Reading Time: 108 Minutes
Title: Standing At The Edge Of Time
Series: The Infinite Loop Of Love And Good Intentions
Series Order: 1
Author: Indygodusk
Fandom: Harry Potter
Genre: Angst, Drama, Family, Future Fic / Post-Canon, Hurt/Comfort, Pre-Relationship, Time Travel
Relationship(s): Gen, Harry Potter/Hermione Granger (pre-relationship)
Content Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Major Character Death, Violence-Graphic, Violence-Domestic. Bullying, Addiction, Suicide, Child Abuse-implied, Murder, Adultery, Weasley Bashing
Author Note: I hope you love the gift of these stories! Although inevitably imperfect and flawed, they are full of my good intentions. There’s a cross-over with The Mummy movie (1999). Mind the trigger warnings, which are many. Please note that the Major Character Death warning includes every member of the Golden Trio, though none of those deaths are permanent (you’ll see). Some of those deaths are graphic. The stories 1-3 are GEN and focus on family and friendship, though they can definitely be read as a very strong pre-relationship for Harry and Hermione since they are written as codependent despite being married to other (horrible) people. Conceivably you can squint either way. You do you. The adultery warning is NOT for Harry or Hermione, as cheating is yucky. Full disclosure, I am planning on making HHr romantic in a future, fourth story which has not been written yet. All that said, I hope you enjoy the journey!
Word Count: 90,065
Summary: Harry is going to fix Hermione’s death no matter what it takes. It’s just going to take a little time and, to be open and honest with you, a few (or more than a few) detours and deaths. Being a fair individual, Harry is not excluding himself from the dying, though he does resent the detours, especially after Rose hijacks his plan.
Artist: Drake
Chapter 1:
Prologue—an Essay on Love, Time, and Perseverance
∞⌛∞
Our story starts and ends and starts like this—in an infinite loop of love and good intentions.
There are more types and ways of loving than there are drops of water in the sea or stars in the sky: the love between friends, lovers, parent and child, of knowledge, self, power, wealth, and the greater good, to name a few—random and certainly not relevant to this story or canon—examples. Ancient Greek philosophers, in trying to define love, broke it down into seven main parts: Eros (passionate love), Philia (friendship love), Storge (familial love), Agape (selfless love), Pragma (practical love), Ludus (playful love), and Philautia (self-love). However helpful for comprehension, those categories are only seven exquisite scintillating snowflakes on the tip of the vast iceberg that is the powerful emotion called love.
“That which Voldemort does not value, he takes no trouble to comprehend. Of house-elves and children’s tales, of love, loyalty, and innocence, Voldemort knows and understands nothing. Nothing. That they all have a power beyond his own, a power beyond the reach of any magic, is a truth he has never grasped.” —Albus Dumbledore
There is more to love than we can ever know because our minds are limited in scope and understanding, shaped by environment and experience. That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try. Love is not limited. It is infinite and boundless and all the more valuable for it. The best way to know and understand love is the experience of giving and receiving it.
“The supreme happiness of life consists in the conviction that one is loved” —Victor Hugo
Everyone needs at least one person in their life—even if only for one shining moment—who will put them first without expectations or demands and make them feel like the center of the universe, someone to make them feel loved not because they are important, but important because they are loved.
“I love you and that’s the beginning and end of everything” —F. Scott Fitzgerald
We all need love, especially when we don’t feel worthy of it. Even when we aren’t perfect or useful or deserving. Even when it isn’t convenient or safe. Even when we are busy. Even when it’s hard.
Especially when it’s hard.
“Never let a problem to be solved become more important than a person to be loved.” —Thomas S. Monson
Everyone needs the act of love—both receiving and giving. Love isn’t always easy, but the rewards are more than worth it. Whether at our highest of highs or lowest of lows, we all need the charity of love.
“Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails.” —1 Corinthians 13:4-8
Unfortunately, sometimes people get so caught up in wanting to feel loved, they forget they also need to give love to others. Some people stop loving anyone but themselves. Others hold tight to their pain and refuse to see love as anything but tragic, painful, and perilous.
“The world is indeed full of peril, and in it there are many dark places; but still there is much that is fair, and though in all the lands love is now mingled with grief, it grows perhaps the greater.” —J.R.R. Tolkien
Some have gone so long without feeling love that they choose to focus on feeling only hate. Some people would rather kill the love they find—whether on accident or on purpose, whether in themselves or in others—than gamble and risk being hurt by its passing. Others blind themselves to the possibilities and stop looking for love altogether.
Nevertheless, hope remains. Despite the dark places, many refuse to stop seeing the love in the world and those around them. No matter the challenges faced, they persevere. Love can cure hate and apathy. Love can vanquish evil. There are always those who would rather die for love than live without it. Love is timeless and cannot be slain.
“Unable are the loved to die, for love is immortality” —Emily Dickinson
Love can triumph over anything and everything.
Just…not necessarily right away.
It takes time.
“Death cannot stop true love. All it can do is delay it for a while.” —William Goldman
Delays are hard, but love will win the day…eventually. We just have to hold onto hope through the stale watches of the night and be patient and stouthearted until dawn’s golden light sweeps in to banish the shadows and illuminate the victory of love in our hearts and lives (and in this fic).
“No matter how dark the moment, love and hope are always possible.” —George Chakiris
Certainly we won’t see such easy success at the beginning of a story like this, maybe not even by the middle—though definitely by the end. (Happily Ever After guaranteed!) It just takes time for love and good to come out on top. It takes time for good intentions to triumph.
“Love is really spelled t-i-m-e, time. Taking time for each other is the key….” —Dieter F. Uchtdorf
However, lest our dear readers despair, please remember that for a witch or wizard, the idea of taking time for someone doesn’t have to be only an intangible idea. It can be a physical action as well, especially when life refuses to give someone the love and happiness they deserved before death. After all, magic can distill the power of time into an object. Perhaps even something someone (not naming any names) might find in, oh say, Professor Mcgonagall’s desk at the start of Harry Potter’s Third Year, the Minister of Magic’s office library after Harry becomes head of the DMLE, an Egyptian bazaar during summer vacation, an old school trunk in the attic, or even a conman’s pocket in Azkaban, to give a few completely random examples that certainly have no relation whatsoever to a beloved series of books, a stage play, or the upcoming story.
*cough cough*
Returning to the point—LOVE is an action word. Action by its very nature includes risk, but love is worth gambling away safety and the status quo for the chance of something greater.
“Love is not a passive state. It is an active force. It is the force of the soul.” —Gary Zukav
Although it is said that insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results, some people would willingly bet their sanity on the chance of changing things for the better, certainly for those they love, especially for those they’ve loved and lost.
“I stand at the edge of time, holding
my breath between heartbeats,
Hoping the next carries your name.” —unknown
Luckily our characters are smart enough to avoid insane behaviors. Mostly. Eventually. Though really, who’s the ultimate authority on defining what’s insane or reasonable anyways considering the social norms and fashion sense of the wizarding world?
Whatever the case, trying to be smart doesn’t mean our characters don’t make mistakes. After all, some people would end all life on Earth in hopes of bringing back one person they love. Others would risk their current happiness to try and bring equal happiness to others, only to damn their family and society to death and destruction. A child might even bet the fate of their immortal soul to save a beloved friend, particularly if they made a huge mistake, followed by an even worse mistake, and then the only person who can save them is a bored God with all the time in the world who won’t accept a stake worth anything less.
“The worth of souls is great in the sight of God.”
In the sight of the Christian God, at least. Egyptian Gods, on the other hand, have a different method of weighing what a heart and soul are worth and those scales aren’t cheap.
“The weight of love can make a heart heavy, but it is a weight worth carrying.” —Unknown
Even when mistakes and grief weigh us down, life gives us hope for better things. Where there is hope, there is love.
“Where there is love, there is life.” —Mahatma Gandhi
Or to put it another way—though whether the meaning skews more ominous or inspirational is up for debate—
“Death is only the beginning.” —Imhotep
Perhaps interpreting meaning depends on intentions. There are those who insist on proclaiming that “the road to hell is paved with good intentions.” It is true that to try your best and fail spectacularly is a special kind of agony and hell. If good intentions lead to hellish outcomes, what is the point in trying to be good? Especially when tragedy is magnified by magic? Yet such logic breeds apathy and contempt for the possibility of positive change. It excludes the value of stubborn fortitude and perseverance. It is demoralizing and pessimistic.
What such cynical scoundrels always forget is that if the road to hell is paved with good intentions—so is the road to heaven. The odds of great things happening without effort and care are about equal to the odds of meeting someone with the exact same funky scar or getting struck by lightning twice (a 1 in 9 million chance). It’s possible, just not very likely. The best and sometimes only way to get closer to a lofty goal is to take that first step onto the path and try, even if you trip and fall on your face. You only fail if you stop trying to get up again and decide to quit. “If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again.” Good intentions spring from the hope that things can be better and are powered by a loving heart with the will to try.
So really it all starts—and it all ends—with love and good intentions.
Though in all honesty, a lot of mistakes are made along the way.
Lots.
Of.
Mistakes.
But such is life, no? And such is love. (And fanfic writing.) Therefore, with hearts full of patience and charity, please press on. Love awaits!
∞⌛∞
Chronologically, our story starts over 3000 years ago in Hamunaptra, Egypt when a small but powerful cult of Death, The Great God created a magical necklace rumored to have the power of time travel. Around the same time, Pharaoh Seti I was murdered by his concubine Anck-Su-Namun and her secret lover, the High Priest Imhotep, who was obsessed with immortality. For their crimes, Anck-Su-Namun was killed and Imhotep mummified alive. The Pharaoh’s royal guard tried to find Death’s magical necklace to travel back in time and warn their Pharaoh of Imhotep’s treachery ahead of time, but The Great God’s cult dispersed and the necklace was never found. Over time Hamunaptra, and its mysterious treasures, became lost beneath the sands…or so they say.
Though there was that one time in 1926 when Imhotep was accidentally resurrected when librarian Evelyn Carnahan read aloud from the Book of the Dead—but no one likes to talk about that unless they’re drunk or they owe somebody a really big favor. Since Imhotep was laid to rest again, the incident was brushed under the rug. As fascinating as that story is, we don’t have time to get into it here.
Therefore perhaps our story chronology should start more recently in 1981, when James and Lily Potter died protecting their son. Or when a time traveler from the future, full of love and good intentions, visits Godric’s Hollow to save the Potters and accidentally disrupts Lily Potter’s concentration and protective maternal magic, turning the Boy Who Lived into the Boy Who Didn’t—the Boy Who Didn’t Live, that is.
Or in 1994, when a traumatized boy lies and steals from the person he’s trying to save in the future.
It could be in 2005, when a woman who keeps failing at life and love refuses to give up, choosing hope over fear, going both forward and backward in time with the best of intentions, reversing death, freeing ghosts, and even finding unexpected romance, which ends up paving the road to he—
*ahem.*
We can’t spoil everything for you.
So maybe it starts in 2021, when a girl who thinks she knows better jumps through time, fixes things, decides to fix things even better, and ends up destroying everyone she ever loved. Temporarily.
(Because this is going to end happily, I swear it.)
Perhaps in 2150, when an old man dies full of regret, going back in time and killing everyone (multiple times) to salvage the life of the woman he loved and trusted more than any other, despite never trusting her with the full weight of his abused and broken heart.
Though really, it probably all starts in the year 2020, when youthful optimism has corroded once-heroes into villains, victims, and inmates such that death becomes the cause, solution, and avatar for a cataclysmic change of fate, rewriting time and history. Several times…or more—honestly, we lost count.
“Time is relative; its only worth depends upon what we do as it is passing.” —Albert Einstein
Whenever the true start lies, the emotional and literary ending is quite firmly set in the chronological middle, when everyone’s good intentions—inclusive of the author and the characters we love best—bear fruit into a new timeline full of lives lived with understanding, courage, and love for both others and self.
Or to put it more simply, everyone lives happily ever after.
Our story starts and ends and starts like this—in an infinite loop of love and good intentions.
∞⌛∞
Chapter 2:
∞⌛∞
Because we have to start somewhere and somewhen:
∞1981, October 31—Godric’s Hollow∞
~Walton Grouse (23)~
“Quickly Pettigrew, repeat the secret before they scatter and leave!” the Dark Lord snapped. “Clearly this time and without mumbling! Or I’ll chop off your lips!”
Confused, Walton swallowed against the nausea of Apparating. He wasn’t sure why he was here, but he needed to leave, even if his stomach hadn’t settled yet. He started to walk away.
“21 Church Street in Godric’s Hollow! The Potter Cottage is at 21 Church Street in Godric’s Hollow!” Pettigrew blurted out, obviously terrified as he trembled like a leaf, almost losing his mask as it slid down crooked on his face.
Walton’s confusion and desire to leave fled as he remembered that he was here to kill the Potters and a quaint little cottage appeared in front of him. Sweat and/or tears dripped off the bottom of Pettigrew’s mask in a disgusting display. Cursing quietly at both Pettigrew and the cold, dark street barely illuminated by a sliver of bone-white moon, Walton Grouse adjusted the Death Eater mask on his face. A gust of wind slid under the edges like a Dementor’s caress. He added a silent curse for his wife Bryony, who must’ve switched their masks and cancelled the warming charms on his robes when she was denied permission to come on the raid to Godric’s Hollow. Not that he hadn’t done something similar to her last week when she’d gone off raiding with Bellatrix without him. He should’ve expected the reciprocation, what with how he and his wife were usually of a similar mind about things.
Though really, she should’ve known better than to expect to come. As if Lord Voldemort would allow a mere woman like Bryony on a raid as important as this. Not even his favorite Bellatrix had been allowed. Walton Grouse smiled smugly under his mask because he had been allowed. Obviously it was because Walton was a choice figure in the organization and not just because he’d knocked that axe off the wall when he was jumping away from Nagini and accidentally beheaded the person originally selected to go.
Seeing Lord Voldemort stalking towards the gate, Walton hurried to follow behind him and the other Death Eaters, trying one last time before giving up on the fit of the mask and raising his wand to the ready. He could feel his black robes snapping in the wind. Each specially chosen Death Eater followed close behind Voldemort like a living cape of night. Walton was proud to be one of the chosen, having first joined the Dark Lord as a schoolboy with the promise that following the cause would keep him from being bored. Walton hated nothing so much as being bored. Usually his Lord delivered that in spades, letting him watch the others play with muggles and blood-traitors to his heart’s content, even letting him join in on punishing other Death Eaters at times.
The seven of them must all look very majestic and menacing, except for that idiot Pettigrew, who stumbled at the back like an unravelling string, his mask and robes obviously borrowed and sitting crooked on his fat figure. He could’ve at least cast a Tailoring Charm. The idiot was totally ruining the effect. Probably just as well that the Fidelius Charm would keep them unseen by everyone not given the secret of the cottage’s location once they were inside, though Walton was sure he looked especially magnificent as he walked down the waist high brick wall bordering the small yard in front of the Potter’s quaint little two-story cottage and prepared to enter the gate.
A woman in a large hat covered by a moonlight-colored veil appeared out of the darkness down the street. Pivoting as one, they readied their wands to attack, but before they could fire the Dark Lord held out his hand in a waiting gesture. Walton distantly thought he heard a rustling from the other side of the wall, but he was so focused on the possible threat of the woman that by the time he remembered to glance over there was nothing to see. Probably it had just been the wind. After a few seconds the woman crossed the street and continued down the other side, turning a corner and disappearing into the darkness.
Gathering at the Potter’s front gate, the Dark Lord made another gesture and the Death Eater next to him hesitated for a fraction of a second before bowing his head and turning to direct the rest of them. Dolohov, by the sound of his voice, ordered the four in back including Walton to walk guard around the perimeter of the house, meaning only the two in front got to go inside and join in on the attack with Lord Voldemort while the rest of them stayed outside to block any attempts to escape or outside interference. They were to get into position before the frontal assault began.
Walton cursed his wife again. If he’d just advanced quicker and ignored the ill-fitting mask, maybe he could’ve been one of the chosen ones. Bryony would be insufferable if she found out he had to stand around freezing outside uselessly being bored while she had fun at home enjoying their pre-planned Halloween feast without him, probably eating all of the best dishes before he had a chance to taste them. They always fought over their favorites since they were of a similar mind about which foods they preferred.
As the four Death Eaters moved through the gate after the chosen ones and spread out into the yard, Walton tried and failed to repress a shiver as the cursed wind dragged icy fingers across his cheeks again. Pettigrew proved just as useless as usual, moving to the far corner of the yard and turning away from the house as if he couldn’t bear to look at the friends he was betraying. He slowly made his way down the edge of the fence, obeying the letter if not exactly the intent of the order.
Git. It was already too late. No use acting all cut up about it. None of the rest of them cared.
As he turned clockwise to traverse the dark, narrow alleyway next to the house leading toward the backyard, Walton heard the skitter of disturbed rocks and a thunk from the back corner. He spun towards the sound and saw a shape. He cast a Lumos but all it did was destroy his night vision and make him a target without showing him anything important. The shape was gone or had never been in the first place. Cursing silently at his mistake, he dismissed the spell, hoping he hadn’t just tipped off the Potters inside. Maybe it had just been a stray cat.
Shaking his head at how black it was again, even blacker than before, he continued on his way down the side of the house, moving more quickly this time, only to see, or at least he thought he saw, up ahead the silhouette of the woman in the wide veiled hat…or perhaps a child with bushy hair. It was hard to tell with his eyes still not adjusted to the dark. Not wanting to risk it, he raised his wand to cut the figure down, the words of the Slashing Curse on his lips, only for the wind to kick up fiercely like a demon, tangling his cloak around his wand arm and slicing painfully across his eyes, making spells impossible to cast and his eyes blind. He was forced to squint and turn his head, desperately trying to blink away tears and an afterimage in the shape of a terrifying man in a hooded cloak looming over him with glowing green eyes. Stumbling to the side so his vulnerable back slammed bruisingly against the wall of the house, Walton panted like a trapped animal, fighting to get his wand free of the constricting cloth to defend himself.
The wind abruptly died.
Ripping his hand out, the fabric of his cloak tearing with a soft scream, Walton pointed his wand in front of him and spun in a circle. Eyes still watering, he searched for someone to hit—man, woman, or child—but whatever he’d noticed or thought he’d noticed, it was gone. No one was there.
Taking a gulping breath, grateful none of his fellows had been close enough to see his paranoid fumbling, he told himself to calm down. Lifting his mask enough to quickly wipe his wet eyes, cheeks, and the annoying drip from his nose, Walton wiped his damp hands off on his robes, resecured the mask, and shuffled forward out of the alleyway and into the back yard, wand held at the ready, trying to project confidence and menace.
The backyard was too small for anyone to be hiding in it, only holding a few bushes, trees, and some dark lumps that turned out to be abandoned toys. The backdoor to the cottage was closed. Upstairs, the lights were only on in one room, which was probably the baby’s considering the colorful green and blue curtains decorated with some kind of fluffy white animals, perhaps sheep. There were no people back here.
Flushing under his mask, he quickly concluded that he’d imagined things and probably startled at the shadow of a wind-tossed tree, mistaking leaves for a head of hair. There was nothing out here to see or do. It was cold and boring.
Right when he was about to relax, he heard the clatter of a rock again. He jerked around to look, wand raised. Slowly he advanced back towards the side of the house he’d just left.
A branch snapped and someone cursed. Pettigrew’s masked head popped around the corner, followed by his wand. Rolling his eyes, Walton spun around and quickly headed in the opposite direction before Pettigrew could catch up to him and infect him with his incompetence. It was hard to believe that someone as naturally gifted as James Potter had allowed himself to be friends with the man—the first in a long line of mistakes. It was such a waste, but Potter had ruined himself years ago.
Poor Potter was doomed. He should have some consideration for the rest of them and just give up and die quickly so they could all move on with their evening. There was no way he or his mudblood could escape. First, because Death Eaters guarded all of the exits, and the anti-travel wards and blocked Floo stopped any magical means of leaving. Second, and more importantly, the Dark Lord wanted them dead. Lord Voldemort always got what he wanted. Potter should just give in to the inevitable.
Turning the corner to go up the other narrow side of the house, Walton quickly made his way back to the front. Nothing was interesting going on out here in the dark, more’s the pity. Up front, the Dark Lord saw him reach the top corner and nodded, making Walton feel important.
Then, flanked by two lucky followers, the Dark Lord blasted open the front door and stormed inside the front room, all three firing curses. There was a shout and the front window shattered, flinging glass into the yard and a dark-robed body right back out to dangle over the windowsill, his white mask cracking as his face slammed into the side of the house. The man dangled there—either out cold or dead—and thoroughly pathetic. Colorful pops and streaks from spells strobed out the broken door to illuminate the night like fireworks. Truth be told, it was rather pretty.
The voice of James Potter spilled out into the shadowed yard, familiar from the years Walton had shared with him at Hogwarts, “Lily, take Harry and go! It’s him! Go! Run! I’ll hold him off—”
It would be interesting to watch the duel, but he’d get in trouble if anyone ratted him out later for not patrolling the grounds as ordered. He wasn’t up for another Cruciatus Curse so soon after the last one. Sighing, Walton forced himself to walk clockwise through the front yard to the opposite corner of the house again, hoping that moving would generate a little warmth and distract him from the hungry growling of his belly. Casting a Warming Charm where the others could see would be an admission of weakness, more’s the pity. You never wanted to shed blood in shark-infested waters.
Turning the corner to go up the other narrow side of the house, dimly lit by the sickle of overhead moon and flickering spell-fire from the narrow windows, Walton flinched as the wall above his head shrieked and groaned as a ricocheting spell slammed into it and broke through, raining splinters down upon his head. Looking around as he brushed himself off, he confirmed that none of the nearby houses seemed to have a clue. The Potter’s Fidelius Charm seemed to be keeping everyone unaware of anything happening at the house, which was convenient for the attack staying unnoticed so no one came to help, except for how it also meant that Walton couldn’t leave for his warm house yet because the Potters weren’t all dead yet. The charm would end once the person who anchored the secret died—presumably James Potter.
Walton would be impressed by Potter’s stamina if he wasn’t so bored. Each second felt like an hour as he paced around the small cottage, the icy wind darting uncomfortably up his legs with each step. Why was Potter trying so hard to protect his wife and her spawn? He could have other kids with a more worthy woman, someone of good breeding and pure blood. If Potter let himself be selfish and run, he might even make it since Lord Voldemort was more interested in killing off the kid than him right now, and part of the perimeter was guarded by the incompetent Pettigrew. That or at least give Walton something interesting to do as he shot Potter down trying to escape.
But no, really, Walton just didn’t get it. He wouldn’t spit on his wife if she was on fire and she felt the same, being of a similar mind. They’d married to please their families. They were of a similar mind on that too. If they didn’t hate each other so much, it would’ve been a perfect match.
Ambling back into the front yard and slowly pacing past the front door, Walton peeked in wistfully, wondering if he could get away with going inside to help kill the blood traitor instead of continuing his patrol outside since Dolohov seemed to be curled up in a ball whimpering on the floor and the other Death Eater—Crimble most likely—was still dangling on the windowsill.
Before he could decide, the chair Potter had been using for cover shattered. Standing tall, shoulders straight and eyes blazing behind splintered glasses, Potter cast a spell that ricocheted off the Dark Lord’s shield and hit Crimble’s body on the windowsill, blasting him out of the house and onto the lawn with a squelch as his head hit first and burst like a ripe melon. Potter gave a triumphant shout.
Walton stepped to the side to avoid the mess. No point trying to help. The chap was obviously dead now.
Once the anti-travel wards were down, they’d portkey his body back to base. Pettigrew could have that unpleasant job. Or the Death Eater running up to the body and falling to his knees with a cry. Maybe Fallowbit? They’d been best friends all through school and joined the cause together.
Turning back to the action inside the house, Walton was just in time to see a red ball of light shoot from the Dark Lord’s wand and hit Potter’s wand arm, sending Potter flying back against the wall. He didn’t stay down. Glasses cracked and crooked on his face, red blood gushing from his ears and nose, and with an arm bent wrong and looking like a slab of raw meat, Potter surged to his feet, somehow still straight backed and proud as he bared bloody teeth and roared, charging desperately forward to try and physically tackle the Dark Lord, a brave lion to the bitter end.
Lord Voldemort pointed his wand. The killing curse hit Potter square in the chest. Green light flared and died.
James Potter died.
So powerful was the Dark Lord’s casting that Potter was flung back through the air like a tortured, broken doll thrown by a petulant child. His body hit the wall with a loud crack and slid down, leaving a dent and bloody streak down the white paint. Falling the rest of the way to the floor, his body came to rest on its side with his chin twisted all of the way over his back at an unnatural angle, leaving his blank, naked eyes to stare sightlessly up the stairs in the direction his wife and child had fled, a silent witness to their upcoming deaths.
Walton sighed gustily, feeling both moved and elated. There was nothing to be ashamed about with that fight. It was a miracle Potter had lasted as long as he did against such odds. It had been a death and duel worthy of a stage play. If only he’d been able to witness more of it. Perhaps once Britain was subjugated, Walton would write a bestseller about Lord Voldemort’s victory this night. Walton silently saluted Potter in his head, almost regretting the necessity of his death and the end of another Pureblood line.
The Dark Lord released an unnerving cackle of high-pitched laughter. It made Walton flinch and shudder, chilled for reasons unrelated to the wind. Dusting off his robes, Lord Voldemort walked past Potter’s broken body without a glance and ascended the stairs to finish the job. Walton thought about mentioning the dark figure he’d seen in the backyard to Lord Voldemort, even opening his mouth to call out, but then decided against it.
Relieved that it wouldn’t be long now, Walton quietly returned to his patrol, moving to go around the front and down the dark side of the house again. As he turned he saw Pettigrew round the corner on the opposite side and look over through the open front door to see the bloody state of the friend that he’d betrayed. Moaning, he fell to the ground and began rocking back and forth on his knees, blubbering behind his mask. Disgusted by the hypocrisy, Walton hoped the Dark Lord took note and disposed of the odious little man quickly.
Striding away down the dark alley, Walton couldn’t help but feel that it was a shame that they hadn’t recruited Potter to the cause instead of Pettigrew. If only Potter hadn’t made the mistake of breeding with a mudblood and producing a child Lord Voldemort wanted dead. Walton had always respected Potter at school, even though Potter was a few years younger and in a different House. He’d been an amazing athlete, smart, handsome, popular… not to mention how some of his pranks had been incredibly clever and, on rare but extremely entertaining occasions, rather cruel. It was certainly never boring when he’d been around. Although in the years after Walton had left the school, he’d heard that Potter and his little friends had gotten less interesting, too focused on kissing up to Dumbledore as the so-called Leader of the Light along with the prissy little mudblood Evans. Someone should’ve tried to cultivate Potter’s tendency to bully others—not to mention his money and bloodline—to turn him to their side before he got ruined by falling for a Mudblood and following Dumbledore. Maybe they even could’ve gotten Black back that way, though he’d never really liked Sirius Black. His wife felt the same.
A sudden thought struck Walton, making him smile at finding a ray of hope in an otherwise bleak situation. Potter had seemed pretty upset to die and leave his family undefended. Maybe that unfinished business would be enough to push him into becoming a ghost. Potter could then turn into a poltergeist and join Peeves in haunting and pranking Hogwarts for the edification of future generations of students. That would be a fitting afterlife for the man’s talents. Alternatively, he could ascend to become a new House ghost and replace the most boring current one—though it would be hard to pick who was the worst between Nearly Headless Nick and the Bloody Baron. He and Bryony had never liked either ghost much.
Smiling to himself, he walked around the corner into the backyard as a cloud passed over the moon, darkening the yard to almost pitch black except for the faint glow from the window overhead. He saw a shadow move at the back of the house, but this time knew it was just a tree branch and ignored it. Looking over at the neighboring houses, some of them with people standing right next to their windows, he realized that it wouldn’t take long for them to notice something was amiss now that the Fidelius Charm was gone.
Many of them looked like muggles. It might at least be interesting if they came sniffing around. At least it would give him some entertainment to hex them.
There was a soft squeak and thud by the house. Rolling his eyes, Walton turned to look but didn’t see anything suspicious. Probably just Pettigrew crying and bumbling around again, that idiot. None of the muggles came to investigate, more’s the pity.
Thoroughly bored now the duel was over, Walton strode quickly through the backyard to the opposite corner, peering up at the yellow light shining out from the baby’s upstairs window to see if there was anything interesting to see. Unfortunately, the curtains blocked his view. All he could see was the window going dim as a black silhouette blocked the light from escaping, though he could faintly hear the mudblood’s voice coming through the thin walls of the cottage, “Not Harry, not Harry, please not Harry!”
As if any of them, much less Lord Voldemort, would be moved by such tedious pleading, and from a mudblood to boot.
“Not Harry, please no, take me, kill me instead.”
Why was the Dark Lord even entertaining her begging? Sighing, Walton strode up the other side of the house briskly to outpace the sound of the mudblood’s voice.
He reached the front yard and turned. It shouldn’t take too much longer to kill her and the baby, and then he could get home to his likely cold-by-now Halloween feast. He really didn’t want to circle this stupid little cottage again.
A wave of green light lit the night before the upper corner of the house exploded. Flinching down, Walton covered himself with a magical shield just in time to block the flying debris, which was limned in sickly green light that quickly faded. Nothing should’ve gotten through his shield, but suddenly his body was wracked with waves of excruciating pain, all centered on the Dark Mark on his forearm. Dropping his shield and losing control of his bowels, he fell to the grass and soiled himself. The pain ramped up and he found himself retching. When he was finally able to stop, he felt strangely empty, both weak and lightheaded. Every centimeter of his body hurt and he was covered in his own filth both outside and inside his clothing.
Wiping a shaking hand across his slimy lips, Walton saw lights coming on in the surrounding houses and heard windows opening. A dark-skinned face looked out and screamed. Lifting his wand in trembling fingers, it took Walton three tries to cast a spell on himself usually used on soiled babies. It cleaned most, but not all, of the disgusting mess out of his pants and off the front of his robes. He heard a series of pops as the other moaning and sobbing Death Eaters Apparated away. None of them cast a single glance in Walton’s direction.
What had happened? The neighbors were getting louder and for the first time in his life, Walton didn’t feel confident that he could protect himself from muggles. He was too weak. He should go. Now that the Potters were dead, the Dark Lord shouldn’t need him any longer anyway. Right?
Hold on. Walton forced himself to focus. Wait a second, what happened? And what was going on with his Dark Mark? The answer teased at the edge of his consciousness, but he was almost afraid to see it.
Instead, Walton looked down at his arm, slowly pushing up the sleeve to see a diminished, fading tattoo of a snake coming out of a skull’s mouth. The power and pressure of the Dark Lord’s presence was missing from both the mark on his arm and Walton’s spirit. Like a limb starting to wake up after being constricted too long, everything burned and tingled painfully at this new freedom. The Dark Lord was gone.
What was this? Impossible! He lost? The Dark Lord didn’t lose!
But there was no other explanation for the absence.
Lord Voldemort…was dead.
Walton staggered sideways to his feet, mind now racing instead of moving too slowly. What was he going to do now? What if he was found out by the Ministry? Caught and tried for helping kill the Potters? Or one of his other countless victims? Would it be a Dementor’s kiss? Or a life sentence in Azkaban?
A muggle was approaching, but Walton didn’t have the time or energy to victimize anyone anymore. Wait, now there was an idea. If anyone came knocking, Walton could play an innocent victim. Yes, he was a victim too and not a Death Eater at all. He was going to survive this, unlike Lord Voldemort.
Giggling hysterically, Walton apparated home.
Unable to stick his landing, Walton fell down and vomited again, feeling even more disoriented and squashed than usual. Forcing himself upright, he cast another cleaning charm on himself, not wanting to look weak to his wife. Besides, if he wasn’t careful he’d make her suspicious and that would ruin the plan. Slapping his cheeks, he reminded himself to act natural and cast a few more cosmetic and cleaning charms, straining the charms on his robes, dulling the fabric.
Looking up at his house, much more impressive than the wood-framed little cottage of the Potters, he glanced around to make sure no one was looking and then cast the Dark Mark over his roof, positioning it carefully so it couldn’t be seen from any of the windows inside. No one would come to investigate for at least an hour, if not until morning, too afraid they’d be killed or targeted too. That should be more than enough time.
It was such a tragedy that he’d arrived home too late to save his poor wife Bryony. Shock and grief would leave him unable to report the crime until the following morning. Of course he’d been at home mourning the cooling body of his wife the entire night and nowhere near Godric’s Hollow, no sirree, not Walton Grouse.
Worse come to worse, if he was still implicated in the attack he’d claim that Bryony had used an Imperius on her poor husband to make Walton go along with it. It was a shame it had to go down this way, but he was sure his wife would understand. They were of a similar mind, after all.
As soon as Walton stepped into the house, trying to hide the pain still wracking his body and the cramping of his gut, he saw Bryony standing at the end of the hall waiting for him. Perhaps unnecessarily he announced, “I’m home, Mrs. Grouse.” Nostalgia made him want to say it one last time to his wife.
Memorizing Bryony in her final moments, Walton slowly realized that he’d miss her as the festive Halloween decorations lit her lustrous blond hair in a halo of gold. The feeling caught him by surprise. Perhaps under all that loathing had hidden a growing seed of love. Meeting her eyes, he saw them soften as they lingered on his face. Perhaps she felt that gentle swelling of love too.
It was a shame it had come to this, as he suddenly hated to kill her, but at the end of the day, Walton would always put himself first. He had no choice. Swallowing his regret, he raised his wand and cast the spell to kill his wife.
At that critical moment, Walton Grouse forgot one very important thing—he and his wife were always of a similar mind.
The curse he cast at his wife was intercepted in mid-air by a curse of her own, meeting and exploding in the center of the hall in a concussive flash of light that blew a hole in the ceiling, burned the valuable painting given to them by his in-laws as a wedding gift, and knocked him back against the door.
Scrambling to shelter behind the hat stand as Bryony dived behind the side table, Walton shouted, “What are you doing?”
“I’m sorry, Mr. Grouse, but with Lord Voldemort gone I need an alibi and you’re it!”
Walton tried to cast a spell at her while she was talking, but she got her shield spell up in time. The rebounding spell blasted through the sofa. “So be a good husband for once and just die!”
“A good wife should be willing to die for her husband!” he called, feeling huffy that she was making things so difficult for him. Time to silence her sharp tongue once and for all. He knew just the spell for it.
Eyes meeting, Walton and Bryony Grouse cast simultaneous Cutting Curses. Surprise and horror widened their eyes, but it was too late for regrets. The spells both struck true, slicing the other’s head clean from their neck and sending them flying. The heads bounced across the orange and cream Axminster carpet they’d picked out together on the day they’d moved in, ricocheted off the gold striped wallpaper, and rolled to a stop next to each other, foreheads touching. They died as they lived—of one mind with each other.
∞⌛∞
∞1992, June 20—Platform 9¾∞
~Harry Potter (11 almost 12)~
A sharp whistle filled the air as the Hogwarts Express sounded its horn, trying to hurry the disembarking students along so it could continue on its way. Steam billowed through the air, bright white against the blue of the summer sky and the dark gray and brown of the train platform. The ride back had gone much too quickly and the bright red train seemed unwelcoming now, with its empty metal halls no longer full of eager young faces.
Harry Potter tried to swallow his melancholy sigh as he followed his friends off, lingering in the back as they raced forward to line up and get through the magical wall and to the other side of the platform to see their families for the first time in months. A guard was only letting students through in small groups of two or three so as not to alarm the muggles on the other side, but it was moving relatively quickly. Not many stragglers were left near the train as most of the students were pushing forward, eager to reach the head of the line and run into the waiting arms of their families.
Harry was putting on a brave face for his friends, whilst trying to convince himself at the same time, but in truth he felt like each step closer to the muggle world and the Dursleys put him a step closer to drowning in misery. He dreaded going back to the privations of Privet Drive after spending a year at magical Hogwarts. If only Dumbledore hadn’t insisted…but he had insisted, and so Harry had to go. For the last few weeks he’d been wracking his brain for ideas on how to keep his head above water while living with the Dursleys, and he had a few ideas, but not as many as he’d like.
Feet dragging slower and slower, Harry barely kept up with his friends as they moved away from the Hogwarts Express and towards the exit of Platform 9 3⁄4. His chest felt tight. As if from outside himself he saw people saying goodbye to him and even holding conversations, with Harry responding normally. He’d probably be impressed by himself when he remembered this later, when he was trying to survive the summer being abused by his Aunt, Uncle, and Cousin.
“See you, Harry!”
“Bye, Potter!”
Ron’s smile went tight. “Still famous,” he said.
Harry didn’t have the energy to placate Ron’s ego when all his energy was focused on bracing himself to return to live with the Dursleys. A man in Croatia once set a record for holding his breath underwater for over 24 and a half minutes, though most people passed out between 30 and 90 seconds. Harry was good at holding his breath. He could survive a single summer back with the Dursleys without drowning. He just had to remember that air was still out there waiting for him to find it. He only had to survive for two and a half months and then he could return to Hogwarts on September 1st.
But what if something happened? What if Hogwarts didn’t let him come back? What if this one year was it and no one wanted him back and he was forgotten by all of his friends?
Dumbledore said he could come back, but people lied to him all of the time. All Harry could do was choose to believe or not. It was hard to believe, but even harder to give up on hope and choose not to. He’d have to just try and endure it. Harry had a lot of experience enduring. It went along with holding your breath. What would come, would come. Heart aching, Harry hid his misery and put on a brave face. Gryffindors were good at being brave.
Going through the magic wall with the trolley holding Hedwig’s cage and his school trunk, Harry immediately spotted Uncle Vernon standing off on the far side of the crowd, fingers tapping impatiently against his big thigh. A scared looking Aunt Petunia and Dudley cowered behind his bulk, casting wide-eyed glances at the strangely dressed adults greeting the nearby schoolchildren. Harry scrunched down, hoping they hadn’t spotted him yet.
Dudley had a white-knuckled hand pressed to the back of his waistband. The piggy tail Hagrid had given him all those months ago seemed to already be gone, more’s the pity. It was the one thing Harry had been looking forward to seeing when he got home.
“There he is, Mom, there he is, look!” squealed Ron’s younger sister Ginny, pointing at Harry and not her brother as she bounced up and down. Ginny stared at him with stars in her eyes without seeming to actually see him or how uncomfortable she was making him. “Harry Potter! Just like in my books!” Clasping her hands to her chest, she swooned against her mother. “I’m going to marry him someday,” she sighed.
“Be quiet, Ginny, and it’s rude to point,” Mrs. Weasley said, smiling down at her youngest indulgently. “You need to grow a bit more before you’ll fit into the wedding dress.” She tapped Ginny on the nose, making the young girl giggle.
Wide-eyed, Harry looked over at Hermione, who grimaced and sent him a commiserating look. Leaning close, she whispered, “She’ll probably grow out of it.” Nudging his side, she added, “Especially once she gets to know you better.”
Harry sent her an indignant look, which made her snicker into her hand. Harry looked away to hide that now he was fighting back a smile too.
Ron was too busy running forward to hug his parents to notice Harry’s discomfort or the exchange with Hermione. Percy and the twins said farewell to their friends and joined the knot of redheads. Suddenly the volume of the room seemed to jump from two to twenty as all of the Weasleys came together. Their part of the platform became a little mad, like a tank of octopuses had broken open and swarmed out, with countless arms and legs and heads, not to mention locks of red hair and dangling hems of worn-out clothing, intertwining and kicking and pulling and ripping and locking and hugging everywhere, all connected in a chaotic mass of excitement, joy, and love that through providence alone didn’t fall over and roll off the platform into the path of a departing train.
It must be nice having a big family like that, especially one who wanted you back, Harry thought yearningly. Sometimes it almost seemed like Ron was jealous of Harry, which was absolutely bonkers. Ron didn’t know how good he had it. Harry was definitely jealous of Ron having a family who loved him.
Though Ron had said he’d send an owl to invite Harry to visit him this summer. Harry hoped it happened, but wouldn’t hold his breath. He’d be too busy holding his breath on other things. He tried not to let his souring mood show.
Remembering his manners as the Weasley reunion finally wound down and the family separated—the twins lasting longest as they swung in circles with their arms around each other bouncing off their siblings like they were in a pinball machine—Harry thanked Mrs. Weasley for the fudge and sweater she’d sent at Christmas.
Then Uncle Vernon found him. Mrs. Weasley tried to be polite by asking if he was Harry’s family, but Uncle Vernon just responded rudely before turning his back on her and impatiently ordering Harry to hurry up. Before Harry could decide how to answer, Uncle Vernon turned away and waddled off.
Harry was used to it, so he just shrugged, but Hermione and the Weasleys blinked awkwardly at each other before either avoiding Harry’s eyes or giving him sympathetic glances. All except for Ginny, who was staring at Harry from behind her mother with her mouth hanging open and her eyes unblinking.
When he looked at her impatiently, she went, “Eeep!” and turned bright red before hiding her face behind her mother’s broad back like a little lizard ducking behind a tree branch. Molly Weasley reached back to pat Ginny’s arm but didn’t pause in her conversation with Percy, who was boasting about how he was still on track to make Head Boy in two years.
Shaking his head, Harry turned away and said goodbye to his friends one more time (hopefully not for the last time). He forced himself to step back towards his waiting Uncle as Hermione cast several uncertain looks between him and the Dursleys. “Hope you have—er—a good holiday,” she said with a worried grimace.
Harry put on a brave face for the sake of his friends (and his pride). “Oh, I will. They don’t know we’re not allowed to use magic at home.” He nodded toward the Dursleys and forced himself to grin, hoping his friends wouldn’t notice if it didn’t reach his eyes. Maybe it would work out okay.
Maybe.
Giving a final wave, he saw that Ron wasn’t looking, having turned back to his parents and already talking a mile a minute in full competition with Percy for their attention. The twins joined in, but it seemed like their parents were ignoring them in favor of Percy and Ron. Nevertheless, they were all in their little Weasley world separate from Harry. It was fine. Harry made sure his grin didn’t slip until his back was to Hermione’s heavy gaze.
Taking a quick breath, one last gasp of freedom, he squared his shoulders and moved towards the Dursleys. He would endure and get through this summer. It would be fine. Harry was always fine.
(Until he wasn’t.)
“Harry, wait!” Hermione called. Turning quickly, Harry saw her hurrying to his side, fumbling at something in her bag. Barely slowing down, she threw her arms around him in a crushing hug, almost knocking him over. He grunted as her bag swung forward and slammed into his back. It was heavy and probably full of books, but Harry found that he didn’t mind this time. It was worth the bruises to get one more Hermione hug.
Harry hugged her back, perhaps a little too tightly, and let himself for one moment appreciate how warm she was against the chill of his skin, though it was summer and he shouldn’t be feeling cold. Though how could you not feel warmer when someone so obviously cared about you? How could anyone be left unmoved by a hug from Hermione Granger? Most people only praised her intelligence or, more recently, her bravery, but Harry knew the truth. As big brained as Hermione was, and she was extremely smart, her heart was even bigger.
Hermione let him go too soon, dropping her arms and stepping back. Harry forced himself to let her arms slide out of his fingers, pretending that he wasn’t already colder or feeling a phantom ache as he flexed empty hands down by his sides. “Have a good holiday,” he said inanely, at a loss for what else to say that hadn’t been said a hundred times already over the last few hours. She’d used that phrase on him just seconds ago, but it seemed the safest of the words bottled up in his chest trying to claw their way out, especially with the Dursleys looming unhappily on the edge of his peripheral vision.
“You too, Harry,” she said fiercely, grabbing his attention with the look in her eyes. “You, more than anyone, deserve a good holiday.”
Harry smiled at her crookedly, a real smile, storing up her kindness for the empty months to come. “Thanks.”
Curly hair bouncing as she abruptly ducked her head, Hermione reached out and touched him over his heart, sliding her finger down his chest. Slightly breathless, it took Harry a moment to realize that she’d tucked something into the front pocket of his oversized t-shirt. “Here,” she said, pink blooming across her cheeks.
“Huh?” Bemused, Harry looked down and reached into his pocket. It was a very deep pocket, being an old, xx-lg shirt of Dudley’s, so he had to fish around for a few seconds before he found anything. Pulling the thing out with his fingertips, he discovered a rectangular piece of parchment with rounded top edges and a periwinkle blue ribbon threaded through a hole in the top. Lips rounding in an ‘oh,’ he realized that it was one of Hermione’s special bookmarks, the kind she made and decorated by hand to save her favorite parts in all her books.
Touched, Harry brought it up to his face, flipping it back and forth to see the wealth of details she’d packed into the images inked on both sides. The front had a picture depicting a mountain glade. Tall, majestic trees arched protectively over the scene, speckled with a few curious animals and interestingly shaped plants next to a pond with a beaver’s dam. Distant broom riders flew through the sky in formation, silhouetted against the mountains like geese. The edges had a series of lines suggesting that the viewer was looking out a door or window onto the idyllic scene.
On the back she’d drawn a little cartoon troll wearing a roll of toilet paper as a hat and picking his nose with a wand. He sat on top of a train obviously meant to be the Hogwarts Express, with a tiny toad peeking out from the window of the train car and two profiles silhouetted on the half-pulled blind that Harry fancied were supposed to be Hermione and himself, with a shadowy lump on the other side of the train car that probably represented a sleeping Ron. Lips quirking, Harry couldn’t help but think of their first meeting when Hermione was helping Neville find his pet toad on the train and then again when they’d all become friends when he and Ron had gone to rescue her from the troll in the loo on Halloween.
Ever since he’d discovered her talent for crafting bookmarks, he’d been intrigued by them. She’d easily brag about her smarts from dawn to dusk, but when complimented on her art she’d blush and hide it. It was an interesting contrast. At school he’d watched with hidden fascination as Hermione had taken breaks between the million other tasks she regularly scheduled for herself to abruptly stop and craft a new bookmark, carefully cutting the paper into shape and then drawing unique little pictures on each one, often with her tongue tucked between her teeth in intense concentration.
It had taken him months to realize that she hid her first two initials in every picture that she drew—HJ for Hermione Jane. When Harry got bored with studying, he’d sometimes take a break by pretending to borrow one of her books and then opening it to a bookmark and searching for her initials in the image, like the hidden picture magazines they sometimes had in the waiting room at doctor’s offices as a kid. He wasn’t sure if she’d cottoned on to what he was doing or not, but she hadn’t stopped him either.
Ron had lost all book and bookmark adjacent privileges when he decided to prank Hermione using her homemade bookmarks, thinking himself hilarious. First he started by moving her bookmarks to the wrong pages in her books. Then he escalated to switching the bookmarks to different books. Hermione had noticed the misplaced bookmarks, but thought they were all unintentional accidents due to Ron being scatterbrained and hating studying. So Ron took the bookmarks out of her books entirely and hid them in random places, then started stockpiling them under his bed to turn into a fleet of paper airplanes. Harry had seen the airplanes, but not connected it to Hermione’s missing bookmarks until it was too late.
On the second to last Monday in March, Hermione decided to begin prepping for final exams early (very very early) and performed an audit of her books. At this point she realized that many of her bookmarks had disappeared. When she went to go and ask Ron and Harry about them, she discovered Ron in the middle of ambushing his brothers in the common room with a colorful fleet of paper airplanes made from dozens of Hermione’s stolen bookmarks. The bookmark planes became drenched and mangled in the ensuing battle. Although they were only fit for the rubbish bin at that point, Hermione still carefully gathered up every single scrap in the cradle of her arms and took them away back to her room.
When Hermione came stomping back like a thundercloud, she yelled at Ron for almost ten minutes straight in front of everyone in the common room. Ron had looked cowed and sorry at first, but as it kept going on and on he’d gotten embarrassed by the staring of his housemates and his brothers’ mocking interjections and started yelling back at her even louder. Instead of apologizing, Ron had accused Hermione of overreacting to a prank and not knowing how to take a joke, telling her that she was too serious and if she wanted to keep any friends she needed to loosen up, stop taking everything so personally, and learn to have fun like a normal person.
Head dropping and shoulders hunching, Hermione had looked like she was about to burst into tears.
Crossing his arms uncomfortably, Ron proceeded to tell Hermione that if she was going to cry, she should at least do it in her bedroom this time and not the girls’ bathroom on the second floor because sticking a wand up a troll’s nose would probably only work once and he and Harry wouldn’t always be around to save her. Unable to keep out of it any longer, Harry had been about to step forward when, instead of running away in tears, Hermione clenched her jaw and raised her head to glare at Ron. “The only thing you’re right about is that I should stop caring what a selfish loud-mouth like you thinks,” she said. If looks could kill, Ron would’ve been ghosting around with Sir Nicholas. “You stole my things as a joke. Who’s next? Your roommates? The poor first years? Maybe we should warn everyone to start locking their trunks around you.” She cast a warning look at the boys in the room, several of whom shuffled their feet and started looking concerned, casting wary looks at Ron.
“You’re completely mental!” Throwing up his hands, Ron had stomped out of the room. Hermione had stormed off in the opposite direction. It had been horrible and Harry had feared the end of their friendship.
Harry hadn’t realized how careless Ron had gotten with Hermione’s special bookmarks until it had all come to a head that day in the common room. He’d felt awful for her about it and told her so, but hadn’t felt he could say anything to Ron in case he made the situation and Ron’s temper worse. Every time he’d tried intervening in one of their fights, Ron had gotten twice as mad and even meaner.
Harry didn’t like it when his friends fought. It made him feel helpless. He had so few friends that he couldn’t bear to lose either of them by taking sides. Waiting a few days for Hermione to calm down, he’d tentatively reminded her that while Ron was prone to giving in to bad impulses and not thinking through the consequences, he was also a good person and a fun friend to have around. He offered to help Hermione replace the bookmarks she’d lost, but she’d just shaken her head and turned the topic to other things.
He’d been about to panic when Hagrid saved the day with his plan to hatch a dragon egg and they’d all had to come together to help him. Their friendship returned to normal with the craziness of getting rid of Norbert and Ron getting bitten and hospitalized, though it almost broke again with the detention and loss of house points.
Going forward, Harry noticed that Hermione only let Ron borrow books without bookmarks inside them. Harry worried that the ban would fall on him too, but thankfully it hadn’t. Harry worked hard to keep the privilege, always returning the bookmarks to the same page he’d found them and pushing them in more tightly when he saw a book with a bookmark starting to slip out.
Being given a bookmark of his own wasn’t something he’d have thought to ask for, but it was something he was delighted to receive. “Is this mine?” he asked, just to confirm, dragging his eyes away from the bookmark in his hand to look over at Hermione. He felt his grin turn teasing. “Or did I turn into a book needing marking when I wasn’t looking?
Taking a deep breath, Hermione’s chin went up as she met his eyes. “No. And yes. Sort of.” As soon as she finished, her eyes darted down and away and she twitched.
“What?” Caught off guard, Harry cocked his head to the side and looked down again at the bookmark, unconsciously searching over the swirls of ink until he found the elusive HJ of her initials. He traced the letters with the edge of his thumbnail and then looked back up at her face, trying to figure out her meaning. Over her shoulder he could see his Uncle rocking back and forth on his heels, the warning sign that at any moment he was going to give up on waiting and stomp forward to drag Harry away by his ear. “I don’t have much time, so you better explain it to me,” he said wryly with a darting glance at the Dursleys. “Quickly.”
Stepping close until it felt like they were in their own private bubble, they both looked down at the bookmark still cradled in Harry’s hand, their bowed heads almost touching. “No, it’s not a gift, Harry, and yes, it is a bookmark.”
“I can see that it’s a bookmark,” he said wryly, feeling a bit breathless for some reason at how close they were standing. “I’m still lost.”
Hermione took a quick breath. He could feel her exhale puff against his cheek. “Look, we all know that I’m bossy and strong-willed, but I’m good at it and secretly you like it sometimes and find it useful, so don’t pretend that you don’t,” she said, wagging her finger under his nose.
Huffing out a laugh, Harry refused to confirm or deny. “Maybe.” At his tone an invisible tension fell from her shoulders, surprising Harry. She must not have been as confident in herself as she’d sounded.
Hermione reached out and touched a fingertip to the hidden initials in the image of the forest right next to the base of his thumb. “HJ usually stands for Hermione Jane and that’s what I hid in the image of the troll and train on the back…” she paused and then said in a rush, “but when I hid the letters on this side I was thinking of Harry James instead. We have the same first two initials, you see, so I was thinking of you when I hid them there,” her voice wavered slightly, “HJ and HJ together always, back to back, close even when they can’t see each other. But that said,” she gulped loudly and firmed her voice, “it’s still my bookmark. Do you see?”
Eyes darting up to the resolute tilt of her mouth, her blushing cheeks and pink-tipped ears almost hidden by her bushy curls, Harry felt his heart turn over. “Oh,” he breathed out quietly, not sure what to call the fluttering feeling behind his navel.
“It’s a bookmark,” she said with emphasis. “It’s my bookmark. I only bookmark things that are important and special, things I never want to forget. It’s a declaration of unfinished business and a promise to return. I always bookmark things I want to come back to and I always come back for my bookmarks. Always, Harry.”
Mouth dry, Harry swallowed hard, rendered speechless by her promise and the meaning behind it.
“Do you understand?” she asked, eyes narrowing as if daring him to give her the wrong answer, daring him not to trust her.
Harry nodded, feeling fragile, like if he moved too fast something would break. He wanted to laugh and cry and shout and smile, all at once. He’d received so many amazing gifts this year—more than in all the years he could remember coming before—but right now this was the best gift yet.
Hermione gave him a small, special smile, the one that crinkled her eyes and brought out the dimples in her cheeks. “Good,” she said, stepping back and tucking a strand of curly brown hair behind her ear.
Curling his fingers carefully around the bookmark, Harry gently slid it into the huge front pocket on the oversized t-shirt he was wearing and tucked it down out of sight so it could stay close to him but no one else would see it.
Pointing a finger at his face, Hermione narrowed her eyes. “Remember, it’s my bookmark, so you better take good care of it.”
“Until you return for it,” Harry said quietly.
Lowering her finger, she tapped the bookmark tucked into the pocket in front of his heart and smiled at him like a prize student. “Yes.”
He bowed his head in acknowledgment, feeling better already. “It’s a promise.” Maybe it wouldn’t be too hard to breathe this summer. Maybe he was going to be okay. Harry met Hermione’s warm brown eyes. “By magic made, a promise and a vow,” he added, not quite knowing why, just that it felt right and Harry had learned to follow his gut.
Giving him a small, quizzical smile, Hermione repeated the phrase, “By magic made, a promise and a vow.”
Hermione’s lips were still rounded around the sound of ‘w’ when the space between their bodies rippled and twisted, the air thick with magic. A sphere of glittering gold sparks popped into existence between them and the air grew heavy and hot, tingling like electricity and making Harry’s hair stand on end and Hermione’s halo of curls grow to three times their usual size. In a rush, the golden sparks twirled and fell to the floor in a spiraling double helix like sands through an hourglass before disappearing. It felt like magic gave a hum and a gentle sigh. Harry’s ears popped and everything returned to normal. The entire thing had only lasted a few seconds.
Eyes wide, they looked at each other and then around, but no one else seemed to have noticed anything strange happening. Harry could see his Uncle finally give up and start stomping over. If he’d noticed anything magic, he’d be running away in the opposite direction. Before Hermione could start asking the million questions he could see trembling on the tip of her tongue, he met her eyes and shook his head. There wasn’t time.
An elderly woman with a stuffed vulture on her abnormally large hat walked by with Neville Longbottom at her side, and Harry was reminded that strange-seeming things weren’t really as strange anymore after this last year.
“It’s magic,” Harry said simply.
Rocking back on her heels, Hermione looked after Neville too. “Magic. What can you do?” They shrugged at each other and then laughed in complete harmony.
Flashing Hermione a smile, Harry said, “You should get back to your parents before my Uncle reaches us.” Uncle Vernon was worryingly close and bound to make a scene that would make Hermione and her big heart uncomfortable. “I’ll see you in September.”
Hermione snapped her fingers and pointed at him—or, more accurately, at his chest pocket. “Yes, you will,” she promised. “Bye, Harry. Take care.” She squeezed his arm, gave him a farewell smile, and finally left to go join her patiently waiting parents.
Taking the handle of his trolley, Harry moved to meet his Uncle and then passed him to join his Aunt Petunia, making his Uncle swivel on his heel and have to hop step to try and catch up. You had to take pleasure in the little things when you could.
Harry only had to put up with the Dursleys for the summer, he reminded himself. Then he would be coming back to school. He’d either make it back on his own or his friends would come and rescue him. Ron said he’d send an owl over the summer to invite him for a visit and, if that didn’t work out, Harry knew he could always count on Hermione to come and find him, especially after today.
After all, Hermione Jean Granger had just bookmarked Harry James Potter. There was no escaping her now.
That was alright. Harry didn’t want to escape.
∞⌛∞
~Narrator~
Dear reader, for the rest of his life, Harry carried that bookmark with him. Sometimes he temporarily gave it back to Hermione as a promise and reminder that he’d survive and return after choosing to do something she considered particularly foolhardy, like facing down Voldemort on his own at the Battle of Hogwarts. Later, after a crushing hug acknowledging that he’d kept his promise and survived, the bookmark always made its way back to him within days if not hours. They both liked it that way.
Hermione always kept her bookmark promise.
Until the day she didn’t.
But that wasn’t entirely her fault. Harry knew that and, eventually, after a century or so, on his deathbed, mostly forgave her for it. He forgave, but he never forgot the reasons why it turned out that way and he never got over it.
Harry Potter could never, would never, forget Hermione Granger. He never stopped expecting her to come back. He always wanted her to come back—to keep her promise and return for him.
He let himself grow old and he waited and endured until all of his children and nieces and nephews had died. He made sure their children all had full, happy lives too and, when no one needed him around anymore, he let himself die.
Then he found a way to go back and fix it, because a promise is a promise and there’s no time limit on that.
But that’s a tale for later on in the story.
Several other unfortunate things have to happen first, such as the breaking of that promise in the first place.
Until then, dear reader~
∞⌛∞
Chapter 3:
∞⌛∞
∞1993, August 31—The Leaky Cauldron∞
~Harry Potter (13)~
Harry’s morning began with a hearty English breakfast at the Leaky Cauldron. It was his last day of summer holidays before starting his third year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Even though he’d been staying here for weeks after accidentally blowing up Aunt Marge and running away on the Night Bus, he still woke up every morning feeling grateful to not be at the Dursleys.
While it was wonderful having the freedom to roam Diagon Alley before school started, Harry missed his friends. He’d looked for Ron and Hermione every day as more and more students flooded the alley to buy their school supplies, but they still hadn’t arrived. He’d taken to carrying around the bookmark Hermione had given him as a talisman to ensure her return, not caring how superstitious it made him seem. The Hogwarts Express was leaving tomorrow, so they had to arrive today. He only needed to be patient for a little bit longer.
Most days, Harry liked to spend the breakfast hour eavesdropping on all of the strangely dressed (to him) wizards and witches gossiping in the dining room and then ask Tom, the old landlord and barman, about all of the things he didn’t understand. The answers depended on Tom’s mood, how busy he was, and how well Harry managed to keep the older man from going off on tangents. The rambling and obfuscation could be frustrating, but at least Tom didn’t treat him like a celebrity, some exotic species at a zoo, or filth on the bottom of his shoe. The biggest topic among adult magicals revolved around escaped convict Sirius Black, but that was a subject Tom wouldn’t talk about, refusing to discuss Black except to say he was horrible and Harry should stay away from him.
As Harry’s fork scraped the bottom of his plate, searching for one more baked bean, he looked around again for Ron and Hermione’s familiar faces and sighed at still not finding them. Maybe he’d have better luck at lunch. The couple next to him seemed to be arguing and it was starting to get loud. Harry gulped his pumpkin juice, trying to finish so he could leave.
“I should have known better than to think you’d finally grown up! I can’t believe I agreed to talk to you again. I must’ve been delusional, thinking you were finally ready to pay me back the money and apologize so we could—” biting off whatever else he was about to say, the wizard stood up and threw his napkin over his plate, making his deep purple robes flare around him and almost knocking over his cup. A muscle throbbed at the corner of his jaw from how tightly he was clenching his teeth.
“What?!” the witch exclaimed, jumping to her feet. “I don’t owe you any money and you’d realize why if you had half a brain!” she shouted. “You can french kiss a hag before I’d ever apologize to a traitorous momma’s boy like you!”
Uncomfortable, Harry decided the dregs of pumpkin juice weren’t worth it and that was his cue to leave. He stood up and started stacking his silverware on his plate.
“Oh wait, you already did, and then betrayed me by marrying her, though I hear dear mummy refused to allow you a divorce until she bet on it and lost. Maybe when that backstabbing hypocrite finally kicks the bucket you’ll grow a spine and—”
As Harry hurried faster to clear his table, cold water unexpectedly drenched his arm. Jumping back, Harry turned to see that the arguing couple had graduated to throwing drinks instead of just words. At least they weren’t using magic.
The sound in the room died down as everyone turned to watch the drama.
Water dripped down the witch’s hair, off her nose, and over her pastel pink and green patterned robes. Breathing heavily, the man set down his empty water cup with a loud clack. Both looked shocked at what he had just done.
Neither noticed Harry getting splashed, too focused on each other. Harry warily stepped farther back out of range, shaking off the few drops that hadn’t already soaked into his clothing.
Face going red, the witch wiped water off her face and flicked the drops onto the table between them. “How dare you,” she said, voice shaking with repressed emotion.
“Me?” The wizard huffed. “How dare you! Bringing my mother into this when you were the one who betrayed me first! And then later—,” he gulped a breath of air, “later you willingly married that useless popinjay who cares more about clothing and glamour charms than anything else, even his wife. At least I know who the man is in my relationship. Do you even have one in yours?”
“Why you—” Biting back the rest of her words, teeth clacking shut, she gritted out, “I should’ve known better than to try talking to you. But here, have the interest on that money you think I owe you thanks to your tightlipped mum.” Lunging forward, she snatched up her drink, threw it in the man’s face, and stomped away without waiting for his reaction, tossing the cup on the edge of a random table before she Apparated away with a loud crack.
Cursing quietly, the dripping man rubbed his face with shaking hands, covering his expression. Letting out a shuddering breath, he pressed his palms hard against his eyes.
“You alright there, Humphries?” Tom asked gently, coming over with a tub for dishes and a rag, flicking his wand to set a mop to start drying the puddles on the floor.
Now that the show was over, the patrons went back to their conversations and the sound picked up in the room again.
“Same as always, Tom. Same as always,” Humphries said hoarsely, dropping his hands to reveal red-rimmed eyes. “Sorry about the mess.” Roughly digging into his pocket, he withdrew a fistful of galleons and tossed them on the table, presumably to pay for the meals and water, before moving towards the public floo to leave.
“What was that all about?” Harry asked Tom after the man had disappeared into the magical flames.
Heaving a big sigh, Tom began stacking dirty dishes in his bin. Harry moved close to help, grabbing the rag to dry off his arm before mopping up the puddles on the table. “It’s too long of a tale and I don’t know all of it,” Tom said, “but the two of them were best friends all through Hogwarts. They started dating in their final years, though his mother never approved, and went off together to train at the same apprenticeship, but changed their goals and aspirations after graduation as young people often do. The relationship didn’t survive the differences and they broke up after a series of misunderstandings and vicious public arguments. Now they hate each other, or at least pretend to, though I think they’re both hurting and dearly missing their old friend.”
“Why don’t they just apologize and be friends again?” Harry asked.
Tom snorted. “You can’t return to being friends after a romantic relationship, lad. It’s too hard and requires too much forgiveness and humility, at least for most people. This old man knows that better than most. The only time I’ve really seen it work is if the couple is forced to be civil because of a mutual child and both remarry into better relationships, and even then the friendship is never more than a shadow of what it once was.”
Looking down uneasily, Harry noticed a watch fob next to a puddle on the floor engraved with an ornate letter H. He picked it up and offered it to Tom. “That man Humphries must’ve dropped it.”
“I’ll keep it safe ‘till he comes back for it.” Tom slipped the fob into his apron pocket, then heaved a big sigh. “Mark my words, young Harry, don’t kiss a female friend if you aren’t prepared to lose her sooner or later.”
“But—”
“Now get off with ye,” Tom cut him off, looking morose as he loudly stacked the last of the cutlery into his bin. “Enjoy your last day in the alley. I’ve work to do.” Gathering up the dirty dishes along with the rag and mop, he turned and disappeared into the back, passing by a woman in a gauzy pale dress and veiled hat the color of moonlight that hid her face.
Feeling unsettled, Harry brooded over Tom’s words as he moved out into Diagon Alley, trying not to feel sick over the thought of losing Hermione, his best female friend. Not that he had plans to kiss her or anyone else right now. He’d only just turned 13, after all, and had never been girl crazy like some of the other boys.
Though perhaps in the back of his mind had swirled the idea that when he was ready to kiss a girl, Hermione would be the one. She had very pretty lips and he liked her hugs. They were nice. She was nice. Kissing her would probably feel nice too. Really nice.
Face on fire, Harry briskly shook off the idea and walked faster. Flapping his shirt, he tried to get some air down his collar to cool the heat pouring off his skin. He had to remember what Tom had said. He couldn’t risk losing Hermione. She was too important to him. Her friendship was worth more than some hypothetical kiss and there were lots of other girls out there that he could try kissing when he started getting interested in such things.
Desperately needing a distraction, Harry instinctively found his feet taking him into Quality Quidditch Supplies for another gawk at the Firebolt. He’d spent a lot of time here lately, but it was a beautiful broom worth looking at more than once. Thankfully all thoughts of kissing were soon banished from his thoughts. Lots of other students were there to admire the broom too, and Harry found himself pulled into talk about the upcoming Quidditch season at Hogwarts for the rest of the morning.
∞⌛∞
∞One Hour Later—The Leaky Cauldron∞
~Ron Weasley (13)~
“It’s the last day of summer.”
“I. Don’t. Care.”
“Oh come on, Ginny, grow up! Stop being so selfish and think of somebody else for once.” Ron huffed impatiently at his little sister’s stubbornness. “We’ve moved on. You should too. You’re not getting your way so just accept it. It’s too late. We’re already at the Leaky Cauldron, this room is rented for the night, and we’re all boarding the train back to school tomorrow morning. There’s no point in continuing to be difficult.”
“The point is that I’m unhappy, Ron!”
“Well you’re making us all unhappy too,” Ron said, throwing out his hands.
“Good!” Ginny snapped back. “Then we can all be miserable together! Or—or you could help me run away,” she said, looking up at him and biting her lip.
“What?” Ron shook his head. “No. What are you thinking? Where would you even go and how would you survive? Not to mention that Mum would kill me!”
Ginny wrung her hands. “I just need some space. Please, Ron. I can’t stand knowing I have to go back to those halls where I made so many mistakes. I can’t sleep in that room where we spent so many hours talking together. Every time I close my eyes I can still hear Tom whispering in my head, telling me to do horrible things and it all sounds so reasonable even though I should know better. He made me want to do bad things. He made me like it. He controlled me and made me dependent on him and then he tried to kill me. I hate him, Ron. I hate him and I hate myself because sometimes I still miss him.”
“I…Ginny….” At a loss, Ron shook his head. “Okay, look. Tom was the bad guy, not you. You were just a victim. Once we’re back at school you’ll see it isn’t that bad. You’re just sick in the head.”
“I know that!” she shrieked, pacing back and forth between the walls of the small rented room like an animal in a cage. “You think I don’t know that? I am sick in the head. I’m sick, Ron, and I need to get away. I don’t want to go back to where he was. I want to run away, somewhere far away and happy without any memories or responsibilities.” Ginny hugged her arms around herself and sagged. “I know I’d feel better and stop having nightmares if I could just get away. I deserve that after all I went through,” she whispered as tears dripped slowly down her face. “I just want to run away.”
Rubbing his head, Ron heaved a big sigh. He didn’t know how to help her. He didn’t think he could help. Girls were so emotional. It was exhausting. He’d think it was her time of the month, but she’d been this irrational and weepy for months and periods weren’t supposed to last that long. Sometimes Ron thought it would’ve been better if she’d just been born a boy like the rest of them. At least then he might understand her better. “Well you can’t run away. Besides, all your friends and family are here.”
“I can make new friends,” she said stubbornly, wiping her face dry on her sleeve and sending him a sour look. “And I’m not sure I like my family very much right now.”
“You’re such a brat, Ginny.” Ron rolled his eyes. “And we don’t like you much right now either.” Ron was fighting the urge to grab her by the arms and shake her. “It’s pointless for you to keep acting like this. School starts tomorrow.”
“I’m not going and you can’t make me!” Ginny stomped her foot and turned away from him to cross her arms and glare at the wall, her lank red hair hanging in tangles down her back.
Mum had been too busy this morning getting the entire family out the door on time to notice the rat’s nest on Ginny’s head, especially after the big argument they had before even coming down the stairs to breakfast. When Mum noticed later, she was sure to get mad and force Ginny to comb and style her hair until it looked “acceptable,” just like she had every other time that had happened this summer. If the Imperius Curse wasn’t one of the three Unforgivable Curses and an automatic life sentence in Azkaban, mum would probably be using Imperio on them every day and thrice on weekends. As it was, she had mastered plenty of other technically legal options to coerce her family into doing her will one way or another. Ron did his best to either keep out of her way or keep his head down. He’d learned that his life was simpler when he mostly went along with whatever she wanted, no matter how crazy.
Ron shook his head at Ginny’s willfulness. “Better me than mum. You know what she’s like and this morning at the house was the final straw for her. You’re lucky Dad distracted her before she could spell you and force that potion down your throat.” Ginny’s hands went white from how hard she was squeezing her elbows. “You’re lucky Dad did it the once,” Ron added, feeling jealous. Dad usually only intervened for the twins, whom he had a soft spot for because they were good at making him laugh. “We all know mum wears the pants in that relationship. He won’t stop her twice. Just give in and come downstairs with me before she comes looking and forces the issue.”
Silence.
Ron sighed. “Look, I get it. Last year stank more than rotten eggs for you. I sympathize, but the diary’s destroyed. At least you didn’t get attacked and almost Memory Charmed by a professor. Tom’s gone and you’re fine. Get over it.”
Ginny’s shoulders bunched, but she still didn’t respond.
Ron threw up his hands. “Oh come on! The whole family is sick of your little woe-is-me routine. It was understandable for the first few days, but it’s been months! You almost ruined our big Egyptian vacation because you refused to perk up and stop arguing with mum instead of joining the rest of us in having fun and not acting like paupers for once. Get over yourself or next time it won’t be just Percy that the twins try to lock away and lose in a pyramid.”
He wasn’t getting through to her. Ron sighed and scrubbed a hand through his hair. “Look, we all miss having our almost-fun little sister running around. This year at school will be loads better, so come on already. Let’s go find our friends and get the last of our school supplies.” Ron spread his fingers and waved a hand towards the door encouragingly.
Ginny stubbornly shook her head. “No, I don’t want to. I won’t go and you can’t make me.”
Chewing on his lip, Ron thought for a second and tried a different tactic. “You know…Harry will be there….He’s probably downstairs already.”
Darting a glance at Ron through her unkempt hair, Ginny bit her lip, hesitated, and then regretfully shook her head, turning away from him to face the wall again. “He can come and stay with us next summer when I feel better. I’ll be older and prettier then. We can have our first kiss in the broomshed to celebrate the start of our engagement.” Tilting her head, she gave a dreamy sigh, letting her arms relax.
“Gross!” Ron wrinkled his nose and tried not to gag. He tipped his head back to stare at the ceiling, out of ideas. Ginny was even more fixated on the idea of marrying Harry Potter than ever after he’d rescued her from the Chamber of Secrets. She refused to believe Ron when he told her that Harry was nothing like the bloke in her books and got angry when he tried to point it out. Mum had told Ron to leave it alone and let his sister keep her dreams. Ginny had spent the entire summer, including the month spent vacationing in Egypt, obsessively rereading over and over her entire collection of Harry Potter Adventure Books until her favorite of the series broke apart in her hands while in Cairo and she went into hysterics and boarded herself up in the hotel room screaming and crying like a banshee until mum promised to get her another copy so she’d unblock the door and stop making a scene. It had almost gotten them kicked out of the hotel.
Ron had thought dangling Harry in front of her would work to get her out of the room and back to school, but Ginny was used to being spoiled and getting everything she wanted sooner or later. She didn’t know how to take no for an answer. Besides, her pride was on the line and she was stubbornly determined to get her way. Ron wished her the best, but she was going up against their mum, who was even more stubborn and headstrong than Ginny. The writing was on the wall and there was no escaping it. Ginny just hadn’t accepted it yet. Unfortunately, she wasn’t going to change her mind unless someone forced her to change it.
“If you’re not going to help me then just go away,” she said crossly.
Heaving a big sigh, Ron threw up his hands and gave up. “Fine, but don’t say I didn’t try.” Irritated, Ron went to his trunk and pulled out a few things including the special souvenir necklace he’d bought in Egypt. Ginny might not be ready for school, but Ron couldn’t wait to go back and see his friends again.
Pushing away thoughts of Ginny’s problems to focus on himself, he clasped the necklace around his neck and left the room. Ron had so many things to tell his friends about his summer in Egypt, perhaps exaggerated here and there to make him seem more interesting and to prompt a bit of envy, but all in the name of good fun. Taking a big breath of fresh air out in the hallway, Ron stretched his arms, rolled his neck, and bounded down the staircase.
When he caught sight of himself in the large scrolled mirror on the first landing, he had to pause when he barely recognized the face reflected back at him. That wasn’t a bad thing. Ron was almost a man now, after all, what with him being thirteen since March, unlike Harry, who’d had to wait until the end of July to officially become a teenager. Ron would always be older than Harry. At least he had that on his famous friend. Though Hermione was older than them both—older and bossy with it.
“Now there’s a style you don’t see every day,” the mirror said.
“Thanks, I just bought it,” Ron said, puffing his chest out and preening as he smoothed down his hair.
“I didn’t say if that was good or bad…” the mirror mumbled.
Ron was too busy admiring his reflection to listen. Naturally he was older and wiser compared to last year, not to mention a lot more handsome, maybe even as handsome as Bill and Charlie at this age—certainly better than Percy and the twins. In fact, maybe he’d grow up to be even more handsome than all of his brothers. Girls were bound to start noticing him now and the other boys at school would probably start looking up to him.
He hadn’t mentioned it to his friends, but he still thought regularly about that brilliant and amazing-looking future he’d seen for himself in the Mirror of Erised. Ron knew he deserved that success and happiness. If life was at all fair he’d get it. He just had to be patient and wait for it to happen, although he hated being patient.
Wanting to examine his reflection in the mirror more closely, searching for hints of his growing maturity and greatness, Ron leaned onto the side table below the mirror, pressing his stomach against the edge and his hands flat on top to make himself seem even taller, feeling the texture of the lace table runner under his palms and the line of skinny glass vases he’d noticed earlier in sunset colors of red, orange, and yellow butting smoothly against the sides of his fingers.
Hearing a squeak of distress, Ron absent-mindedly adjusted Scabbers in his pocket so the rat didn’t get squashed. He’d been looking peaky lately.
Unfortunately, Ron felt his confidence wavering the longer he examined himself. It was hard not to see all of his flaws. Yes, he was older, but that meant he’d also fallen headlong into the awkwardness of puberty including the emergence of pimples. The desert sun had baked his skin to a golden tan, but it had also made freckles explode across his skin like someone had dumped an entire bottle of sprinkles onto a single cupcake and then dumped a second bottle after it for good measure. He was almost more freckle than man at this point. His hair hadn’t escaped the desert’s touch either, the orange-color red sun-bleached until it was almost as golden blond as that ponce Lockhart’s, though unfortunately nowhere near as well-coiffed.
Taking a deep breath to puff out his chest, Ron reminded himself that all of the girls had sighed over Lockhart’s locks, even Hermione, the least girly girl he knew. It could be fun being blond. He lifted his chin and gave a toothy smile. His shaggy hair tickled the back of his neck. Dropping the smile, Ron remembered that his mum would insist on trimming his hair tonight before school started and the sun-bleached hair would disappear, leaving behind only the unfortunate freckles. Ron deflated, only to hear a soft metallic rasp and clink as the chains around his neck slid against the vases on the table beneath his chin.
Remembering his new necklace, Ron pushed back from the mirror to get a full body view and struck a heroic pose like the ones he’d seen on statues all over Egypt, turning back and forth in front of the mirror to get the full effect and making his elbows right angles. Bill wore a small earring and all the girls went crazy over him. Wearing a big manly necklace like this was bound to have everyone looking at Ron in awe and admiration.
During their vacation in Egypt, each child had been allowed to pick out one souvenir at the magical bazaar near the hotel. A large and impressive-looking gold necklace had been Ron’s, though it had looked a lot more Chudley Cannon Orange under the blazing sun when he’d bought it. Maybe it missed the desert, because now that he was back in England, the color had faded into a boring old gold, though the necklace still looked brilliant on him, Ron assured himself, centering it on his chest.
Ron’s Egyptian necklace was really old and stretched from shoulder to shoulder and almost halfway down his chest. Every surface was covered in tiny runes worn almost illegible by time. Bill had looked it over to make sure it wasn’t cursed and dated the ancient runes to over 3000 years ago, though he was skeptical that the necklace itself was that old considering the unusual styling for the time period and the low price Ron had paid the shady hooded wizard in the marketplace to buy it. It felt magical, but Bill couldn’t figure out how except that it wasn’t cursed, suggesting it was probably junk and had just absorbed ambient magic from being stored for so many years near other magical objects.
Ron begged to differ! This necklace was special. He’d realized that as soon as he’d seen it and felt compelled to go over and pick it up. The seller had been reluctant, but Ron had been smart and wily, bargaining the man down and tricking him into selling the necklace for a fraction of its real value. It was so irritating how Bill kept correcting him and saying it was a fake. Percy had the nerve to call him a braggart and the twins had been gits too, but they were all just jealous.
Smirking and striking a pose, Ron admired himself in the mirror.
The elaborate golden necklace was surprisingly quiet and lightweight despite its large size. It even felt comfortable when worn under a shirt against the skin, though that would defeat the point of wearing it to show off. Each of its three chains was made up of small plates in multiples of 13 with the plates linked together by three rings on each side. The three chains were all attached to the three large pendants: a potion scale in the middle flanked by a feather and an anatomical heart farther up the chains. Below each large pendant hung a medium-sized pendant carved with a symbol: a circle, a triangle, or a tapered line. Thirty-nine (3 x 13) small circular pendants lined the bottom of the necklace, attached to both the medium pendants and the chain plates. They were also carved with a circle, triangle, or line.
In addition, all of the pendants on the necklace and the plates of the chains were covered front and back with miniscule runes or hieroglyphics that were so tiny and so worn as to be almost impossible to read. The only piece spared this was a small rectangular gold bar about half the length of the other small pendants. It hung at the bottom middle of the necklace and was completely smooth except for a single large symbol made of swirls and lines. Bill said it didn’t match anything else and thought it didn’t look like a rune at all, or at least not one Egyptian in origin. There were also some small bumps on the edges of the necklace which Bill said might have once been for connecting it to a broad collar underlay made of precious ceramic, colored stone, and/or metal beads, though they weren’t obvious unless you looked for them.
Because the numbers 3 and 13 were sacred and magical numbers in Egypt, Bill had gotten excited and decided to warn—read lecture—Ron all about them and the pendant shapes on his new necklace despite thinking it was a fake. It was supposed to be Ron’s vacation, not summer school, so Ron hadn’t paid much attention. From what he did remember, 13 represented death and rebirth and was associated with the afterlife and eternal soul. The scales weighing the feather and heart were also about having your soul judged after death. If they weren’t the same weight, bad things happened. The number 3 represented lots of stuff like plurality (whatever that meant), communication with the dead, and guardian demons. Ron got excited when Bill mentioned demons, but the actual explanation was a lot more boring— protection and safeguarding blah blah blah—so Ron ended up phasing out and almost falling asleep until Bill got irritated, flicked him hard on the forehead, and stalked off.
Ron didn’t really care about number superstitions, though the necklace itself was brilliant. He just thought he looked very fit wearing it, like a king or one of those magical pharaohs of old ruling over his subjects and unlocking the secrets of immortality, wealth, and limitless power. The only downside was the color. He wished the necklace had stayed a bright bold orange like his favorite Quidditch team, the Chudley Cannons. The gold was rather demure in comparison.
Nevertheless, Ron couldn’t wait until his friends saw him wearing it. He just had to find them first. Hermione said in a letter that she’d meet him here after her parents dropped her off. Harry should be here somewhere too.
Frowning, Ron looked around and picked at a spot on his chin. He’d been surprised to overhear Dad and the landlord Tom downstairs talking about how Harry had been staying here for a couple of weeks already, playing on Diagon Alley before school started. Dad hadn’t seemed surprised by the information either. He’d probably heard it at work and not told the rest of them, as if Ron wasn’t Harry’s best mate and didn’t have the right to know.
It wasn’t fair that Harry got to stay here by himself. Ron was so jealous. He was also irritated that Harry hadn’t been waiting there to greet him when they’d arrived. Ron had hoped to catch up with Harry for at least a little while before Hermione showed up, maybe complain about girls and his siblings for a bit and plan some pranks or skiving off that Hermione would disapprove of, but at this rate Hermione would get here first.
Not that Ron didn’t like Hermione—she was his friend too—but she was also a girl and thus different, prone to boring lectures, nagging, acting irrationally, and looking down her nose at him. Even Harry would agree that she wasn’t much fun. Ron hated people looking down on him, but Hermione always thought she knew better than everyone else. Sometimes he agreed with whatever she was saying just to get her to go away and leave him alone so he could go and do whatever he wanted to do anyway. Some might call that lying, but he called it a survival mechanism. She was lucky he was her friend at all, some days. Not that she couldn’t be fun sometimes and very useful to have around, because she was. She just wasn’t very good at backing down when she was wrong and Ron was right.
Glancing over the railing at the crowded dining room down below, Ron searched in vain for Harry, or if not Harry then at least Hermione. His mum had made him promise to wait for Hermione before going anywhere. At least she hadn’t made him promise to wait on Ginny, because then he’d never get out of here at all with his sister’s current attitude.
Feeling grumpy, Ron frowned. Harry was probably out in Diagon Alley spending his money on fun things Ron couldn’t afford while Ron was stuck in here bored and waiting. Ron knew it wasn’t nice, but he couldn’t help the way he thought. Besides, not being nice didn’t make it untrue.
Harry could’ve at least invited Ron to come and stay with him at the Leaky Cauldron for the end of the summer. Though Ron had only gotten back from Egypt a week ago and his parents probably wouldn’t have allowed it. Still, Harry could’ve asked. Though if Harry had, Mum probably would’ve disapproved of unsupervised fun and dragged Harry back to the Burrow by his ear, but then at least it would’ve been fair and Ron would’ve had Harry to hang out with for a full week instead of being stuck with only his increasingly annoying brothers and mopey little sister.
Ron couldn’t wait to get away from his family for a while, back where he only had to see his siblings at mealtimes and occasionally in the common room and hallways. He loved them, and he knew he was loved in return, but they didn’t know how to appreciate him and he was always being compared to his older brothers and found wanting. No one ever looked at him and saw just Ron. He was always the youngest Weasley boy. He was never as smart or funny or talented as his brothers. That or he was being passed over in favor of Ginny because she was the only girl and thus automatically special. His parents never had enough time or money for Ron, no matter how hard he tried to please them. Sometimes he felt like an unwanted and unneeded extra in his own family.
Percy had told him once that they probably wouldn’t have had Ron at all if Ginny had been born first, that Dad had wanted to stop at three kids since his salary was small and money already tight, but Mum had haranged him for ages until he agreed to give her the perfect girl she’d always wanted. After the disappointment of the twins, she started on Dad again, promising only one more. Then her brothers died and soon after Ron was born—another disappointing boy. Percy said Mum cried even more than the new baby and insisted they try for a girl again right away, which was why Ginny was born so soon after Ron and why she was the favorite who Mum spoiled rotten. Ron hadn’t wanted to believe Percy, but when he asked Bill and Charlie about it, Bill had avoided Ron’s eyes when Charlie breezily said it was all a pack of lies and Ron could tell that Charlie was lying about that, so…yeah.
Ron had thought his fortunes were changing for the better. He became best friends in first year with the famous Harry Potter, followed by friendship with teacher’s pet Hermione Granger, and then this last year his parents had won a bucketload of money from the newspaper drawing at the start of the summer. However, life never quite managed to live up to Ron’s grand expectations.
Somehow his parents had blown through all 700 Galleons of prize money already. How did you spend that many galleons in one summer? It was insane. Ron hadn’t even gotten that much out of it either. No wonder his family was always so poor. It had nothing to do with the number of kids they had and everything to do with his parents’ bad money management skills.
They’d told him that there wasn’t enough money to buy new school supplies either, so he was going to have to make do with used ones again. He didn’t like it, but he was used to being stuck with hand-me-downs from his brothers or the bargain bin at the back of the store. Those were at least better than the ones from his dead uncles. It felt kind of creepy, wearing a dead guy’s clothes, but the one time he made the mistake of saying that out loud, his mum had just about screamed the house down and made him wish for death (and deafness).
At least he was lucky enough to break his old wand in trying to save Ginny, the golden girl. It was a good enough reason for his parents to actually buy him a brand new wand with the dregs of the prize winnings. He couldn’t wait to show it off to Harry and Hermione along with his necklace, though he wished he had more to show off. Ron hated being poor.
Case in point—the room Ron’s parents had rented at the Leaky Cauldron was tiny with barely enough room for all seven of them even with Expansion Charms, but it was all that they could once more afford. Visiting Egypt for an entire month was fun, but he wished they’d have gone for less time and saved some money to enjoy having other nice things instead of blowing it all in one shot. As the youngest boy, Ron was relegated to sleeping on the floor against the wall by the door in a rug transfigured into a cot, where people would be stepping over him every time they needed to get up to use the loo or go out. It wasn’t fair. Ginny was the youngest and so should be the one sleeping on the cot, but mum claimed that Ginny was a girl and too fragile for roughing it like that.
Ron suggested that Ginny go sleep with Hermione in her room once she got here and let him have the extra bed. Mum had agreed with the idea, but then Percy started complaining that he needed a good night’s sleep as the Head Boy in charge of the train tomorrow and so shouldn’t have to share with the twins. Dad gave Ron a commiserating look but kept quiet as Mum sided with Percy, especially after the twins reminded her that Percy would definitely be the last Head Boy in the family before patting Ron hard on the shoulders and sighing dolefully, shaking their heads at his future prospects. The force of their pats almost made his knees buckle.
Of course, Ron hadn’t known about Harry staying at the Leaky then. Harry could share his bed and private room with Ron. Harry had to agree because Ron was his best friend.
Glancing back at the mirror, Ron saw that his hair was sticking up in the back again. He tried to finger comb his hair flat, but it was being difficult and refusing to cooperate.
The mirror spoke up. “You probably need some Sleekeazy’s Hair Potion to tame that mess.” Ron wrinkled his nose and sighed, leaning closer. The mirror was probably right. He should steal some from the twins or Percy, but he didn’t want to talk to them right now.
In retrospect, the Weasley family had spent way too much time living in each other’s pockets this summer. Usually they tolerated and even liked each other well enough, but the enforced closeness plus Ginny’s constant tantrums had put everyone on edge. Ron would happily push all of his siblings (except perhaps Charlie who he hadn’t seen this summer) off the top of the Astronomy Tower. He suspected that the feeling was mutual.
His brothers had been particularly awful this week, rubbing their good fortune in his face and being generally unpleasant, so Ron had been forced to steal Percy’s letter about being chosen for Head Boy and the twins’ introductory letter from a fellow traveller recommending them to the head of Zonko’s Joke Shop as apprentices and let Scabbers use them for bedding. The rat had chewed them to shreds before peeing and pooping all over them. It had been hilarious. Unfortunately for Ron, Percy had figured it out and not found it funny at all. He’d made a fuss to Mum, earning Ron a harsh scolding, more chores, and even more abuse from his brothers. The twins had been pretty mad too, but whatever. It wasn’t a big deal.
“No matter how much you look, the image in the mirror isn’t going to change,” Fred said in a sing-song voice, slinging a heavy arm around his shoulder that made Ron stagger.
Ron flushed, not having noticed the twins sneaking up on him in the reflection, too busy looking at himself. He was reminded of that adage—speak of the Devil and he shall appear. For a brief second he considered apologizing to his brothers for the letter thing, to reduce the pain coming his way if nothing else, but then he quashed the impulse. Ron hadn’t done anything they didn’t deserve and apologizing was for the weak.
∞⌛∞
Chapter 4:
∞⌛∞
∞1993, August 31—The Leaky Cauldron∞
~Ron Weasley (13)~
“Oi, sod off, you rotter,” Ron grunted, pushing Fred away, only for George to throw an arm around him from the opposite side the second he got free. “Leggo or I’m gonna tell Mum that you’re the real reason Ginny’s being so unreasonable. She’ll believe it from me,” he threatened.
“No she won’t. Mum knows why Ginny’s mental and just doesn’t want to deal with it.” Fred blew a raspberry with his lips, spattering Ron with spit.
“I’m sorry to break it to you, but wearing a pretty necklace won’t turn you into another daughter for Mum to spoil, Ickle-Ronniekins,” George cooed. “That’s why Mum had Ginny as a do-over for you.”
“Though maybe a pretty dress will help the illusion, Ronnie-me-lass.” Fred ducked away from the elbow Ron threw, though George wasn’t so lucky, grunting and staggering back.
“I’m not a stupid girl, you are! You’re both losers, so shuddup!” Ron snapped, feeling the tips of his ears go hot.
“No, I don’t think I will, and you know why? Because the real loser is you, Ron. You’ll never be cool like Charlie—”
“—and you can’t pull off jewelry like Bill. You just look like a boy playing—”
“—with his sister’s dress-ups. Sad to say—”
“—even Percy could pull that necklace off better.”
“Hey!” Ron shouted, outraged to be compared to Percy’s looks and found lacking. Percy—of all people! “Seriously? Are you actually being nice about Percy?” He wanted to say more, but trying to get more than a few words in edgewise was impossible once the twins got on a roll.
George grimaced and inclined his head. “Fair point. We’re not saying that Percy is cool—”
“Definitely not!” Fred wrinkled his nose and shook his head.
“But at least he’s got conceited arrogance and—”
“—intelligence to back him up.” Fred nodded sagely and then gave Ron a pitying look. “Poor Ronniekins is unfortunately useless. No brains or talents to speak of—”
“—except for being full of hot air,” George pointed out.
Putting a hand to his chin, Fred gave Ron an exaggerated look up and down and shrugged. “Still not very useful, though if we put a balloon at both ends, which one would fill up first, do you think?”
Snickering, George shoved a hand into his pocket up to the elbow. “I think I’ve got some balloons in here somewhere. We should test it to be sure, but I vote for his ars—”
“Oi!” Ron stomped his foot, feeling hotter than a boiling cauldron. “Knock it off! You guys are the useless windbags in the family, not me!”
“Ooh, ouch. That one hurt,” Fred said, sounding bored.
“Yep, total dagger to the heart,” George agreed easily, still distracted digging around in his pockets for the balloons. “Maybe if you try harder I’ll promote you to favorite little sister.”
Fisting his hands, Ron bared his teeth in a sneer and reached for some insults. “Oh yeah? Well you’re both so useless that Mum gave up on you years ago. Dad only sees you as a more amusing and cheaper version of circus monkeys. You’re so close to each other not because you’re twins, but because no one else in the family can stand you.”
“Oh, please.” Fred rolled his eyes and smirked, though it was a little forced. “At least try an insult with a shred of evidence behind it.”
George gave an exaggerated yawn. “As I said, the boy—excuse me, girl—is full of hot air.”
Ron sucked on a tooth and dug deeper, “Mum might’ve had Ginny as a do-over for me not being a girl—fine, whatever—but what’s your excuse? You weren’t the girl she wanted either. Everyone knows she tossed you aside to have me and Mum loves me more than both of you put together. You spend so much time trying to be funny so people will like you and want to keep you, but the truth is that it’s not working. Nobody would notice if you disappeared. They’d just find something else to laugh at.”
“That’s not true,” George said.
“And we wouldn’t care if it was,” Fred said a bit too forcefully. Neither boy was smiling anymore.
Scenting victory, Ron bared his teeth and attacked harder. “You want more evidence? How about that joke this morning about never becoming Head Boy? We all know it’s to hide the fact that you couldn’t even if you tried. You make jokes because you are jokes. You prank people because you’re petty bullies looking for cheap thrills. No one trusts or depends on you. If you weren’t around, everyone would heave a sigh of relief. Mum would’ve given you away years ago, but no one would take you without being paid for it and she’s always broke. After all, Mum can’t even bother to remember your names even when you’re trying to be serious!”
Breathing heavily, Ron saw that his brothers had gone unnaturally still at his tirade, faces wiped clean of expression. Ron’s stomach tightened. Maybe he shouldn’t have brought Mum so much into it. He knew the twins didn’t always have a great relationship with mum and that it was hard on them. He might’ve gone a bit too far, though they always went too far in their teasing and pranks too, and never apologized for it either, always picking on him. Two against one wasn’t fair. Ron raised his chin. They deserved to be knocked down a peg or two for once. He shouldn’t have to feel bad for it. He didn’t feel bad.
He didn’t.
The twins looked at each other in silence and then at Ron.
“You done?” George said.
“Yeah, he’s done,” Fred said with a hard look in his eyes. “Unless he wants to cry some more about his mummy?”
“That’s right, ickle-Ronnie’s a mummy’s boy, always tied to her apron strings, running to get mummy to fix all his problems, can’t do anything for himself.”
“No I don’t!” Ron protested, once more pushed off-balance by the double-team verbal attack, but it was too late, they were gathering steam and talking right over him.
“What can you expect? Ron is lazy and undependable.”
“He’s not and never will be popular or respected, not like—”
“—his brothers or even his friends. No wonder he’s like this. The only woman who’ll ever love him—”
“—is his mummy.”
Ron tried to get a word in edgewise. “That’s not true. Lots of people like me!”
“And the delusions keep on coming. You can lie to us, but don’t lie to yourself.”
“You’re a loser. You better hope you can bag a rich, hard-working wife to take care of you or you’re doomed, though maybe you’re better off finding a girl to order you around like a second mum.”
“Poor Hermione might be the only girl desperate enough to even consider it,” Fred said.
“Nah, Hermione’s too smart to fall for that, not to mention she’s starting to get cute. She’s way out of Ron’s league.”
Fred looked at George and wiggled his brows. “Maybe if Mum browbeats her or potions her?”
“It would take a lot of potion and regular doses.” George pursed his lips and then shook his head. “Nah, too much effort for Ron”
“I don’t know, greed does seem to be the one thing capable of motivating the little rodent. He’s already started, hasn’t he, tricking his friends into giving him a leg up, trying to copy Hermione’s perfect homework and nibble on the edges of Harry’s fame and fortune like a rat stealing cheese.”
Ron really hated his brothers sometimes. He stomped his foot. “It’s not like that! Friends help each other out!”
“Is that right? Well, perhaps we should warn Harry and Hermione anyway, just in case?”
“Pity those are the only friends he has.”
“That’s not true!” Ron said.
“I doubt it wouldn’t take much to get them to abandon Ron. I bet we could have them fleeing him like a sinking ship in less than a month.”
“Now you’re mixing your metaphors. I thought Ron was the rat, not his friends?”
“You’re the dirty, mangy rats!” Ron’s fists clenched and unclenched by his sides. He wanted to hex them so badly, but Tom had a firm rule about magical fighting in the Leaky Cauldron and they’d be kicked out if they got caught.
George sneered. “They’ve gotta be tired of pulling Ron’s dead weight around all of the time. I know we are.”
“Shut up, shut up, shut up!” Ron shouted.
Fred finally turned away from George to look Ron in the eye. “Why? Did we hit a nerve?”
“Truth hurts,” George said meanly, “doesn’t it, Ron? You are dead weight and you know it. You’ll never be good enough for the rest of us.”
“You always give up halfway because you’re a quitter. You couldn’t even rescue Ginny on your own, couldn’t even go the distance for your sister and had to tap out early against that pillock Lockhart.”
“I didn’t see either of you going down with me and Harry to battle that thing!” Ron said. “You were too busy hiding in your beds, afraid to come out.”
They ignored his words and continued their insults. “Your friends have got to see it, how undependable you are—”
“—like how you were supposed to help Harry stop Quirrell until you supposedly got too hurt playing chess or even last year when sneaking out Hagrid’s dragon only to hide out in the hospital wing.”
“What’s your next excuse, huh? A papercut?”
Ron reared back. “I was too hurt to go on those times! Those were legitimate injuries needing treatment. If you think you can do better, then maybe you should try instead of just criticising me all of the time!”
“But you make it so easy.”
“Face it Ron, you’re a failure—”
“—and no shiny gold necklace,” George leaned forward and flicked a fingernail against the scale pendant, “is going to hide that fact. In fact, it just makes it more obvious how ridiculous and outclassed you are.”
“It’s sad, really, how clueless and pitiful you are.” Fred shook his head.
“Shut! Up!” Snapping, Ron didn’t stop to think, he just reacted. Snatching up the nearby red vase from the table under the mirror, he chucked it at his tormentors, missing the top of Fred’s head by less than a fingerbreadth when his brother ducked. The vase hit the stairs behind his brother and shattered, sending shards of red glass bouncing everywhere, including down the stairs and out into the noisy and bustling dining room below.
“Oh, is that how you want to play?” George used his wand to summon the next vase in line—orange—lifting it over his shoulder in a clear threat.
Ron gulped and fumbled for his wand, no longer willing to hold back since it was a matter of survival.
Suddenly a deep voice broke through the noise of the crowd down below. “What the—are those shards of glass from my hallway vases? My sister just gave me those for my birthday!”
Ron and his brothers froze, unexpectedly united by the fear of getting in big trouble. “If Tom finds out it was us, he could kick the whole family out onto the street tonight,” Ron said, gulping.
Fred looked at George. “If that happens, our parents will kill us.”
“Dead,” George agreed.
“It’s probably just an accident,” they heard their mum’s voice as the crowd got slightly quieter, “but I’ll go investigate and set it to rights, Tom. Don’t you worry.” Her voice sounded like it was getting closer.
“Quick, take this,” George hissed, tossing the vase into Ron’s hands instead of at his head. Ron easily caught the orange vase and put it next to the yellow one, making sure to line it up on the lace table runner under the scrolled mirror.
“Place them a little more to the left, dearie,” the mirror prompted.
Ron adjusted the vases again and said over his shoulder. “Quick, cast a Reparo on the red one before Mum gets here,”
“Dummy, we have to summon all of the pieces first or it will be lopsided, since they travelled so far,” Fred said, glancing around the stairs as he cast the spell. Glittering red shards zipped and zagged from every direction to gather in a pile at his feet.
“R-reparo!” George cast over the pile, almost stuttering over the pronunciation since he was going so fast. The glass sucked together and reformed into the right shape except for a weird bump on one side like a wart.
Scooping up the restored red vase, Fred tossed it to Ron just in time for Ron to place it with the other vases and turn the wart to face the back wall. Unfortunately, in his haste to line them up evenly, he knocked over the other vases. The red vase wobbled but stayed upright as the other vases rolled to the edge of the table. Ron barely stopped them from falling and shattering onto the floor by slapping down his arm.
Before he could set the vases upright again, he saw the top of his mom’s hair coming up the stairs out of the corner of his eye. Improvising, Ron pretended to lounge across the table to hide the knocked-over vases and propped his chin on his fist, looking back at the twins. “So who do you think is going to be Quidditch Captain this year?” he asked in a slightly squeaky voice.
Their mother crested the stairs and paused, looking suspicious but not surprised on seeing the three of them together on the landing.
“Obviously Oliver Wood again,” George said, giving Ron a look for asking such a stupid question. “But next year’s captaincy is up for grabs.”
“Angelina thinks she wants it, but she doesn’t really,” Fred said.
“She’s not bossy enough or willing to make others train at 4 am and want to die, but there’s still hope for her, as she can be surprisingly pragmatic and sadistic,” George said. He turned his head and gave an overdone start of surprise. “Oh, hi, Mum. I didn’t see you there.”
Her eyes narrowed and moved between the twins. “Fred,” she said to George and, “George,” she said to Fred. “What did you do?”
Ron turned his mouth into his hand to muffle his snickering as Mum proved him right on the name thing. His laugh turned into a choked gasp when George moved sideways and stomped on his foot, almost making Ron knock off the very vases he was trying to stop from falling onto the floor.
“I’m Fred and he’s George,” Fred said, flashing her a smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “Or Forge, that works too.”
“Oh, whatever,” Mum said, waving away his words and turning to Ron with a disapproving look on her face. “Ron, whyever are you wearing that silly little necklace out in public?”
Now it was the twins’ turn to snort and laugh at Ron.
“Little, not exactly—” George said.
“—but silly, definitely yes,” Fred finished. “I totally agree with your fashion critique, Mum, couldn’t have said it better myself.” While she was looking at Fred, George moved his hand behind Ron’s back and set the vases upright so they’d stop threatening to roll off onto the floor. Ron kicked George’s shin for his comment, settled for glaring at Fred, and stopped lounging on the table, straightening the cuffs of his shirt, which had gotten twisted.
Mum frowned. “Don’t you boys get smart with me. You could both stand to put in a little more effort into your appearance, especially as you’re getting old enough that girls are starting to notice. You need to attract the right sort of girl into our family, after all.”
Fred turned and shook his finger in his brother’s face. “Hear that, George, only the right sort.”
“As for you,” pursing her lips, Mum looked Ron over. “Oh Ronnie, I thought you bought that necklace as a gift for a girl you like or out of pity for your little friend Hermione, or maybe even for someone who knows how to stand out like Harry, not to wear yourself. You look ridiculous.” She gave a little chuckle of amusement as she shook her head at him.
Going red, Ron avoided everyone’s eyes. He wanted to shrivel up into a ball and blow away with the breeze, he was so embarrassed, not to mention hurt. “I just thought…” Ron trailed off under the disapproving gaze of his mother.
She sighed, reaching out and pressing on his head to try and flatten his wayward hair. “I swear, you must get your common sense from the other side of the family. Sometimes I wonder if you boys have anything between your ears at all. Just make sure you take that thing off before going out into Diagon Alley so as not to embarrass yourself or our family. And comb your hair again.”
She stared at Ron until he bobbed his head and mumbled, “Yes, Mum.”
“But Mum, maybe Ronniekins just likes looking like a girl,” George cooed, reaching out to pinch Ron’s cheek.
Ron slapped away his hand and glared, “And maybe you’d like to look green and spotted.”
George crossed his eyes and stuck out his tongue. “Ribbit.”
“Now boys, play nice,” Mum said absently, looking into the mirror and straightening her robes. “And don’t break that vase again, understand?” she added, looking between the red vase on the table and the three of them with sharp eyes.
“Yes, Mum,” they chorused dutifully.
“Very well. Speaking of girls, have you three seen where Ginny’s gotten off to? Ron?” she prompted when he tried to avoid her eyes.
There was nothing else he could do when put on the spot like that. He knew which side his bread was buttered on. “She’s hiding in the room upstairs and refusing to come out,” he mumbled to his shoes.
Mum huffed. “That girl, I swear.” Rolling up her sleeves, she marched up the stairs. “I am done with this behavior.”
“RIP, Ginny,” Fred said, putting his hand over his heart as he watched Mum disappear upstairs.
“Well…maybe she’ll finally stop acting so mental, at least?” George said, his voice wavering.
Ron chewed on his lip, tasting blood when he peeled off a bit of skin. He was still mad at his brothers, but the breaking situation with Mum and Ginny took precedence. Dabbing at his bleeding lip, he mumbled, “I’m not saying this isn’t Ginny’s fault, but I’m not sure she deserves what Mum’s about to do either.”
“No one deserves Mum on a rampage,” Fred said morosely.
Ron wiped the back of his bloody hand down his shirt.. “Mum’s way of fixing Ginny’s problems is to just tell her she’s too young to have such worries and to ignore them and drink lots of potions. That or to focus on her delusional daydreams of Harry instead. I don’t think it’s working, or at least it isn’t making Ginny better.”
Fred sighed. “Yeah, that’s classic Mum psychology—scream at someone and then pretend they don’t have a problem so maybe it’ll go away on its own, then make new problems to focus on instead.”
“Ginny needs to learn to hide it better then,” George said, voice hard. “If she doesn’t bother Mum and the rest of us with it, she can wallow to her heart’s content.” He held up two fingers. “Voice of experience here.”
“No, I don’t want to go back to Hogwarts!” Ginny’s voice echoed down the hall as she burst into view at the top of the stairs, followed by their frowning Mum.
“Lower your voice and stop making a fuss right this instant, young lady!” Mum said. “We’ve been over this already.”
Shoulders hunching, Ginny stepped closer to Mum. “Please don’t make me go. Please, Mum,” she begged, hands raising in supplication. “I can still go to school in France or America or—or even try homeschooling if we can’t afford abroad.” She switched to glaring. “Though we could’ve afforded it if you’d just spent the money on me instead of wasting it on the rest of the family.”
Frowning sternly, Mum said, “That’s not your decision to make, it’s your parents. We had a grand time and everyone is envious of our good fortune. Besides, a family vacation is an important time for making family memories. Just like going to school is important for making memories. You’ll understand when you’re older and have a family of your own.”
Ron felt jealous and bitter. Mum would’ve been screaming down the roof if any of the rest of them had talked back to her that way, but Ginny just got a stern frown. Even now, she was still the golden child.
Deflating, Ginny looked up into Mum’s face and said in a small voice, “I just don’t feel safe at Hogwarts. I don’t have any friends. No one will miss me.”
Mum patted her shoulder. “Don’t be silly. Your brothers will miss you, not to mention Harry. How will you get him to marry you if you aren’t there? Another girl will snatch him up. Besides, going to Hogwarts is a family tradition. What would people think?”
Shaking her head slowly, Ginny stepped back from Mum. “Who cares about other people? Did you ever think about my happiness? Huh? Oh, wait, I forgot. Tradition and reputation are more important to you.” Ginny bitterly threw out her arms and noticed her brothers listening on the landing. “Merlin forbid we have an opinion that Mum doesn’t agree with!”
“That’s enough, Ginny,” Mum’s voice cut the air with a crack. “I’ve had enough of your disrespect. Back into the room,” Mum pointed.
“Why? So you can rewrite my mind and turn me into a copy of you?” Ginny shoved her fingers into her tangled hair and laughed bitterly. “It’s suffocating. I hate my life. I wish I were a boy so you would just let me be a disappointment and ignore me like the twins and Ron. The thought of growing up to be a poor housewife with too many kids like you makes me want to die.” She let out a sob.
Face going red, Mum shouted, “Ginevra Weasley! BITE your tongue!” Sucking in a deep breath, her volume increased to hurricane proportions. “How DARE you speak to YOUR MOTHER like THAT? After ALL I’VE DONE FOR YOU! I am ASHAMED OF YOU. That is NOT how a daughter of MINE ACTS!”
Ginny sank to the floor on her knees and burst into tears. “I’m s-sorry!” she wailed into her hands. “I-I-I just d-don’t want to drink m-more p-potions! And s-so many Cheering Charms are making me s-sick.” She hiccuped and looked up, face flushed red, eyes swollen, and nose dripping. “I want to have a choice, even if the only choice is how to think and feel.”
Lips pressed tight, Mum reached down to grab Ginny’s skinny arm and yanked her to her feet. “This kind of behavior is exactly how I know you’re not thinking right. You need to trust me to know what’s best for you.” Dragging Ginny back towards the room, Mum said, “You’re going to take your potions, I just restocked with a few stronger options this morning, and tomorrow you are going back to Hogwarts.”
“I hate you!” Ginny abruptly shrieked, bucking and pulling against Mum’s arm like a wild thing, almost sending them both careening down the stairs. “I hate you, I hate you, I hate you!!!” She was sounding like a banshee again. Ron pressed his hands over his ears and winced.
Dad dashed past Ron, taking the steps up two and three at a time until he reached Ginny, grabbing her in his arms in a suffocating hug. “Calm down, Ginny, calm down,” he said, looking distraught and overwhelmed.
Eyes blazing, Mum released Ginny long enough to cast a Muffling Charm, cutting off Ginny’s high-pitched screams. “Into the room,” she snapped. Ron’s parents dragged the still kicking and screaming Ginny away and slammed the door. They must’ve cast another silencing charm because everything became unnaturally quiet.
Downstairs from the dining room, a flat female voice floated up seconds later. “Aren’t we glad that’s not us? I don’t miss my kids being at THAT stage.” The crowd laughed. “Though some people just don’t know when to stop.”
A man added, “Good gracious, just one more reason why I’ve never regretted NOT having any children. Especially girls!”
Thankfully the rest of the commentary on their family situation was drowned out by the general noise as everyone started talking again and resumed their business.
Ron looked at his brothers. “Blimey, I hope they don’t blame all that screaming on us boys,” he said, paling and looking over his shoulder.
“Isn’t it fun being a Weasley?” Fred said sarcastically. “I think that’s our cue to leave the scene of the crime before the crowd makes more embarrassing comments at our family’s expense—”
“—or Mum comes out wand blazing with more potions,” George finished, shuddering.
“You might want to do the same,” Fred said, “but Ron?”
“Yeah?” he asked.
George reached out and clicked a finger against his necklace. “Don’t forget to take off your,” he mimicked Mum’s inflection, “silly little necklace.” The twins laughed at the red expression on Ron’s face, reminding him that his brothers were jerks.
Growling, Ron pulled out his wand to hex them, but the twins were too fast for that, knocking the wand from his hand and then skipping away down the stairs. By the time he’d picked it up again, they’d disappeared into the crowd. Unwilling to risk going back to the room until his parents were done with Ginny, Ron descended the stairs.
He circled the bottom floor several times looking for his brothers in the crowd to retaliate, but they were nowhere to be found. He didn’t see any of his friends either. The room was crowded with back to school shoppers and wizards enjoying a hearty Sunday brunch. Frustrated, Ron shoved past a man sitting at a table with a mug he’d probably forgotten was still stirring itself, reading a book on the history of time or some daft ol’ thing. The man gave Ron an irritated look for knocking into his chair, but Ron ignored it.
Ron skirted past a mysterious woman in a large hat covered by a moonlight-colored veil. She stood in the shadows next to a pillar. Even though the veil looked gauzy, he couldn’t see her face through it. Somehow he managed not to bump into her despite thinking he was about to ram into her shoulder. She must’ve dodged. It made him stumble a bit at the lack of resistance. She must be using an advanced type of cooling charm he didn’t know about because Ron felt ice cold while he was near her. It was probably the only cold place in the entire warm and stuffy dining room. He’d ask her to teach it to him, but her back went ramrod straight and she practically cringed away from him like he was diseased, the rude bint.
As he passed by the trash bin he brumpily thought about tossing the necklace, but then he saw Ginny coming down the stairs with his parents on either side like guards and got distracted. Ginny’s hair was neatly combed in two braids down her back and she had glazed eyes and a dopey expression, obviously potioned and spelled despite her objections. Mum had her hand locked on Ginny’s thin shoulder.
Uneasy, Ron found himself wandering in their direction. “Um—uh—are you alright there, Ginny?” he asked tentatively.
Ginny gave him a blank look. “Of course. We’re going to go and buy me new school supplies.”
“Oh, right,” he said, scratching his belly awkwardly and avoiding her creepy gaze, reminded all over again why it was a bad idea to go up against Mum, but also that things were still unfair because she was still getting new stuff while he had to make do with used.
“That’s right, dear. Good girl,” Mum said, squeezing Ginny’s shoulder and smiling down at her. “Do you want to come with us, Ro—” turning to look at him, she stopped and heaved a big sigh. “Oh no, Ron. No. I told you to take that necklace off. It doesn’t suit you at all.”
Ron scowled, upset all over again, but also too scared to try and contradict the words of his mother.
Dad sent him a commiserating look. “Maybe you’ll grow into it when you’re older and you’ve made something of yourself, if you’re that set on it.” Ron shot him a betrayed look. Even Dad couldn’t say something nice. Ron felt miserable. Maybe they were right and he really wasn’t suited to wear the necklace. He probably did look stupid.
Mum clucked her tongue. “Now, Ronnie, don’t be so glum. You’re much more handsome without it. I’m sure I can find you something much better to wear in my brothers’ old things, if you’re that interested in gaudy gold jewelry—”
“No, Mum, no! I’m fine!” Ron said quickly, waving his hands and stepping back, horrified at the thought of wearing her dead brothers’ tacky jewelry from the 1970s. “I was just going upstairs to take it off.” He backed up more and waved. “Good luck shopping!” he called over his shoulder, accidentally stepping on an enormously fat man in a lavish waistcoat with big crystal buttons. The man should lose weight if he didn’t want to get knocked into.
“Sorry about his lack of manners, Professor Slughorn,” Dad said to the fat wizard Ron had tripped over. “He’s my youngest and can be a bit self-centered.”
Scoffing, Ron could hear the old windbag reply, “No harm done, Mr. Weasley. But you’re just back from Egypt, are you not? I haven’t visited in decades. Have you met the divine Mrs. Evelyn O’Connell of the British Museum’s Magical Egyptol—”
Ron dodged his way through the crowd. His mood plummeted as he stomped up the wooden stairs, making as much noise as possible to express his frustration. Nothing was going his way today. Life wasn’t fair, but what else was new? Ron told himself that he didn’t want to wear some stupid old foreign necklace anyway. His brothers had probably tricked him into buying it and then laughed at him behind his back. He’d just throw it away and go find something else—something better. New was always better than old anyway.
Storming into their room, Ron went to his trunk and tossed open the lid, making it hit the wall with a loud and satisfying BANG! He tried to rip off the necklace but couldn’t get it to open, just tearing off a layer of skin on his neck instead. Frustrated, he stomped over to the mirror and twisted it around his neck so it was back to front, finally getting the clasp undone after several fumbling attempts. Breathing heavily, Ron unwound the necklace, wadded it up into a ball, and threw it as hard as he could across the room into his chest, not noticing it falling through a hole in the lining and out of sight.
(Where it would lie undiscovered for almost two decades.)
Throwing himself down on the nearest bed, Ron crossed his arms and glared at the ceiling. His day was going to be ruined at this rate and it wasn’t even lunch yet. His parents would learn to appreciate him someday, Ron reminded himself, and the twins were just sad, stupid berks and he’d have plenty of chances to get even with them while at school, especially with his friends there to help even out the odds, even if Harry was overly fond of them. Taking a deep breath, Ron forced himself to calm down so he could go search out his friends. After several minutes, when he felt closer to a nap than anything else, Ron stood up with a yawn, untwisted his shirt from where it had tightened around his chest under his armpits, and left the room, kicking his trunk shut as he walked past.
Ron made sure to keep his head turned away from the mirror on the staircase on the way down, not interested in more comments on his appearance today. At the bottom of the stairs, he saw the twins across the room loudly greeting Hermione and receiving hugs. So they hadn’t left the building, but had just been hiding from him. Also, how dare they greet Hermione first? She was his friend, not theirs.
Ron tried hard not to scowl and return to his foul mood, reminding himself that he hadn’t seen his friend in months. Making a good impression on her when she saw him again would be a good strategy. He didn’t want her thinking less of him or seeing him as useless or a joke like his brothers. The twins may be frivolous idiots, but they were right about one thing—having useful people like Hermione around was to his benefit. Ron quickened his step. He needed to go and claim Hermione for himself before the twins stole her away and monopolized her time and attention to help them revise for their exams, make their crazy ideas possible, and manage their theoretical joke shop after graduating. Hermione was Ron’s friend first and if she was going to be getting anyone ahead, it was going to be Ron.
Brushing past a mysterious man hiding his face in a deep hooded cloak as he made his way across the room, Ron felt the strangest compulsion to go grab the necklace and give it to Hermione. After a month on vacation, she looked very tan and—he was shocked to see that George was right—almost cute. When had that happened? She’d look great in the Egyptian necklace, certainly better than him. He should give it to her.
The mysterious woman wearing a hat covered by a moonlight-colored veil glided in front of Ron, momentarily blocking Hermione and the hooded man from view. He jerked to a stop so he wouldn’t run into her and caught a waft of cold air. He shivered. She seemed to float through the crowd, unlike Ron who kept bumping into people and having to suck in his gut to squeeze between chairs and tables. It didn’t seem fair.
When he resumed his winding way across the room, Ron noticed that Hermione was smiling too widely at his brothers with her big beaver front teeth. She shouldn’t be so friendly with people who weren’t Ron—well, Ron and Harry, he supposed, since they were all best mates together. He didn’t know what he’d been thinking, wanting to give her his special necklace. Of course she wasn’t as cute as most girls, though he’d admit that she looked better than last year. It was hard not to considering that she’d been stuck petrified for months on end with her mouth hanging open like a dope and that stupid expression on her face. She’d probably look even stupider wearing his necklace. He certainly wasn’t going to give it to her.
“Hi Hermione, you look brown,” Ron said, coming up to her and sending a warning look to his brothers to shove off or he’d make them.
Rolling their eyes and shaking their heads, they turned to each other and parroted,
“Hi Fred, you look brown.”
“Hi George, you look brown.”
Laughing and snorting, they waved goodbye and left. Good riddance, Ron thought crossly.
Laughing self-consciously, Hermione tugged down the sleeve of her shirt over her arm. “Yeah, I got a lot of sun…but it looks like so did you, freckle man.” She gave him a sideways hug, missing his grimace at her unwelcome joke.
“Did you have a good summer?” he asked when she stepped back and he didn’t have to worry about getting her bushy hair in his mouth.
“Oh yes, I had a great time traveling with my parents to France and along the coast! They were mostly busy with things more important than me,” she paused for a second and then rallied, “so I got to wander around by myself, discovering all sorts of quaint little bookshops and beautiful bits of scenery I can’t wait to tell you all about. I wish you’d been there with me, as I dearly missed seeing my friends, but oh Ron, it’s so great to see you again!” She smiled at him and Ron couldn’t help but feel cheered by her words.
They moved against the wall to let several people walk by, including the mystery man in the hooded cloak, and Ron thought again about the Egyptian necklace upstairs and how much it would complement Hermione. Smiling back at his friend, he reconsidered running upstairs and giving her the necklace as a present. It was sure to make her very happy. He could picture her big smile and the hug she’d give him. She’d be so grateful she’d probably think him better than all the other boys she knew. Biting his lip in consideration, he glanced upstairs towards his room where he’d tossed the necklace.
On the staircase stood the veiled woman looking out across the crowd. Even though he couldn’t see her eyes, it felt like she was staring in his direction. Feeling self-conscious, Ron scratched his chest and looked back at Hermione. If he gave her jewelry, she might get the wrong idea that he had a crush on her or something stupid like that. Hermione wasn’t his type at all, though he might settle for her someday if nothing better came along. He also didn’t want her getting an even bigger head than she already had, strutting about wearing a big gold necklace like that and bragging to everyone that Ron Weasley liked her. Plus, if the other boys found out they’d tease him until he died. Ron firmly squashed the idea. If he really felt the need to give her something, he could buy a big snack on the train and share a bite with her.
“Are your parents around?” Hermione asked.
“They went out shopping with Ginny. What about you? You all squared away with a room? Oh, and we decided Ginny’s going to sleep with you tonight.”
“What? Ron, I don’t even know her that well and you didn’t even ask!”
“Just do it, Hermione. You’re both girls and Mum said it’ll be fine.” He waved away her objections. “So did your parents just drop you off without a backward glance or what?” Ron looked around for the Grangers, tucking his hands in his pockets and rocking back on his heels. On the stairs the hooded man was advancing on the veiled lady, who noticed him coming and quickly spun around to race away up the stairs, perhaps trying to avoid him. He started running after her and they both disappeared onto the second floor.
“Yes, they just left,” Hermione said curtly. Expression tight, she looked past Ron’s shoulder and around the room. “So is Harry here yet? I’ve really missed him.”
Ron’s mood soured. What had happened to, ‘Oh Ron, it’s so great to see you again!’ Once again he was being compared to the great Harry Potter and found wanting. It wasn’t fair and he didn’t like it.
“I haven’t seen him,” Ron said, scowling and kicking the floor.
“Oh, that’s too bad,” Hermione frowned and looked around awkwardly before shaking herself and taking a bracing breath. “Um, it’s getting hot in here with all the people. Should we go and—er—get some ice cream while we—er—wait for him to show up?”
Mood lifting at the thought of sweets, Ron nodded. “Capital idea, Hermione. Let’s go and you can treat me to a double scoop. I’m sure France was nice and all, but just wait until I tell you about all the amazing things I got up to in Egypt. You’re gonna be so impressed.”
∞⌛∞
~Harry Potter (13)~
When Harry finally left the Firebolt with a wistful sigh, growling stomach insisting on food, he let his feet wander as he tried to decide what he wanted for lunch. Hearing his name called, he turned and saw his friends frantically waving at him from across the street, sitting outside Florean Fortescue’s Ice Cream Parlor. Harry broke into a smile and waved back, waiting for traffic to thin so he could cross over.
Ron looked extremely freckled. His red hair was shaggy and bleached blond by the sun and he’d also grown even taller. Sometimes Harry felt like he was still the same height he’d been at eleven, he grew so slowly, but he tried not to let it depress him. Nevertheless, he braced himself for months of Ron’s short jokes.
Looking at Hermione, Harry felt his face warm. Over the summer she’d grown even prettier. She must’ve spent most of her summer out in the sun like Ron, for her skin looked very tanned and her curls had gained highlights of caramel and gold. Eyes sliding down her face, he saw that her full lips were glistening in the sun, wet from the ice cream she’d been eating. She licked her lips and smiled at him and Harry wondered at the flavor…of the ice cream. Of course of the ice cream and not her lips. His ears went burning hot and his collar felt too tight.
What was he thinking? Tasting her lips? Like in a kiss? Harry didn’t want to kiss Hermione, she was just his friend!
Wasn’t she?
Losing sight of Hermione’s face when a crowd of shoppers passed between them, Harry remembered what Tom had said about the consequences of kissing female friends. He felt terror swell in his chest at the thought of losing Hermione. The awful feeling popped any fantasies that might’ve started to bubble in his brain. He couldn’t bear to have Hermione abandon him, much less hate him like the couple in the Leaky Cauldron.
Swallowing hard, Harry decided that kissing her was a risk not worth taking. Ever. It was an impulse and nothing more. Mere curiosity. Resolved, he vowed to not think about kissing Hermione ever again. It was safer that way.
Harry wasn’t greedy. He just wanted to be best friends with Hermione for the rest of his life and hopefully after death too. If he could have that, he wouldn’t ask for more. (Not having at least that was unbearable to think about.)
Crossing the street, Harry greeted Ron and Hermione with backslaps and hugs. He sat down at their table and didn’t linger on her shiny, sticky lips even once. As they caught up with each other and made plans to go and buy Hermione a new pet and get Ron some potion for Scabbers, Harry made himself be content with what he had. It was a lot. Harry was in the wizarding world again and about to return to the magical school he loved, he had his best friends back, and he just knew that his third year was going to be a great one where nothing bad or crazy happened beyond having to attend Potions with Professor Snape and Draco Malfoy.
Yes, everything was going to be great this year.
∞⌛∞
~Narrator~
Newsflash, dear reader, everything was not great in Harry Potter’s third year. A great many bad and crazy things did, in fact, happen. The only thing Harry was right about was having an awful time in Potions with Professor Snape and Draco Malfoy.
However, in third year Harry also learned that he had a godfather and that, dear readers, was quite wonderful and made up for the rest of it. Sirius Black was wily, obsessive, protective, vengeful, and more than half-insane. He was also an escaped convict and the first adult Harry could ever remember loving him openly and unconditionally, from sending him extravagant and anonymous magical gifts to sneakily signing his permission forms. That same year Harry also learned that magical time travel was possible from Hermione Granger. Being young and impressionable, all those things became linked in Harry’s mind.
However, that wouldn’t become relevant for Harry until many decades, a lot of deaths, and a prison sentence in an alternate timeline later.
Though from a certain point of view, its relevance had already come and gone millennia ago.
∞⌛∞
My heart is breaking for Ginny right now
I am loving the new perspective on canon as well as the hints of where things will go wrong (or perhaps right 🤷🏻♀️).
And the bookmark made me cry. 😿
Initial predictions: I’m thinking hooded man is Harry and the veiled lady is Hermione? I’m off to read the next bit.