I suddenly remembered the one Potions book I was fond of and grinned her back in answer.
“Shall I come over?” she inquired, and without even waiting for my answer, she stepped into the fireplace, only to land in my room a fracture of a second later. Her arrival was totally different from Tonks' visits; one gracious step, her hair flying around in the hair as she was blazing it clean from the soot with her wand. Poor Tonks, the last time she came over, she tripped and fell over my glass table and it took me a good hour to patch her up from the hundreds of cuts.
“Good to see you, Mum,” I hugged her and sat besides her on the couch, nestling my head on her shoulder for a while, enjoying her proximity I had to miss for two decades. Summoning a pot of coffee and a healthy bite of Ms. Figg's signature apple cake, we enjoyed ourselves for a while, engaging in small talk and carefully avoiding the main issue of the day. Finally, having finished her third helping of the cake, Mum let out a loud moan. “Enough. One more bite and I'm dead.” Carefully examining my face – I bit my lips in a desperate attempt not to give away my amusement – she suddenly went serious. I couldn't hold myself back any longer and burst out in a hysterical laughter, then she joined in as well, finally understanding the hilarity of what she'd just said.
As we slowly composed ourselves again, wiping away our tears, Mum turned serious.
“You know, Harry,” she started carefully, “that May we all thought something big could happen anytime soon. First that German woman with her baby, slaughtered for no reason … simply gruesome, shortly afterwards Gregorovitch and Grindelwald. Then we saw the souls of those murdered Gringotts' goblins appear into the Shadowlands and Dumbledore questioned them as well. He quickly put two and two together and understood what was bound to be happening, so he ordered us to patrol Hogwarts grounds. Not that we were able to or allowed to interfere with the real world, we were supposed to... supposed to...” She stopped, obviously unwilling to continue with the awful truth.
“Watch over us?” I offered, keen to help.
Swallowing several times, she made a wry gesture. “Rather function as a pickup service, let's put it this way, “ she sighed. I must have looked comical because she emitted a short, nervous laughter and pulled me closer. “To welcome home those of you who … die in the battle.”
That did it. I lost so many friends in the battle and I felt responsible for the death of each of them. This feeling of responsibility, grief and shame, however, as I myself entered the Shadowlands and reunited with them, slowly succumbed, only to be brought up again upon hearing these words. I opened the taps and let my tears flow, burying my head in Mum's shoulder while she was caressing my head and whispered her comforting words into my ear.
Drawing another sharp breath, I inhaled her sweet scent and looked up questioningly into her eyes, then turned away. Placing her index finger under my chin, she turned my head back, facing her again.
“We've been through this, Harry. Don't make me repeat myself for the umpteenth time. It was war. Those who fought, fought from their own will, not because you'd commanded them to. They chose their path knowing the possible alternatives. You can not and should not blame yourself for their deaths. Do you understand that?” she finished in a slightly raised voice while her cheeks flushed red.
I saw not other option but agree with her. She was dangerous in her anger. Oh yes, Dad could fill a book with stories. So I slowly nodded and her features relaxed.
She hugged me to herself again and went on in her melodic voice.
“So, as I said, we were patrolling Hogwarts when you summoned us using the Ring. Later, when Voldemort's Killing Curse hit you, I saw a most curious thing happen. Something only a woman would see,” she stopped again as if she were teasing me.
I groaned in exasperation. “I know, Mum, which sex Dad and I belong to. Will you make it somewhat shorter and to the point, PLEASE?”
“Oh, yes, I know you both. Never had a real affinity to a woman's soul, you two,” she giggled, playfully slapping me on my shoulder. “Like I said, a most peculiar thing happened in the Great Hall. Exactly the same moment two witches grabbed their chest in pain and crumpled on the floor, fainting. Do I have to spell their names or will you fill me in?” she inquired, playfully winking at me.
I mentally slapped myself. Ignorant and insensitive as I'd been, I was never aware of the real feelings of those particular witches. While Hermione and I confessed our love to each other shortly after Voldemort had been disposed of, Luna's hidden feelings had totally been ignored. Only now had I understood what it must have been like for her all this time.
“So, Mr. James Potter Jr, your current problem now is called 'Hermione Potter vs Luna Weasley'. Am I right or am I right?”
I groaned again, then shook Mum's hands off me, got up and started pacing around the room. Why do women have to make everything so complicated. Can't they ever learn to speak a normal language without irony, sarcasm and caveats?
She was watching me with a mixture of curiosity, understanding and a hint of sorrow. Of course she understood me. Mothers understand their children better than anyone else. Then she had enough. “Come on, sit back. You make me dizzy with this pacing of yours.”
I summoned two bottles of Butterbeer from the fridge and handed over one to her. Having downed the contents of my bottle until the last drop, I suddenly found my voice.
“Mum, I'm so confused.”
“I know, Luna told me the other day,” she replied as-a-matter-of-factly. “She is very much in love with you and very much concerned about you.”
“You see, that's exactly my point, Mum,” I answered honestly. “I've been totally ignorant of her all these years, completely unaware of her feelings to me.”
Mum took my hands into hers. “What do YOUR feelings say?” she inquired. “In which words does your heart speak of her? Remember, it's not a quiz, there are no wrong answers here.”
I didn't have to think about the answer twice. “I love her. You see, that's the point.”
“Are you sure it's not only physical attraction you're feeling towards her?” Wearing her X-Ray look, capable of seeing through me, she examined my face again, which slowly turned into Weasley red. “Come on, there's nothing to be ashamed of. Apart from the fact that Luna's cheating on her husband with you, of course...”
“Mum, she loves Ron. Being soul-bound is ancient magic and beyond our reach. I didn't ask her to change her Patronus ... just like you didn't ask Severus to change his ...” Now it was my turn to watch her face as it turned into a huge question mark. I raised my hand to stop her questions. “Mum, it's none of my business. Ask him yourself.” She swallowed and nodded curtly.
“So yes, Luna and I are seeing each other every now and then. However, trustful and loyal as she is, she constantly keeps me reminding that Hermione and I belong together.” I summoned my wand and extracted a silvery string of memory from my forehead, then touched her forehead with the tip of my wand. She closed her eyes as she was rewatching the memories. Not all of them, there were some I decided to keep private.
Slowly blinking with her eyes, Mum shook herself out of the slight trance. I saw several tears in those eyes.
“Luna is a unique girl,” she started cautiously. “I've never known anybody else who could freely roam the Three Planes. Except Merlin, and to some extent the Founders and Dumbledore, of course. She's clearly in love with you and I could feel from your memory that you were answering your feelings.”
“That's one side of the coin only, Mum,” I interjected, preparing another silvery string.
“So Luna had taught you the Dreamwalk,” she nodded when she was done watching my second memory. “Hermione still couldn't get fully over the fact of losing you, that's why her dream was so void. In the beginning, she had no feelings at all. However, when you left her dream later - and I don't even want to know what had happened in the meantime – she flourished up again.” Seeing the flush on my face, she smiled. ”Even if it was just a dream, you gave her hope. The hope to see you again.”
“What about this, Mum?” I projected a single picture in the air with my wand. Within a fracture of a second I wished I hadn't done that. Never ever in my entire life had I seen someone's face change so dramatically.
“Stop it right there, Harry James Potter!” The beautiful witch I was lucky to call my mother was furious. “There's no such thing! There's no way back to the world of the living!” I was taken aback by this huge change in her mood and raised both hands in defeat.
She continued, already somewhat calmer. “Your father and I'd been searching for a way to come back to you ever since we were killed. Don't you think we would've done that if we could, to save you from all that misery you'd been forced into? Forget it, son. To the outside world, we are irreversibly dead.”
In a smooth movement, she stood up and pulled me up as well. “You wanted my advice, so here it is. If you continue seeing those girls, your bond, your feelings for each other will grow stronger by the day. There might come a day when one of them decides to join you in Death, only to be with you for eternity. And that, my dear Harry, WILL be your blame.” With these words, she stepped into the fireplace, leaving me standing there dumbfounded, alone in the whirling vortex of my thoughts.
Still breathing heavily, I sat there, before the fireplace, for what seemed an eternity and tried to render my thoughts conscious. I was totally messed up by my emotions and exhausted as hell from having walked the Dreamscape for so long. I would have never expected that my first meeting with my baby girl would completely drain me.
After a good fifteen minutes I managed to bring my heart-rate back to normal and tried to sum up the results, summoning a quill and a sheet of parchment.
“First of all, Lily hates being a baby and wants to be a big girl, otherwise she wouldn't have assumed the form of a three-year old in her dream,” I wrote on the parchment. That must have been true, seeing the way she was talking. She seemed more mature to me there, sitting on the bench, than any girl of her age. “Must be her mother's influence,” I thought and a smile formed on my face as I recalled the sweet caresses and kisses of the previous night. The very fact of me sitting here and taking systematical notes on things was also one of the footprints my years with Hermione had left on me. How many evenings, nights had we spent in the Common Room or in the Library, doing homework, preparing for the Triwizard Tournament, studying for our exams!
“Second, Lily is aware of not having a Dad and wishes she had one. She's jealous of her friends.” Now, that was a more disturbing issue. Obviously Hermione is a wonderful mother and she can always count on Augusta and Simon, her parents. Nevertheless, a child would always need his father. That one I'd learned from personal experience.
The quill scraped another line on the parchment in the light of the toyful flames in the fireplace. “Sidenote: Why is Bobby calling my Lily these names? Whose influence is this? Talk to Ginny/Ron!” Well, this was one of the tasks I certainly wasn't looking forward to. Hell, I can't just appear in Ginny's dreams and play Grand Inquisitor! This one needed a more subtle approach and I had to work out a good strategy for it.
What's more important was that our Lily most probably had great magical potential. I was still dumbfunded at the ease how she'd levitated that soda can with a borrowed wand – my wand, that is – using a nonverbal incantation. Heck, she was even capable of sensing that I'd hurt people with my wand! If that was no proof, what else? Of course, Hermione used various household charms every day Lily could witness, so her mind simply accumulated these sightings in her subconscious. Drawing a simple conclusion, after a minute of careful thinking, I added the next bullet point, “Third, Lily meets every condition to become a powerful witch.” My task as father would have been to ensure this.
In my train of thoughts I came now to the main point, which was becoming more and more confusing as time went by. Putting down the quill, I closed my eyes and massaged my aching temples for a while. Drawing a sharp breath, I wrote on. “Fourth, I love Hermione and Lily. I desperately want to reunite with them.” This one, I was sure as Hell about. I already knew from Dumbledore, after Sirius' death, that the dead can't be brought back, so my chances to join them in the world of the living were next to nothing. About the other possibililty, the possibility of something unthinkable happening to both my girls, I flatly refused to think. Suddenly, I remembered that morning, a week after Luna's confession, and my thoughts suddenly raced away.
I felt a sudden urge take control of me as I put down the next line. “What does the sentence on my bathroom mirror 'There's a way back from behind the Veil' means? Ask Luna!” Yes, I was sure that was Luna's work. The capital “L” was enough proof of it. Would that mean that she knew anything other, more capable wizards including my parents, Remus, Sirius, even Dumbledore didn't?
Sweet Luna. She was always a faithful friend and I must admit there were times she was the only one I could turn to. I always felt we had more in common than one would have thought. We both were considered freaks, outcasts; people used to laugh at us, point their fingers at us and we had no one else who would understand us. At times I felt drawn to her, at times a random touch of our fingers would electrify the air and cause us to blush, but we never thought it would go that far.
When I saw her new Patronus, I understood that she must have been very much in love with me. I knew of two cases when someone's Patronus had changed: Severus and Tonks. Both were head over heels, their endless love initiating this change at the very heart of their magical core. I had to admit that I hadn't expected this and I didn't know how to react. I had warm feelings towards Luna but I wasn't sure I was capable of answering her love.
Having reached this point, the events of this night started to take their toll on me and I couldn't suppress several powerful yawns. I summoned a blanket from my bed and curled up on the rug, watching the dying embers. Before I fell steadily asleep, my hand, almost unknowingly, managed to scrape another unsteady line on the parchment.
“I...love...Luna...and...don't...want...to...lose...her...”
I locked myself up in my small house for the two coming days. Being utterly confused and helpless wouldn't correctly describe my mental state. I closed down the Floo network, set up anti-Apparition wards around the house and spent these two days digesting the mess I'd gotten myself into. “Dying changes everything” said a wise Muggle once; I could have sworn he'd never reckoned the existence of the side effects my dying suddenly had implied on me.
Here I was, a very properly dead and buried young wizard. I was helplessly in love with my wonderful wife, my best mate of eight Hogwarts years, the mother of our beautiful daughter, and - at the same time, completely out of my hand - with another witch, somewhat eccentric and weird, nevertheless with a heart the size of the Atlantic Ocean, who had been silently in love with me for quite a number of years. Someone who always understood me, someone who always supported me when there was nobody and nothing else to rely on.
I had read and re-read that blasted piece of parchment for about a thousand times and the more often I read it, the more confused I got. Finally, on the third evening, I unlocked the Floo network and threw a pinch of Floo powder into the fireplace.
“Potter Manor, Godric's Hollow,” I cried out in a trembling voice. “Mum, are you there? Mum, I need you!”
I heard excited voices on the other side of the connection. Then, the face of the person I craved most to see this moment, Lily Potter's freckled face appeared in the fireplace, surrounded by a halo of gorgeous red hair. At first, she had a look of someone who'd just seen ghosts. Quite understandably, here in the Shadowlands. Then, she glanced at me with a look only mothers are capable of; mothers, concerned by their children's well-being.
“I'm here, sweetheart, I'm here,” she started to speak in her soothing voice, very much like I was still a one-year old boy troubled by those tummy issues. Then, she turned away for a second and shooed away Dad from the fireplace.
“Men...always sticking their nose into other people's business,” she emitted a somewhat nervous, forced laugh. “I'll tell him later. What's up, Harry?”
“Mum, I need your advice,” I mumbled, examining the pattern on the Persian rug, then looked up to meet her glance.
Carefully examining my face, she nodded understandingly. “Women. I guess the usage of 'Plural' is just correct.” Seeing my disbelief, she giggled as a little schoolgirl. “Come on, I've seen enough grief-strucken boys at Hogwarts! You all are as easy to read as my first-year Potions book.”
I suppressed the urge to make an uncivilized comment on Potions books and on the subject of Potions in general. I knew she was a brilliant Potions student and one of old Sluggy's favourites, yet, she could have found a more acceptable comparison to the subject of my headache. Then I suddenly remembered the one Potions book I was fond of and grinned her back in answer.
“Shall I come over?” she inquired, and without even waiting for my answer, she stepped into the fireplace, only to land in my room a fracture of a second later. Her arrival was totally different from Tonks' visits; one gracious step, her hair flying around in the hair as she was blazing it clean from the soot with her wand. Poor Tonks, the last time she came over, she tripped and fell over my glass table and it took me a good hour to patch her up from the hundreds of cuts.
“Good to see you, Mum,” I hugged her and sat besides her on the couch, nestling my head on her shoulder for a while, enjoying her proximity I had to miss for two decades. Summoning a pot of coffee and a healthy bite of Ms. Figg's signature apple cake, we enjoyed ourselves for a while, engaging in small talk and carefully avoiding the main issue of the day. Finally, having finished her third helping of the cake, Mum let out a loud moan. “Enough. One more bite and I'm dead.” Carefully examining my face – I bit my lips in a desperate attempt not to give away my amusement – she suddenly went serious. I couldn't hold myself back any longer and burst out in a hysterical laughter, then she joined in as well, finally understanding the hilarity of what she'd just said.
As we slowly composed ourselves again, wiping away our tears, Mum turned serious.
“You know, Harry,” she started carefully, “that May we all thought something big could happen anytime soon. First that German woman with her baby, slaughtered for no reason … simply gruesome, shortly afterwards Gregorovitch and Grindelwald. Then we saw the souls of those murdered Gringotts' goblins appear into the Shadowlands and Dumbledore questioned them as well. He quickly put two and two together and understood what was bound to be happening, so he ordered us to patrol Hogwarts grounds. Not that we were able to or allowed to interfere with the real world, we were supposed to... supposed to...” She stopped, obviously unwilling to continue with the awful truth.
“Watch over us?” I offered, keen to help.
Swallowing several times, she made a wry gesture. “Rather function as a pickup service, let's put it this way, “ she sighed. I must have looked comical because she emitted a short, nervous laughter and pulled me closer. “To welcome home those of you who … die in the battle.”
That did it. I lost so many friends in the battle and I felt responsible for the death of each of them. This feeling of responsibility, grief and shame, however, as I myself entered the Shadowlands and reunited with them, slowly succumbed, only to be brought up again upon hearing these words. I opened the taps and let my tears flow, burying my head in Mum's shoulder while she was caressing my head and whispered her comforting words into my ear.
Drawing another sharp breath, I inhaled her sweet scent and looked up questioningly into her eyes, then turned away. Placing her index finger under my chin, she turned my head back, facing her again.
“We've been through this, Harry. Don't make me repeat myself for the umpteenth time. It was war. Those who fought, fought from their own will, not because you'd commanded them to. They chose their path knowing the possible alternatives. You can not and should not blame yourself for their deaths. Do you understand that?” she finished in a slightly raised voice while her cheeks flushed red.
I saw not other option but agree with her. She was dangerous in her anger. Oh yes, Dad could fill a book with stories. So I slowly nodded and her features relaxed.
She hugged me to herself again and went on in her melodic voice.
“So, as I said, we were patrolling Hogwarts when you summoned us using the Ring. Later, when Voldemort's Killing Curse hit you, I saw a most curious thing happen. Something only a woman would see,” she stopped again as if she were teasing me.
I groaned in exasperation. “I know, Mum, which sex Dad and I belong to. Will you make it somewhat shorter and to the point, PLEASE?”
“Oh, yes, I know you both. Never had a real affinity to a woman's soul, you two,” she giggled, playfully slapping me on my shoulder. “Like I said, a most peculiar thing happened in the Great Hall. Exactly the same moment two witches grabbed their chest in pain and crumpled on the floor, fainting. Do I have to spell their names or will you fill me in?” she inquired, playfully winking at me.
I mentally slapped myself. Ignorant and insensitive as I'd been, I was never aware of the real feelings of those particular witches. While Hermione and I confessed our love to each other shortly after Voldemort had been disposed of, Luna's hidden feelings had totally been ignored. Only now had I understood what it must have been like for her all this time.
“So, Mr. James Potter Jr, your current problem now is called 'Hermione Potter vs Luna Weasley'. Am I right or am I right?”
I groaned again, then shook Mum's hands off me, got up and started pacing around the room. Why do women have to make everything so complicated. Can't they ever learn to speak a normal language without irony, sarcasm and caveats?
She was watching me with a mixture of curiosity, understanding and a hint of sorrow. Of course she understood me. Mothers understand their children better than anyone else. Then she had enough. “Come on, sit back. You make me dizzy with this pacing of yours.”
I summoned two bottles of Butterbeer from the fridge and handed over one to her. Having downed the contents of my bottle until the last drop, I suddenly found my voice.
“Mum, I'm so confused.”
“I know, Luna told me the other day,” she replied as-a-matter-of-factly. “She is very much in love with you and very much concerned about you.”
“You see, that's exactly my point, Mum,” I answered honestly. “I've been totally ignorant of her all these years, completely unaware of her feelings to me.”
Mum took my hands into hers. “What do YOUR feelings say?” she inquired. “In which words does your heart speak of her? Remember, it's not a quiz, there are no wrong answers here.”
I didn't have to think about the answer twice. “I love her. You see, that's the point.”
“Are you sure it's not only physical attraction you're feeling towards her?” Wearing her X-Ray look, capable of seeing through me, she examined my face again, which slowly turned into Weasley red. “Come on, there's nothing to be ashamed of. Apart from the fact that Luna's cheating on her husband with you, of course...”
“Mum, she loves Ron. Being soul-bound is ancient magic and beyond our reach. I didn't ask her to change her Patronus ... just like you didn't ask Severus to change his ...” Now it was my turn to watch her face as it turned into a huge question mark. I raised my hand to stop her questions. “Mum, it's none of my business. Ask him yourself.” She swallowed and nodded curtly.
“So yes, Luna and I are seeing each other every now and then. However, trustful and loyal as she is, she constantly keeps me reminding that Hermione and I belong together.” I summoned my wand and extracted a silvery string of memory from my forehead, then touched her forehead with the tip of my wand. She closed her eyes as she was rewatching the memories. Not all of them, there were some I decided to keep private.
Slowly blinking with her eyes, Mum shook herself out of the slight trance. I saw several tears in those eyes.
“Luna is a unique girl,” she started cautiously. “I've never known anybody else who could freely roam the Three Planes. Except Merlin, and to some extent the Founders and Dumbledore, of course. She's clearly in love with you and I could feel from your memory that you were answering your feelings.”
“That's one side of the coin only, Mum,” I interjected, preparing another silvery string.
“So Luna had taught you the Dreamwalk,” she nodded when she was done watching my second memory. “Hermione still couldn't get fully over the fact of losing you, that's why her dream was so void. In the beginning, she had no feelings at all. However, when you left her dream later - and I don't even want to know what had happened in the meantime – she flourished up again.” Seeing the flush on my face, she smiled. ”Even if it was just a dream, you gave her hope. The hope to see you again.”
“What about this, Mum?” I projected a single picture in the air with my wand. Within a fracture of a second I wished I hadn't done that. Never ever in my entire life had I seen someone's face change so dramatically.
“Stop it right there, Harry James Potter!” The beautiful witch I was lucky to call my mother was furious. “There's no such thing! There's no way back to the world of the living!” I was taken aback by this huge change in her mood and raised both hands in defeat.
She continued, already somewhat calmer. “Your father and I'd been searching for a way to come back to you ever since we were killed. Don't you think we would've done that if we could, to save you from all that misery you'd been forced into? Forget it, son. To the outside world, we are irreversibly dead.”
In a smooth movement, she stood up and pulled me up as well. “You wanted my advice, so here it is. If you continue seeing those girls, your bond, your feelings for each other will grow stronger by the day. There might come a day when one of them decides to join you in Death, only to be with you for eternity. And that, my dear Harry, WILL be your blame.” With these words, she stepped into the fireplace, leaving me standing there dumbfounded, alone in the whirling vortex of my thoughts.
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