Chapter Ten: Seen and Overheard
 

HERMIONE

8:02 PM, Tuesday, September 16, 1997.

Hermione sighed heavily and reapplied herself to her Potions essay on Fatiguing Infusions, thinking privately that 36 hours spent agonizing over the fate of one’s best friend was the surest way to bring about fatigue.  

8:04 PM.

She hated time for the terrible way it has of snailing by when one is desperately waiting for something to happen, but she hated being helpless most of all. If Harry had come to any trouble along the way home, she had no way of knowing.

8:08 PM.

She glared at the clock and plunged the tip of her quill back in the ink well before scribbling away on her essay at a furious pace. If she could only keep busy, the time would pass more quickly.

8:11 PM.

Nineteen more minutes and she would head out to check the wards protecting the school…

8:15 PM.

Beside her, Ron had given up on his essay and was attempting to levitate his jar of ink -- which hurtled earthwards a mere minute later and smashed in an explosion of ink and glass shards.  

8:19 PM.

Scourgify, or so it transpired, can only go so far in cleaning splattered ink off of robes. Hermione made a mental note to try napalm; she was only half-kidding.

8:23 PM.

Her quill etched out the words: An infusion of wormwood added after precisely seven clockwise stirs will do the trick…

8:25 PM.

If one is too ham-fisted with the wormwood, the resulting potion will put the sleeper into a deep and sometimes irreversible sleep…

8:27 PM.

Hermione hastily rolled up the scroll and slipped it into her bookbag.

“Hermione,” Ron said plaintively and Hermione had a good idea of what was coming next… “Smart, brilliant, we’re-all-unworthy Hermione, can I maybe – possibly – please copy off of your essay?”

Hermione sighed and handed over the scroll. “Don’t get used to this sort of special treatment,” she said sternly. “I’d refuse to let you see it if I didn’t think the ensuing argument would make me late for my Head Girl duties.”   

“Do you want company?” he asked automatically. “I’d feel better if I knew you weren’t out there all alone.”

“And I’d feel better if Harry was back safe with us,” she said, casting an apprehensive glance out the Common room window and over the twilit grounds. “I’ll be fine, but thank you,” she called over her shoulder as she slipped through the portrait hole.

Sundown on the Hogwarts grounds was unlike anything else Hermione could imagine. With the sky was a brilliant fresco of garish shades of orange and rich golden-yellows above her, Hermione threw back her head and strode purposefully down the sloping lawns to the front gates.

Just as she was setting the wards, sealing off Hogwarts from the rest of the world for another Harry-less night, she caught sight of two shapes – one tall and lanky and the other short and crippled – loping down the path from Hogsmeade towards her. Her heart clenched in fear and she retreated into the shadows, wondering frantically which spell to cast to defend herself.

“Hermione!”

It was Harry! Her knees nearly gave way in relief as she hastened to undo the Locking and Security enchantments. She threw the gate open and Harry closed the distance between them at a run, catching her in his arms. The force with which he swept her off her feet left her momentarily lightheaded. “Yes!” she cried, ecstatic at his safe return, awash in relief that he was safe in her arms – or rather that she was safe in his – and that she could feel his heart pounding madly and see the warmth rising in his cheeks. “Was it there? Did you find--?” she asked, once he’d set her down on solid ground once more.

“Look, something unexpected’s happened. I’ll tell you once we get back to Ron. We don’t know who could be listening out here. Come, Kreacher,” he called to the house elf, who muttered foully under his breath as he hobbled along in their wake.  

After dispatching Kreacher to his fellows in the kitchen, Harry unexpectedly grabbed Hermione’s hand and they sprinted up the seven flights of stairs together. Red-faced and breathless, they stumbled through the portrait hole as Ron vaulted over the back of the sofa to greet them.

“Oi, Harry! Did you get it, mate?”

Harry nodded tersely, suddenly preoccupied, as though he had remembered the terrible gravity of his mission.

“I saw Malfoy,” he said at long last.

“Malfoy? Here?!”

“No, in Hogsmeade—”

“Probably with his Death Eaters cronies,” Ron said, balling his hands into fists.  

“No, alone,” Harry said, causing both Ron and Hermione to look up at him in surprise.

“Did anything happen?” she asked, struck by the realization that the shadowy figure that had run down the lane towards her could just as easily have been an armed and dangerous Malfoy as a road-weary Harry.

Harry shook his head and Ron swore loudly. “You ought to have hexed him into next week,” he muttered mutinously, “filthy traitorous scum—”

“He was acting strangely,” Harry said, dropping into an armchair and noticing, for the first time, how exhausted he was.

“Hmmm…” said Ron mockingly, “I wonder who he was trying to poison this time.”

“I asked him to come back to Hogwarts.”

“YOU WHAT?!"

“I did…” he said, frowning slightly as he reminded them about Dumbledore’s offer of amnesty, made to Malfoy atop the Astronomy Tower. “I think he might have accepted, if the Death Eaters hadn’t come. And, inviting him back to school -- that’s what Dumbledore would’ve done.”

“Harry, Dumbledore’s dead because he put his trust in lying filth like Snape and Malfoy! He tried to kill us all, if you’ve forgotten!” Ron burst out angrily.

Harry leaned forward and peered into the fire, now burning low in its grate.

“The Malfoys have been in the news again lately,” Hermione said, remembering the conversation she’d overheard between Pansy Parkinson and Daphne Greengrass.  

“Yeah, since Lucius Malfoy escaped from Azbakan, he’s probably been torturing Muggles left and right!” Ron exclaimed, casting a worried look at Hermione.

“No, Ron, he’s not,” she said, shaking her head slowly. “He’s on the lam.”

“Of course he is! He’s got the entire Ministry after him!” Ron said heatedly, clearly eager to engage in an argument about the blatant evilness of the Malfoy clan.

Hermione waited impatiently until Ron had finished his bitter diatribe before continuing. “Well, yes and no, Ron. He’s also running from the Death Eaters. Voldemort isn’t too pleased with him, see?”

Harry nodded, a look of dawning realization on his face. “Of course not – not after the destruction of the diary and the fiasco at the Ministry!”

“Exactly, Harry,” she said earnestly. “He’s probably lucky he was captured and thrown into Azkaban! It bought him a year’s stay of execution.” 

“So where does that leave good old Draco and his mother?” Harry asked keenly.

“No one knows where they’ve been – not even that cow, Pansy Parkinson,” Hermione said in hushed tones, “so it’s really quite something that you’ve seen him in Hogsmeade, Harry.”

“The night Dumbledore – the night, you know—” he began awkwardly, “he said that he could hide Malfoy and his mother…and everyone would think they’d been killed…no one would suspect a thing…”

“But Dumbledore’s dead,” Ron said, looking dumbstruck.

“And who else would have the gall – not too mention the means – to hide the Malfoys, but the Order?”  

“Oh, I reckon they’re rich enough to pay someone off, to save their own greasy hides,” Ron said seriously.

“That’s true,” Harry said with a heavy shrug. “It might not be our side that’s hiding him.”

Try as she might, Hermione could not think of a single good reason why the Order of the Phoenix would expend their limited energy and manpower safeguarding the lives of their sworn enemies. Just as she opened her mouth to speak, Harry raised a hand to silence her.

“Ginny’s listening. Later—” he mouthed urgently, as she made her way in their direction, “we’ll discuss this later.”

* * * * *

HERMIONE

Come morning, Hermione found Harry fast asleep in his favorite armchair beside the Gryffindor fire. She curled up with her Charms book beside him, watching as he slept fitfully, drowsing and stirring, murmuring incomprehensibly all the while. Waves of gratitude swept over Hermione; Harry had returned safely, but she couldn’t help but fear that he wouldn’t always be so lucky. Finally tearing her eyes away from Harry, she refocused on the Charms lesson before her, waving her wand and mouthing the incantations so as not to wake Harry.

Around mid-morning, Ron joined them and crouched on the floor beside the fireplace, lazily prodding the smoldering logs with his wand so that the flames flashed blue and purple in the grate.

At around noon, a Fanged Frisbee zoomed past Hermione’s head and landed in the violet fire, sending colorful embers sailing into Ron’s red hair. As he noisily cursed the third year responsible for the Fanged Frisbee, Harry awoke with a start. 

“What happened?” Harry asked sleepily, as Ron returned to his seat, spluttering angrily. His hair was singed and standing on end and the expression on his face was murderous.

“Stupid – third – years – what – the –” Ron fumed, unable to string together a complete sentence.

Hermione bit her lip to keep herself from laughing and when she trusted herself to speak once more, she turned seriously to Harry. “How did it go, Harry? Other than meeting Draco…?”

“Not now,” he said warningly, gesturing at a gaggle of fourth year girls who were watching him with interest from a table beside the window. Then, evidently tired of the stares and giggles, Harry left the Common Room without another word.

As the portrait hole closed behind Harry, a very rotund owl swooped through the open window, scaring the wits out of the fourth years and causing Ron to duck in anticipation of another Fanged Frisbee.

The owl landed on the arm of Hermione’s chair and promptly dropped a scroll in her lap. It flew away without awaiting her response, leaving a strong smell of cigar smoke lingering in the air.

“What do you reckon?” Ron wondered aloud, as Hermione unrolled the scroll and read –

Dear Miss Granger,

Hopefully you will favor me with your presence at the next meeting of the Slug Club, Sunday, 28 September. ‘Hors d’oeuvres will be served promptly at eight, followed by a bit of a shindig at nine and thirty, with a special guest slated to be in attendance! I’m angling for more ‘intimate’ gatherings this year, just yourself and a few other rising stars. Naturally, Mr. Potter would be a welcome addition to any gathering, should you like to bring a date. Traditional Wizarding Attire is a must. – ___

Horace Slughorn

P.S. Don’t bother bringing Rupert.

“I don’t believe it!” she exclaimed, wrinkling her nose in disgust. “Honestly, to imagine that something so fickle can carry on in times like these!”

Ron reached for the note but Hermione snatched it away; if he got wind of Slughorn’s throwaway remarks, he would be crushed.

“What?”

“It’s nothing, Ron. It’s just an invitation to another round of Slug Club meetings.” Hermione crumpled up the invitation and lobbed it into the fire. 

“Hermione! Maybe I would have liked to have gone!” Ron said, now scraping the charred remnants of the invite out of the grate. “A spot of prestige would be nice now and then. I thought that now that Dad’s, you know, risen in the ranks of the Ministry a bit—well, I hoped I might get an invite.”

“The Slug Club is a joke. You honestly want to be cooped up with some barmy old coot, eating crystallized pineapple and talking about nogtails and top-secret Ministry memos for hours on end?”

“Wouldn’t mind,” he said coldly, “if it would mean a break from your sniping.”

“I didn’t ask for this! I’d just as soon not have an invite!” Hermione snapped, hackles raised, ready to fight.

“That’s your problem, isn’t it, Hermione? You don’t appreciate what you’ve got!” Ron bellowed.

“You--!” But exactly what Ron was, she didn’t say. Unable to bear standing there, staring at the defiant expression on Ron’s face any longer, she stalked up the winding staircase and collapsed on her bed, too exhausted for tears.  

Ron’s right, you know, a small voice whispered snidely. You don’t appreciate what you’ve got… you don’t appreciate him…

She punched her pillow furiously, willing herself to cry – to rid herself of the clashing emotions coursing through her mind – but she had shed all her tears the previous year, and though her eyes itched dryly, none came. She crawled out of bed and walked noiselessly to the window. Leaden clouds clotted the mid-afternoon sky, promising rain, but even as she watched, a fissure opened in the clouds’ ranks and a feeble shaft of sunlight shone through.

* * * * *

Hermione bade her time carefully, waiting until she was fairly certain that Ron would have retired for the evening before descending from the girls’ dormitories. To her dismay, however, Ron Weasley was still very much awake, sitting and chatting with Harry over a game of Gobstones. Reluctantly, Hermione wended her way through a throng of fifth years – all with their noses buried in thick OWL workbooks - to join Harry and Ron.

“Where have you been all day?” Harry asked as Hermione took a seat as far away from Ron as possible.

“Just mulling some things over,” she said, keen to change the subject. “So, apart from running into Draco in Hogsmeade, how did it go?” 

“Not bad,” Harry said truthfully. “I managed it, with a bit of help from Phineas Nigellus and Kreacher.” Harry recounted the events of the last twenty four hours in haste, and finished by patting the pocketed locket significantly.

“Let’s see it, then!” said Ron, thrusting out a hand for the locket.

“Not now!” Harry hissed; the Common room was still full of chattering students. “Wait ‘til everyone’s gone up to bed.” 

Ron sulked back against the mantel, running his fingers gingerly through his scorched hair and determinedly not looking at Hermione.

“So Kreacher went with them…” Hermione mused, “…but who could the other man have been?”

Harry shrugged his shoulders, “Someone good at potions.”

“Snape?” Hermione wondered aloud.

Ron snorted, glaring at her. “Snape?! – how can you even say that after what he did!”

Hermione fell silent.

“Too bad it wasn’t your mum, Harry,” Ron said, after an awkward pause. “Slughorn was always going on and on about how good she was in Potions –”

“Slughorn!” Harry exclaimed.

“But Harry, remember when you were trying to extract that memory from Slughorn? He was afraid to give you a memory about Voldemort…I can’t imagine him actually doing anything –”

But Harry wasn’t about to be put off so easily, “He could have done.”

“Did Kreacher actually say anything about this man?” Hermione asked.

“Kreacher just said he was ‘large’ - right Harry? - so, of course it’s Slughorn! He’s certainly no pixy!” Ron looked thoroughly convinced.

“I don’t know, Ron. I just don’t know,” said Hermione, shaking her head slowly. “Something just doesn’t fit. How was Kreacher doing, by the way?”

“Don’t start, Hermione,” said Harry warningly.

“He helped you, didn’t he?” she demanded.

“Never mind Kreacher.” Harry flopped back in his armchair, waiting as their fellow Gryffindors gradually filtered out of the Common Room and up to their dormitories, until finally Harry, Ron and Hermione were the only ones remaining

“Hand it over,” said Ron and Harry fumbled obligingly for the locket and passed it over to Ron.

“Be careful!” Hermione was examining the locket suspiciously.

“Come on, Hermione – it’s harmless!” Harry said in annoyance, but Hermione wasn’t convinced.

Then, to Hermione’s horror, Ron slipped the locket over his head. He lurched forward at once, clutching his throat and gasping for air.

“RON!” Harry scrambled to his friend’s side, but Ron had already collapsed back into his chair, shaking with maniacal laughter.

“That’s not funny, Ron!” Harry snapped crossly, settling back into his armchair.

Hermione’s heart had careened to a stop when Ron began to choke and gasp, and now it thumped painfully somewhere in the region of her Adam’s apple.

Ron was still chortling and made no attempt to contain himself.  “You – two – the – looks – on – your – faces!” he gasped between spurts of laughter.

“It wasn’t funny, Ron,” Harry repeated firmly and swiped the locket away from Ron. “Ignore him,” he instructed Hermione. “We ought to go and see Slughorn.”

“I don’t know, Harry. Even if he did have something to do with it, you’re not going to force anything out of him without another bottle of Felix Felicis –”

“That’s it – Felix Felicis!” Harry leapt to his feet, running his hands furiously through his unruly black hair. “Remember what Slughorn told us?”

Hermione gasped - “He said he’d taken the potion twice – two perfect days!”

“Exactly!” A gleeful guffaw escaped Harry’s lungs. “If he helped destroy part of Voldemort’s soul – I mean, how much luckier can you get?!”

Ron, startled into silence, stared back and forth between the twosome - now talking and gesturing wildly.

Hermione’s doubts had evaporated. “Harry’s right, Ron. We need to go see Slughorn, it’s worth a try!”

“When though? The time has to be right – we haven’t any more Felix Felicis lying around!”

“Well, there is a Slug Club social coming up…” Hermione offered, recalling the invitation that had instigated her latest spat with Ron. “It’s only a week away,” she added helpfully, careful to avoid both Ron and Harry’s questioning gazes.

“I suppose it can wait that long.”

The next two chapters are TEH SWEETNESS. Totally H/Hr. *Squees*

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