Harry Potter - Series Fan Fiction ❯ Resuscitation of Agapé ❯ Strange Bedfellows ( Chapter 15 )

[ 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, SWALLOW YOUR TONGUE, ASSASSINATE AN ILLUMINATI, THEN GO BACK TO WATCHING 'GOMER PYLE' RERUNS.

BLASÉ BLOVIATION FROM THE AUTHOR: This AuthorNote is going to be a bit lengthy, so you may just want to skip over it for now, or entirely... or whatever works for you.

Oh, you hate me. You hate me, you hate me, you HATE ME! I'm really very sorry for the excruciating delay with this chapter. Most of the credit goes to my family members, whom have been drifting in and out of my house a lot over the past two weeks. I have had the pleasure of visiting an amusement park, though. Roller coasters, while fun and exciting and etc., tend to leave me a bit jumpy... and funnel cakes are SOOOO fattening, but who can resist them? There was also some personal business this past week that I don't feel I should burden you with (though you should know it turned me into a quivering, pining, hair-pulling mess), but it's been resolved, and everything is now cool.

Sadly, I cannot conveniently blame those things for my reluctance... not entirely, at any rate. Rather, I could, but it would be dishonest. The truth is... I don't want to finish this story. It's almost done, and once I've typed that final sentence, gone over it for the fifth and last time, and sent it off into cruel, unforgiving cyberspace, it's going to be over. It's as if this is my firstborne child and I'm looking through college applications. You needn't worry that I'll buckle and waffle and never complete it, though; I just have to grit my teeth, hike up my knickers, adjust my spectacles and trudge onward. The story would start to meander if I were to draw it out any longer than I already have, so you needn't worry about that, either. Still... I'll be a little heartbroken when I indeed have to finish it.
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~*~ Chapter Fifteen: Strange Bedfellows

"Wake up, sleepy heads!"

"I'm not asleep," Hermione said irritably. "He is, though."

Harry blinked groggily, and found his face was against something soft. He moved an experimental hand upwards, to test what he was laying on, and immediately heard a gasp.

"Oh!"

As his eyes shot open, he realized that what was under his hand seemed to be - for lack of a better word - squishy.

"HAROLD... JAMES... POTTER!!! YOU UNHAND ME THIS INSTANT!!!"

Blushing furiously, he sat bolt upright, something that caused his head to swim.

"Sorry," he mumbled, "I didn't- didn't know it was your- your-"

Laughter. He heard muffled laughter, and looked up. Standing close by on the bridge were Ginny, Ron and Neville. Their mirthful faces were all hidden behind their hands.

"I WASN'T FEELING HER UP!!!"

Hermione's pale face was contorted in an embarrassed rage, threatening to go back to and beyond its normal hue without the help of any elixirs. She was shaking, her black eyes smouldering like hot coals, and her arms were folded tightly over her chest. Harry involuntarily began to inch away from her.

"YOU- YOU-"

"Hermione, I swear by all that is holy, I never-"

Without another word, she leapt to her feet and sprinted toward the fortress. Immediately, Ron and Neville broke into loud guffaws, and Ginny started rolling on the ground.

"SOD YOU GITS!!!" Harry shouted, stumbling to his feet and running after her.

When he reached the spare room, he found her there, pacing furiously, letting off loud, exasperated noises at regular intervals. Her arms were still crossed.

"Hermione-"

"Out!" she shouted the instant she'd realized he was there.

"You've got to listen to me-"

"OUT!"

"But it was only-"

"GET THE FUCK OUT!!!"

He did as he was told.

Nearly an hour and a half went by before she found him lurking in the pantry, idly staring at all the bags of dragon feed.

"Harry?"

"What?!" he spat.

She sat down on a stack of feed timidly. "I'm sorry for blowing up like that. I was... I was embarrassed, nobody'd ever touched me like that before... well, not while I was awake, in any case..."

He nodded grudgingly. "I didn't mean to do that, you know. I'd just woken up, I didn't know where I was, or-"

"I realized that," she said softly. "And I know you were trying to tell me before, but... it took my brain a good while to calm down from the outrage of it all. I mean, not only did you, er, handle my Quaffles, but there were spectators!"

He rolled his eyes. "The three of them were in a right state after you went inside. I hope Ginny bruised something."

"What?"

"Nothing." He shook his head thoughtfully. "This kind of thing has got to end. I need to stop sleeping with you, Hermione."

She blushed slightly. "Poor choice of words, there."

"Why do you think I used them?"

She playfully punched him in the arm, and he pounced, tickling her in retaliation until she was even bluer in the face, sending infectious, hysterical laughter echoing through the fortress. Eventually, they ended on top of a stack of rugs in the corner, panting.

"Well," he eventually managed, "that was... corking good fun."

"I think we'd better... reschedule our... our rematch."

"Wh... wha?"

She sat up slowly, massaging her ribs. "We'd better... go, y'know."

"S'pose you're right... they'll think we're back here... getting our ends away..."

A breathy laugh. "I'm sure they do..."

As she turned to look at him, still caught in mid-laugh, their gaze locked for a moment, noses mere inches apart. Harry expected himself to flinch from staring into those shadowy, ominous eyes, but found he didn't. Perhaps he'd just gotten used to it, but... maybe it was because he could see past them, through to the soul inside. He swallowed hard as he tried to deter his heart from racing, though he didn't understand why it wanted to. What had they been talking about? Did it matter anymore? Despite this dismissive thought, it came back to him as he saw her lips part slightly and felt his own do the same: 'They'll think we're back here getting our ends away.' Why was that so awful, again? Slowly, as if sinking through water, they gravitated toward each other...

Even as he stared deep into her bottomless eyes, they seemed to turn from black to a dark grey. He'd had scarcely a nanosecond to wonder at this before she turned aside and sneezed over his shoulder.

"Gesundheit," he said distractedly, still mesmerized.

"Er, let's get out of here," she muttered, getting to her feet as she sniffled.

"R-right."

When their eyes briefly met again as she helped him up, Hermione's were as black as they'd ever been. Had he imagined it?

~*~

"The lovebirds return!" Neville called out.

"Give over," Harry muttered.

"So, Mr. Potter," Ron said, using his wand as a microphone, "how does it feel to be rid of that pesky virginity?"

"I said give it a rest!"

Ron laughed. "Just giving you a bit of a hard time, mate. Don't take it to heart."

"It's disgusting," Hermione grumbled. "You should be ashamed."

"Well, he did give your knocker a good squeeze, didn't he?" Neville chimed in.

Hermione merely stuck her tongue out, which Harry thought was extremely strange of her (and not just because it turned out to be as blue as her lips).

"Look," Harry said wearily, "I woke up and didn't know where I was, and my 'pillow' was warmer than a pillow ought to be, so I felt it. I had no idea what my hand would be coming into contact with, and if I had, I can assure you I wouldn't have put it there. Can we please just let this die before I hex you all to kingdom come?"

Still grinning, Ron said, "All right, all right. Just having a bit of fun is all."

"I know."

"But how was it?" he whispered.

"Ronald!" Hermione shouted.

"I mean, was it nice and firm?"

"RON!!!" both of them shouted in unison.

"Okay, okay! Y'know, a bloke would almost think you left your funny bones back there in your 'den of iniquity'!"

Neither of them were too keen to talk to him the rest of the day.

Eventually, they realized that flying home was not the only course of action. Luna, whom had been outside petting the thestrals, was most displeased to hear their new plan.

"But Floo powder is so boring. It'd be much nicer to just fly back on the thestrals."

"Well, you can go back that way, if you like," Neville said. "I'd rather use the Floo."

"Besides," Harry continued, "we can't just go landing on the grounds during the daytime; we'll be seen. We'd have to wait for nightfall, and if we do that, we'll be missing even longer than we already are. We've got to send our horsie friends back alone and go by fireplace, it's the only way."

Just then, Charlie came back into the sitting room.

"I've just got word back from Dad," he said. "It seems all systems are go."

"Still connected, then?" Ron asked. His brother merely nodded.

"All right," Harry said, standing. "Let's get cracking."

"I'd like to see you off, but I've got to get back to work," Charlie said cheerily as they went back to their room for their things. "Good luck!"

~*~

The Shrieking Shack was as dingy and depressing as it had been three years ago. Harry, Ron and Hermione calmly stepped from under the mantle, but Ginny and Neville were quite jumpy. Luna seemed to think it was the nicest place ever invented, and a look of wonder was fixed on her face as they walked through the dank old mansion.

"Okay," Harry said, shouldering his broom, "let's hurry, now. The longer we're gone, the more likely it is they'll have a dozen Aurors sweeping England for us."

Hogsmeade was bright and cheery in the late-Spring sunshine. It would have been an enjoyable walk to Honeydukes if they weren't pressed for time; as it was, the elegantly-decorated shop windows and friendly passerby were almost annoying to the addled travelers.

"Why on earth did we have to use the Shrieking Shack?" Ron said, brushing a spiderweb from his shoulder with a grimace. "Like I don't already have enough bad memories of that old place."

"We can't just turn up in the Gryffindor common room," Hermione whispered, "we'll be seen. This was the least-treacherous Floo route I could think of taking."

"Then explain to me why we're going to the sweetshop?" Luna asked, hefting a rucksack containing an extremely heavy jar.

"There's a trap door in the basement," Ron muttered. "And keep that under your hat, if you please. The less people know about it, the better."

One by one, as the others browsed the shop, they slipped down to the basement and into the tunnel. Harry was last to avoid the shopkeeper and disappear through the hole in the floor.

"OW!"

"Sorry, I didn't know you'd all be gathered at the bottom of the steps. All right?"

"Yeah." It was Ron's voice. "Let's get going, then?"

They flew down the tunnel in a half-crouch. It suddenly occurred to Harry that this tunnel wasn't really built for multiple rule-breakers, as they kept stepping on feet and bumping into one another. At long last, they reached the stone slide.

"Okay," he whispered. "Now... I haven't thought about this part."

"WHAT?!"

"Shh!"

"Quiet, quiet." Harry adjusted his glasses, and suddenly a wandtip flared - it belonged to Neville. "I'll go up first, and make it back to the common room. I'll get my cloak, then come back for the rest of you-"

"What good will a cloak do?" Luna asked.

"Shh!"

"Right, well, here I go."

Harry slipped out of the statue and into its shadow. The hallway appeared to be deserted. He cautiously peered around the edge, then sprinted for Gryffindor tower.

Amazingly enough, he met little resistance. Several Hufflepuffs and the occasional younger Gryffindor seemed interested in why he was in such a rush, but he merely waved as he raced down the corridors. Peeves took the opportunity to chuck an eraser and several phials of liquid at him, but he ducked them and pressed on, earning him a raspberry from the irritated poltergeist. Upon entering the common room, he saw Seamus sitting in an armchair, but he was nodding lazily. He stole upstairs and grabbed the shimmering cloak from his trunk, whirled it over himself, grabbed the Marauder's Map, and swept from the room at a hundred miles per hour. He saw no one on his return trip, and soon he was tapping the statue and sliding down to his comrades.

"Alright, I'm back, let's-"

"Harry, it's awful!"

He didn't like the sound of that - her voice sounded like it was near tears. "What's awful, Ginny?"

"Hermione!"

Neville's wandtip was focused on the aforementioned prefect, who was flat on her back, her head tossing to and fro. Harry immediately dropped the map and the cloak, rushing to her side.

"What is it?!"

"Don't know!" Ron was positively frantic. "She just, just, fell over!"

"There was a strangled kind of gasp," Ginny whispered. "I- I don't know what to do, she-"

"Let's get her back to the hospital wing," Ron hissed.

"No," Harry said quickly, his voice quaking. "The Draught is wearing off. We've got to act soon or it'll be too late."

Neville looked up, his face set determinedly. "What do we do?"

~*~

"I've just seen young Potter in the hallway. They're back, Headmaster."

"I know."

"What should be done with them?"

"I am... uncertain."

The silence was deafening as they withdrew into their thoughts for a moment.

"Shall I intercept them?"

"I don't think that will be necessary."

"But they so carelessly flaunted nearly every rule in the-"

"I am aware."

"Their wanton disregard nearly cost them their own necks, Headmaster. Had Alastor and the others not been following them-"

"Yes, yes. But they were, and Miss Lestrange is now in our custody. No harm, no foul."

"So you're just-"

"I haven't decided just yet, but I've relocated that issue to the back burner. Their means may be questionable, but the end is honorable, wouldn't you agree?"

A pause. "Then what shall we do?"

Albus Dumbledore leaned back, sighing deeply. He felt more weary than he had in quite some time. "Go to their aide. At the moment, that is far more important than reprimand. If they are to do this foolish thing, we must ensure that it is done properly."

A much longer, extremely tense pause. "Very well."

~*~

The door to the Room of Requirement burst open as four students rushed a feverish girl inside. A hospital bed lay at the far end, and a table with two cauldrons on it was to the left of it. Taking no notice of any other oddities or features in the room, they carefully lowered the girl onto the bed, then sank into a nearby couch. Rather, three of them did.

"Now we wait... for Ginny," Harry panted, stroking Hermione's hair.

~*~

Ginerva Weasley clutched a stitch in her side as she pelted inside the Gryffindor common room, flowing red locks flying behind her as if her head were alight.

"Bag under the bed... bag under the bed..."

The stairs blurred as she ran up toward a door she'd never entered before.

"Bag under the... bed..."

She flung it open, eyes darting around the unfamiliar room.

"It's on the right..."

There. A black leather case with the words "Broomstick Servicing Kit" emblazoned across it in silver, sitting open on a nightstand. She nearly dove across the room and under the bed, hands grasping for anything-

"Got it!" she breathed.

At that moment, she heard a voice behind her that made her blood run cold.

"What have we here? A girl in a boys' dormitory? I do hope you're not planning any... lewd activities."

She slowly backed from under the bed, releasing the strap of the bag she'd just found. Being caught was one thing, but getting the ingredients confiscated...

"Where are Potter and Granger?"

The question startled her, and its source was much nearer than it had been, but she regained her composure quickly. "Who?"

"Don't be stupid. This is not the time nor the place to try my patience. You will acquire the ingredients and lead me to the others or I will be forced to take the information directly from your airy little skull and go there alone."

~*~

"If she's dying, then why does she look better?"

Harry shook his head, but he knew exactly what Luna meant. Hermione's eyes were a slowly-lightening grey, and her red irises were tinged with brown. Not only that, but her lips had gone violet.

"Dammit!" Ron suddenly burst out. "Where is my thick sister?! You'd think we asked her to find the Holy Grail! Stupid, fucking prat!"

Neville tried to calm him down as Harry watched. Ron's frustration was unjustified, but completely understandable.

"Th..."

"What, what is it?!"

Hermione's lips parted again, and her voice was barely audible. "The draught... f-failing... I'm reverting... back to a c-cadaver..."

"Don't speak, save your strength, try to... try to hang on," he said, desperate to give her the correct advice.

"Harry... I n-n-need-"

"Shh!"

"But I... I have to t-tell..."

"...oh, just say it," he whispered. Whatever she wanted to say seemed to be important, and it would waste more of her precious energy if she kept arguing with him.

"H... I... l-lh..."

She coughed, and could speak no more, though her eyes kept staring up at him, shining more dully than he would have liked. Thick, inky tears were streaming from the corners as she continued to work her mouth, desperate to get it to function, to convey her message.

"I have to tell you something, too," he said, feeling his heart beating faster, full of fear for the dying woman before him. "I kept meaning to say it, but... it just..."

Her eyes were expectant as her breathing grew more and more ragged.

"Thank you," he breathed, stroking her face. "For saving me. I never said it, and I meant to, and... you'll never know how much... thank you."

Though he could barely see any change, the hints of a smile were unmistakable - a slight crinkle near the edge of the eyes, and the corners of the mouth raising ever so slightly. She gave a ghost of a nod, and lay back. He noticed her eyes were only nominally off-white as they closed.

"Hermione?"

Her breathing was slowing.

"HERMIONE!!!"

As Harry's shaking hands gripped her shoulders, the door behind him banged open. The four of them whirled, and Neville nearly passed out.

Severus Snape took several quick strides forward, black cloak billowing behind him, his hand firmly clasped around Ginny's wrist. Her other hand was holding Harry's schoolbag, and her eyes were wide and fearful.

"Sorry, Harry, but he- he was-"

"Silence!" Snape spat. His eyes narrowed as he scanned the room, then flicked over Harry, Ron, Luna, Neville, the dying form on the bed, and came to the table, which the rucksack now sat upon. He was still scanning the table when he spoke.

"How long has it been since you last administered the Reanimation Draught?"

Harry blinked. He had been sure the next thing out of Snape's mouth would be "Fifty points from Gryffindor."

"Er... excuse me, sir?"

"How long... has it been... since you last administered... the Reanimation Draught?" he repeated slowly. He flung Ginny's arm away from him, and she rubbed it ruefully.

"I don't know... about a week, I think."

His narrowed eyes sharpened and snapped up to look at him. They moved to Hermione's slowly rising chest for a brief moment before returning. "Impossible. You had to have readministered since that night."

"I... used Ron's wand."

"Unicorn tail-hair core," Ron put in.

Snape pierced Harry for several seconds with a look that was quite unreadable. Then, to Harry's astonishment and utter disbelief, he saw a smile tug at one corner of the Potions master's mouth.

"You'll only weaken your mixture if you put that ipswigel root in there," Snape said, his eyes moving to the phial of grayish powder laying next to the cauldron. "Do use common sense, Potter."

The next half hour passed something like what Harry imagined a proper Potions class being; Snape was watching like a greasy-haired hawk, berating him for near mistakes, suggesting proper methods of stirring, and summoning appropriate tinctures to add to the cauldron. Ron was sitting as if on needles, his face quite pale, and handing them ingredients they needed intermittently. Luna seemed a bit disappointed when they actually had to use Tempestia's heart, and spent the rest of the time sitting on the arm of the couch, nervously glancing at the bed. Ginny had screamed when Harry suddenly cut his arm open to spurt blood into the cauldron, and was weeping with her head in her hands. Neville continuously checked Hermione's pulse, and every time he did, he seemed even more distraught. At last, Harry stepped back and wiped his forehead, but Snape leaned toward Hermione and tipped a thin phial of something dark-purple into her mouth.

"Wh-what are you doing?" Ron asked.

"This will slow the decay," he said as if Ron should've already known this. "We must let the elixir brew for an hour, and it would be quite the waste of my time if Miss Granger did not stay alive to make use of it." He turned to Harry. "Or better yet... I don't suppose you saved any of the Draught ingredients?"

"No, I... used them all."

Snape nodded curtly. "It's just as well you did. She should be able to cling to life long enough for us to complete the elixir." He began pacing.

They all remained absorbed in their own thoughts and anxieties for a long while. Finally, Harry spoke hesitantly. "P-professor?"

A slight grunt was the only indication he was listening. He did not stop pacing.

"Why are you doing this?"

"Doing what?"

"Helping us... I mean, you loathe us."

Snape stopped and stared at him. For some reason, an insulted, mildly irritated look was on his face. "Just because you are poor Potions tyros, and I detest rabble-rousers such as yourselves, does not mean I wish to see a student of mine - ANY student - die."

He glared down at Harry for a few seconds before he continued pacing, occasionally stopping to stir the mixture with Ron's wand. Some time passed before Harry spoke again.

"Professor-"

"WHAT?!"

Harry blinked a few times. "I just... I wanted to say something."

"Then quit skirting around it and speak, foolish child."

He ignored the minuscule flare of anger and pressed on; he'd been meaning to say this last year, but never had the chance. "About what I saw in the Pensieve last-" He broke off when he saw that Snape had raised his wand.

"What did I tell you, Potter?"

"I haven't told anyone, I swear!"

Ron looked utterly bewildered. "What you saw in the what?!" The others' looks held similar sentiments. Neville looked faint.

Snape's eyes were alive with a cold fire that Harry had not seen on many occasions; he had a suspicion that most who saw his eyes like this did not live to comment on it. "You were never to mention-"

"I only wanted to say that I'm sorry!"

"As well you should be, you insufferable ingrate! I offer you a chance to gird your mind, against my own better judgment, and you repay me-"

"Not about looking at it!"

Snape stopped, the fury still radiating from him. "What, then?!"

"I'm sorry for what happened!"

The fury ebbed, replaced by a scathing look of pure abhorrence. "Listen now, and listen well. I do not need the famous Harry Potter to show pity on me for the actions of his father, events that transpired decades ago and are quite beyond what consists of HIS BUSINESS."

Ron was looking from Harry to Snape. "What the bloody hell..?!"

But Harry could merely spare Ron a brief glance and shake of the head. As much as he despised him, as much as the Potions Master's odious attitude frustrated him, he could not bring himself to reveal anything so humiliating, so degrading... even if it was about Snape. His father and godfather had been alarmingly flippant about defaming the poor man, and he could take no pleasure in that.

As the silence deepened once again, Ron and the others sat in puzzlement, Snape began pacing faster than before, and Harry wondered why he had to be the one to endure such secrets. Hermione's deformity, Snape's shame... his own grave destiny. It was as if the world had meant the lightning-shaped scar on his forehead to mark him as a safety deposit box for undesirable information. Undoubtedly, someone would eventually make him their Secret-Keeper, and he would probably end up being tortured to death due to his remarkable ability to keep his mouth shut.

"There we are," Snape said, interrupting Harry's musings. He put out the flames with a wave of Ron's wand, then began stirring. "The elixir has achieved optimum consistency. It should be administered directly."

Harry looked up at the cauldron, and noticed it was a deep, blood red, and appeared to be of a creamy texture. He began ladling it into a goblet.

"This should be amusing," Snape muttered as he tossed the wand back to Ron.

"And why is that?" Harry said, not looking up.

"Oh." Snape peered at him for a moment before he continued, a gleam playing in his eye. "You haven't read the last bit of instructions. That has always been one of your many impediments in my class."

Harry snatched up his notebook skeptically, found the last few lines of instructions, and almost dropped the goblet in abject horror.

"I believe I'll be staying for this," Snape said wickedly.

"What, what's going on?" Ron asked, sounding quite annoyed at being kept in the dark for so long.

Frantically, Harry's eyes flicked over all the people in the room, staring at him - the people that would be witnessing what came next. "I, er... no, this can't be right-"

"But it is." If Snape had enough joy in him left to grin, he would have done; instead, he simply smirked. "You do know why they call it 'The Mourning Lover's Elixir', do you not?"

"WHAT IS IT?!" Ron shouted.

Harry became aware that his hand was shaking so badly that drops were falling from the rim of the chalice and onto his shoe. Hip grinding against the edge of the table to avoid collapsing, his next words were hoarse and strained.

"I've got to... I've got to..."

Leaning forward ever-so-slightly, the Potions Master spoke low, relishing each and every syllable as if a sip of the finest vintage, black eyes glittering with nothing short of delight.

"Kiss her."



~*~ To Be Continued