Harry Potter - Series Fan Fiction ❯ Resuscitation of Agapé ❯ Catching Up ( Chapter 8 )

[ Y - Young Adult: Not suitable for readers under 16 ]

Harry Potter and the Resuscitation of Agapé
Year 6 At Hogwarts
by Jessica X

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WARNING LABEL: MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS. INGREDIENTS OF PRODUCT NOT COPYRIGHTED BY AUTHOR, BUT THE RECIPE IS. RATED R FOR MILD VIOLENCE/LANGUAGE, AND MATURE THEMES: KEEP OUT OF REACH OF CHILDREN. IF INGESTED, INDUCE VOMITING, THEN DRINK SOME LIQUID PAPER.

NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR: u.u; I knew you'd love that erhm... subconscious dry-humping in the last chapter, heheh. I couldn't believe I wrote that, either! Okay, so we're just about halfway through this story. How do I know? Well, I've basically finished it, though the upcoming chapters could still use a LOT of work (which is why they're not up yet, lol). Loads of twists and turns to come, but not so many in this chapter... though without it, the later ones would sort of... fall apart. I guess what I'm saying is... if you find this installment less than thrilling, please bear with me! Anyway, enough of my blathering.
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~*~ Chapter Eight: Catching Up

Years later, looking back, it would seem quite amusing to Harry Potter that he hadn't realized what Hermione was getting at before it happened. In the present time, however, his eyes shot as wide as dinner plates, and he simply stared straight ahead. Her hands were clasped around the back of his neck, presumably to prevent him from escaping, and her knees were in his chair, straddling him. Her lips were quite as soft as Cho's, and her heated breath was coming at least twice the speed. After just a few seconds, she broke the kiss, standing back up.

"Well, I'm off to bed, tonight was fun, toodles!" she said rather quickly, full of a false, bashful cheer, then sprinted for the stairs.

"HOLD IT!" She stopped.

"Now," he said shakily, trying to stand up. "Hermione Granger, what in God's name do you mean by kissing me just now?"

"It's... it's a New Year's Kiss," she said, her voice a touch higher than normal. "Like I started to say before, it's traditional."

"WHAT-"

"You're supposed to kiss someone at the stroke of midnight at the beginning of the new year. It's to bring good fortune, and, erm... stuff."

"'Erm... stuff'?!" he repeated. He had never known Hermione to be this vague about information of any sort.

"Look," she said, spinning around, her face glowing a crimson that would light up even the darkest reaches of Pluto, "I'm really sorry if it offended you, but it was just supposed to be in the spirit of the holiday, and I'm really sorry, and I think I'll just go on up to bed now-"

"Wait, wait, wait," he said, shaking his head, his eyes squeezed shut. "So this is like that rubbish rule with mistletoe."

He could hear a modicum of relief in her voice as she spoke again. "Yes, that's right, exactly! It's just one of those old superstitious sayings!"

"But you're not a superstitious person," he said, his mouth starting to curl into a smile.

"W-ell, I know," she said slowly. "I just... you know, it's one of those fun little things. I mean, why stay up for midnight, anyway? The year will come whether or not we're awake to witness it."

"You just wanted to kiss me," Harry said, his grin set at "maximum cheese".

"No, no, I didn't!" Panic.

"Yes, yes, you did." Accusation.

"You've got me all wrong!" Hysterical.

"I think I've got you just fine." Triumph.

"Stop it!" She stalked over to him. "It was just a stupid kiss, alright?!"

"Okay, okay," he said, his tone purposefully unconvincing. "I believe you."

She sputtered for a moment, then let out an "OOOH!!!" of pure frustration, folded her arms and spun around, marching back to the stairs. He sighed.

"Hermione-"

"GET STUFFED, POTTER!!!"

He was still blinking when he heard her door slam.

"Reparo," he said idly, the shattered champagne flute on the carpet snapping back to one piece again.


~*~


Hermione did not speak to him during breakfast, which was extremely awkward, considering they were the only two at the table. It felt like a part of him had been severed with a chainsaw; he'd been feeling so much closer to her than ever before since she bore her secret, and suddenly the cold shoulder was presented to him. He seemed to sense that this squabble was nothing serious - quite silly, really, but he did not say as much, as he wanted to keep his goolies intact.

When she got up to leave, he followed, but she had a head start and was walking faster than him. Eventually, when she reached the Fat Lady, saying the password ("Lacewing") slowed her down enough for Harry to catch up, and he grabbed her arm halfway across the common room, moving to block the staircase.

"Let me go!" she snapped.

"Not until we talk this thing out!"

"What's to talk out?! You're a pig-headed, asinine little-"

"Don't say things you'll regret," he said.

She abruptly broke off, stalked over to her armchair, and sat.

"Listen," he said as he sat across from her, "I was being a bit of an ass last night, and I'm sorry. I shouldn't have given you so much shite over that kiss." He peered at her intently. "But was it really just because of New Year's?"

She looked up, her anger having hardly abated, and her voice had an unmistakeable chill. "Why tell you anything if you won't believe me?"

Her eyebrows, jointed together as if permanently glued, raised slightly as he got off his chair and kneeled at her feet.

"I am truly, honestly, verily and wholly sorry that I doubted you. Even if you were acting like a nutter." He got back into the chair. "But you've got to understand, you'd just kissed me! It was... well, weird! I mean, we've had enough weirdness lately, haven't we?"

At last, she seemed to let go of her seething mood. "I know. I wasn't even sure I was going to do it at first... well, I've never really kissed anyone on New Year's - or at all, for that matter. I just... I guess I wanted to take that opportunity to..." She sighed in defeat, shame and self-reprimand punctuating her words. "...to use you as a guinea pig. What a little bitch I am."

Harry started. Hermione rarely ever swore, and he'd never heard her swear so harshly. After a few seconds, he recovered. "Hey, don't be that hard on yourself. I didn't mind the kiss - it was actually, erm, quite nice. I was just... well, floored." He could feel his face growing slightly hot.

A corner of her mouth tugged upward slightly.

"But next time you're going to do something that mad, WARN ME!"

This time, she broke into a true grin. "Deal."


~*~


The foyeur was packed as the students returned from Christmas break. As the pair of them stood watching them file in, Neville came up to them, waving brightly.

"Hey, Harry! Hermione!"

"Hi, Neville!" they shouted in unison.

Ron was one of the last to come in, and he was sporting a dragon hide beret.

"What on earth is that thing atop your head?" Hermione said.

"What? It was a gift from Charlie. You... you don't like it?"

They exchanged a glance, then giggled.

"Bugger you, then," he said, straightening it. "Well, Romania was nice... I actually got to have a fly on one! Er, dragon, I mean."

"How's Charlie?" Harry asked.

"Not bad. Nearly got his hand bit off last week, though. How was your holiday?"

They exchanged another glance, one less mirthful.

"What, what happened?"

"Hermione snogged me," Harry said promptly.

"WHAT?!"

"UHT!!!"

And Harry was being chased up the marble staircase, Hermione snatching at his scalp.

Ten minutes later found the two of them gasping for breath, halfway up the steps leading to the old Divination room (now vacant, due to relocation).

"You... beastly... I..."

"Well... I just..."

Finally, after a few more minutes, Hermione shouted, "Why in the bloody hell did you go and tell him THAT?!"

Harry shrugged. "Well, it was either that or the other thing."

"Why did you have to tell him ANYthing?!"

"Oh, come off it, Hermione. Ron may not be exceptionally bright, but he's not stupid, either. Eventually, he'll suss out we're acting a bit different. Wouldn't you rather he thinks it's because of a simple kiss than... left to his own imagination? Which, frankly, couldn't be much worse than the reality of that morning."

She stood for a moment, letting herself cool off. "You're right, of course," she said at last. "I let my temper get the better of me."

"Good. Now when he brings it up - which you know he will - we'll just... tell him the circumstances. At least Ron's no rumourmonger, and he might even understand."

"Yes, yes." She sat down on a step. "Poor Ronald. I don't like this, you know... keeping things from him."

"You've been keeping something from us for five years," he put in.

"Score one for the Gryffindor Seeker." Hermione took a deep breath, shook her hair out, and laid back on the stairs, staring at the ceiling high above them. "Why do I have to be such a secretive little wench? If only I could be normal, if only my LIFE was normal..."

"Welcome to Club Potter. We have embroidered jackets, you know."

An eyeroll and snort of disgust later, she looked over at him. "Harry?"

"Yeah?"

"Do you wish I hadn't told you?"

"It-"

"I mean, do you think we'd be on better terms? If I'd never mentioned I even had a secret from the off? Ever since I spilled, we keep ending in... delicate situations. I feel like we're hanging by a thread."

"No," he said flatly. "True, that really threw me for a loop, and there are the erm... 'delicate situations'. But I'm more than glad you confided in me, even if not in Ron. I can't say things are the same, but... perhaps they're just a bit better."

"Really? You're not just placating me, are you?"

"Of course not."

"If you had a secret like that one, would you tell me?"

Harry hesitated. He DID have a secret he had been keeping from her. But this information wasn't so much embarassing as it was... alarming. The last thing he wanted was to have this hanging over his friends' heads.

"Harry?" He could hear the hurt beginning to blossom in her voice, and it pained him equally.

"Hmm?"

"If you had a secret like mine... you would trust me with it... wouldn't you?" His heart felt sick at the uncertainty she spoke with. Mistrust was brewing, and he did not want her thinking he was untrustworthy.

"Yes, I will."

She nodded, then stopped. "Wait... what do you mean by 'you will'?"

"Erm..." Inwardly, he cursed his tongue.

"You're hiding something," she said, sounding both wounded and intrigued.

He fidgeted.

"You are, aren't you?!" It looked as if she was on the verge of leaping to her feet and screaming.

"It's nothing juicy," he said in resignation. She had him cornered, and it was all because of his own damnable mouth. Sometimes, it was no use trying to withold information from Hermione. "It's nothing pleasant, or remotely good. It's right ghastly."

"What, what?!"

He stood suddenly. "Unlike your secret, this is one I can tell Ron, as well. And I think I'd rather... tell both of you in one go, I mean."

She was now looking at him, deep concern etched around her eyes. "Harry...?"

"Let's go look for him."


~*~


"NO!" Hermione breathed.

All he could do was nod glumly, then shrug. "Hey, if I don't..."

"Yeah," Ron said, his face quite pale. "Terrible thing, this, but I'd rather see you murder than BE murdered."

They were sitting uncomfortably on desktops in an empty classroom. Harry, as much as he didn't want to, and despite already knowing what their reactions would be, had just told them what the contents of the Prophecy with his name on in the Department of Mysteries had been.

"It..." Hermione began. "I mean, it's one thing to think you m-may have to fight him again... but it's something else again KNOWING that you have to... to..."

"You sure it can't be Neville?" Ron demanded.

"That much is Voldemort's fault." Ron winced slightly, but Harry noticed he was finally starting to get used to hearing it. "Maybe if he HAD gone after Neville... but he marked me. He turned me into a parseltongue, gave me this stupid thing on my forehead that says, 'Hey, I'm the Boy Who Almost Snuffed It, and I really will unless I kill the guy who tried!'"

"Oh, Harry..." She sniffled.

"See, THIS is why." He gestured to Hermione, who was fighting back tears with a hand over her mouth and nose. "This is why I didn't tell you... it's bad enough that I have this on my mind - that Dumbledore does, too. I didn't want you guys sitting there, watching me as if I'm on my deathbed."

"Then why tell us now?" Ron asked, genuinely curious.

Harry dared not mention Hermione's secret, but he found he didn't have to. "Hermione. She sort've worked out I was hiding something, and tried to prise it out of me. I reckoned I'd just tell you both at the same time, as... well, the once is enough to be going on with, isn't it?"

Ron nodded, eyes now boring into the floor. Hermione's face held a mixture of sorrow... and gratitude. He could only guess this was for tapdancing around her secret.

"Listen, you guys... don't think about it, okay? Just... it's probably a long way off, years, even..."

"But Harry, you have to KILL You-Know-Who!" Ron croaked. "How can we forget a thing like that?!"

"By not remembering it," Harry said snarkily.

"I'd..." Hermione was too choked up to speak properly. "I'd say start practing... the... You-Know-Which-Curse, but... but that's awful!"

"I know."

"On the other hand, if you haven't mastered it, you won't be prepared when you finally have to use it!"

"I know."

"But you-"

"LOOK," he said, a bit louder than he meant to. "I know I have to use Avada Kedavra on him someday. Maybe it'll be long after I'm an Auror, and they probably make sure you know that curse in your Auror training."

"But Harry, what if it comes down to it BEFORE you become an Auror... if you even become one?" She almost sounded like she wanted to run from the room. "What if you have to combat him again before you even leave Hogwarts?!"

"Yeah, mate," Ron put in. "You need to have your guard up, it could happen any day now."

"I'm still not sure how that's going to work," Harry said, more to himself than to them. "We couldn't fight each other last time."

"What d'you mean?"

And there it was. The other thing he'd deliberately never told anyone.

"Last time we fought," he said slowly, looking at the blackboard, "our wands reacted strangely. That's because... because our wands are brothers." At this, he pulled out his wand - his constant companion for over five years - and twirled it lightly in his fingers.

"How can wands have brothers?" Ron said, his voice full of skepticism. "I mean, they're bits of wood!"

"Fawkes."

"Fawkes?"

"Both my wand and Voldemort's have one of Fawkes' tail feathers in them. They're the only two wands in existence with tail feathers specifically from that phoenix. Apparently, the two cancel each other out." He sighed. "When the... cage of light was around us, I... heard phoenix song."

"Huh?!" Ron, who had not been there, had no idea what he was talking about.

"Nevermind. The point is, I'm not too sure I could actually kill him if I tried, even if, God forbid, I'd successfully used the curse on a few dozen people already. Of course, if I could curse him before he could raise his wand, I might be able to pull it off, but..."

"Slim chance of that," Ron finished gloomily.

"Dinner," Harry said suddenly. "It's... probably starting now. Let's- let's go eat."

"Are you mad?" Ron half-shouted. "What kind of nutter would be hungry after hearing something like that?!"

"A nutter who'd rather eat than think about his morbid destiny."

Silence fell. Then, one by one, they stood and walked toward the door.


~*~


A solemn week passed before they returned to their usual state of comaraderie. The impact of what Harry must do one day had hit them hard, and being forced to think about it again had also put Harry in a mood. But after a week of barely speaking to each other, they all seemed to realize that moping around was quite useless. They'd just have to cross that bridge when they came to it, and there was no point worrying about what it looked like now.

During that sobering week, Harry did manage to inform Ron about the odd thing he'd spotted on the map. Ron didn't really seem to think much of it.

"It was probably your eyes acting up in the wandlight," he said, voicing the same opinion Harry had.

It was this fact that had lead to the eventual raising of their spirits, as Ron had wanted to know why Harry was using the map, and in turn why he was getting party supplies.

"You mean you actually SNOGGED HIM?!" he shouted. "I thought Harry was having me on!"

"Shut up, Ronald!" she hissed. "What if someone hears-?"

"Let them hear!" Ron bellowed. "MY TWO BEST FRIENDS ARE MASHING LIPS!!!"

"Damn it, Ron, shut up!" Harry pleaded.

Harry had eventually cast a Jelly-Legs Jinx on him when he'd said he was going off to tell Cho about this.

"At least she's gotten over Viktor Krum," he said, collapsing on the floor and shooting Harry a dirty look.

"Oh..." Hermione said sadly.

"What?" Ron demanded as he made to stand up, though his wobbly legs would not support him properly. "You're not still daydreaming about that surly git, are you?"

"Well, first of all, he's not a surly git," she said crossly. "Second, Viktor and I are just pen-friends. Or we were..."

"'Were'?" Harry asked.

"Mr. Krum found out about our correspondance, and he'd rather his son not associate with a... you know."

"A Muggle-born girl?" Harry guessed.

"Right the first time. Viktor said it wasn't just that, though; he's supposed to be focusing harder on his game."

"That's right, he plays for Bulgaria," Harry muttered. "Strange how having someone visit at your school and sharing several near-death experiences can almost make you forget they're a celebrity."

"He said he'll try to write every now and then, but said it would be best if I didn't write back." She looked thoroughly depressed.

"Good riddance," Ron said.

Knowing full well he didn't know the counter-jinx, the two of them left him laying there, struggling with his useless legs.


~*~


As February began, their homework had reached astronomical proportions. Even Hermione had to work longer than she usually did, though in her case, her efforts always paid off with an "O".

"Arithmancy is getting to be quite taxing," she said one night, bending over her book. "It's still the best subject, though. Why haven't you two been taking it?"

"Are you kidding?" Ron said, lowering his quill. "It's all I can do to keep my head above water!"

"What about you, Harry?"

Harry laughed. "Don't need it to become an Auror, do I?"

"Stop acting like it's already in the bag!"

"Oh, but it is. I'm the Boy Who Almost Snuffed It, remember? If I put in an application for Minister of Magic, they'd probably have me in the office by nightfall!" Ron chuckled, but Hermione scowled.

"And what would Mr. Fudge be doing?" Hermione said, her lips pursing at his flippant attitude.

"Scrubbing toilets."

The three of them had a good laugh about that before settling back to their respective piles of parchment and books.

"Harry," Hermione said suddenly, "what's that?"

"Huh?"

"Right there," she said, pointing to a stack of books next to him.

"Those are books, Hermione; it's what we call it when a load of pages are stuck together. I figured you'd know that by now." He might have kept on this for a bit longer, but he quailed under her glare.

"'Arcane And Obscure Elixirs And Draughts'. That's NOT one of our textbooks."

"I just, wondered what was in it."

"I see," she said, disbelieving. "You were merely curious about a potions book. You, who hate the class with a passion. Naturally, you'd be interested; why on earth did I ask?"

"Yeah, the book's a real snore," he said casually. "I'll probably take it back soon."

She returned to her homework, but he could tell she was thoroughly unconvinced.

As he and Ron were preparing for bed, Ron again asked him why he had it.

"I told you, I just wondered what kind of potions were in there."

"Hermione doesn't buy that rubbish, and neither do I. What are you playing at? It's not even a library book."

Harry blinked. "How did you-?"

"There's no number on the spine," Ron said, shrugging. "All the library books have one, you know that."

"I picked it up in Diagon Alley. It's an old thing, as you can see, and it was going for quite cheap, so I figured there'd be no harm in it. Besides, I need to bring my Potions marks up a bit if I want to be an Auror." That much was the truth.

"How cheap?"

"A Sickle or two, I think it was. Not any more than that, I'm sure."

"Oh." He slid into bed. "I guess that's not TOO bad, though I can think of a dozen better ways to spend a Sickle."

"So can I. The book's got some weird stuff in it, but nothing that great."

Ron nodded, then yawned. "G'night, 'Gabe Galleon'."

Harry grinned. "Sod off."



~*~ To Be Continued