Harry Potter and the Psychic Serpent

The first time he brought her up to his room, she was rather alarmed at the sight of Hedwig.

“Did you bring me here to kill me?” she asked. Harry looked down at her.

“No, that’s my pet owl, Hedwig. She delivers mail. She can find someone anywhere in the world and deliver a letter to them, even if I don’t know where they are. All post owls can.”

“Impressive,” Sandy hissed, sounding unconvinced. “So. You already have a pet.” She sounded a little hurt.

“Well, Hedwig performs a service for me, and I take care of her and feed her. So, I guess she’s more of a servant than a pet.” It suddenly occurred to him that it wasn’t a very different arrangement than house elves, who Hermione insisted were unjustly enslaved. “I thought you didn’t want to be my pet.”

“That is true. Nor do I fancy being a servant. So what am I?”

Harry looked at her thoughtfully. “How about my roommate?”

“What is roommate?”

“It’s just a term for people who share living quarters. They’re usually friends.”

“What about friend?”

“What about it?”

“Why did you suggest roommate first, instead of friend?”

“I--I don’t know. Are you my friend Sandy? I’d like that.”

“Yes. I am your friend, Harry Potter.”

About a week-and-a-half after his birthday, Harry was preparing to go upstairs after dinner when the doorbell rang. Not thinking twice about it, Harry called, “I’ll get it!” and went to turn the knob.

It was Snape.

Harry immediately screamed and recoiled; Snape was the last person he had expected to see on Privet Drive. He was attempting to dress in Muggle clothes, something Harry had never seen him do. But the clothes were somewhat out of place in Surrey (except for the eccentric retired colonel two streets over); he was clad as someone on safari in Africa, from his bush boots to his pith helmet with mosquito netting. He even had a machete hanging on his belt, although Harry noticed his wand in a holster on the other side. Where his knees showed between his khaki shorts and his knee socks, he was deathly pale, betraying the fact that he had never been on a safari in his life. His lank black hair was pulled back into a pony tail under the helmet. Harry stood staring at him in disbelief.

“Nice to see you too, Potter,” he growled. Harry stepped back abruptly as Snape moved forward, looking around suspiciously, as though expecting an ambush from the light fixture on the ceiling or the flower arrangement on the hall table. Then a large black dog followed him in, and Harry sighed with relief.

“Sirius! Thank goodness!” But his godfather did not transform into his human self; he also sniffed about the hall suspiciously, then seemed to nod at Snape, who went back outside and summoned some other people who had been standing just outside the circle of light spilling out into the night from the hall.

The people stepped into the house. It was Hermione and her parents. Harry was as shocked as he’d been when he’d seen Snape. “Hermione!” was all he could say. The entire Granger family looked like they’d been through the ringer. They all staggered under the weight of their luggage, which they’d presumably been lugging from England to the Greek Islands to Bulgaria. He thought Hermione looked especially exhausted, although he couldn’t see her eyes; she had on dark glasses. She wore denim shorts that were just above her knees. A large white T-shirt with a blue and white Greek flag on it was tucked into her shorts and on her feet she wore rugged-looking hiking sandals. They all looked a bit dusty, as though they had walked there from Bulgaria.

Harry ushered them into the living room and shut the front door. Dudley and his parents were now standing in the hall, staring incredulously at the odd party that had invaded their house.

“See here, now--” Harry’s uncle began as he came into the living room with Aunt Petunia and Dudley close behind. Suddenly, Sirius changed from a large black dog into a human, and Aunt Petunia crouched behind her husband and screamed. Sirius brushed some dust from his black robes and smoothed his dark hair back.

“Allow me to introduce myself,” he said, extending his hand to Vernon Dursley. “I am Sirius Black, Harry’s godfather. We meet at last.”

Vernon Dursley cowered back against his wife, refusing to touch Sirius’ extended hand. Suddenly, Dudley stepped up and grasped his hand, saying in an authoritative voice, “Dudley Dursley,” and shaking Sirius’ hand firmly. Sirius smiled at Dudley and Harry gave Dudley an appreciative nod. Then he noticed Dudley looking at Hermione.

“We are sorry to arrive unannounced like this, but this is an emergency. While the Grangers were in Bulgaria, there was an attempted abduction. Dark wizards tried to kidnap Hermione.” Harry looked in shock at Hermione, who was sitting, stony faced, still wearing her dark glasses. “Viktor Krum managed to thwart the abduction, but not before Hermione heard them talking about receiving their instructions from someone named Lucius.” He paused, to let this sink in. “I think we all know who that is.”

The Dursleys shook their heads dumbly, having no idea what Sirius was going on about, just looking like they wished he and the rest of them would go away. Hermione’s mother sat next to her and put her arm around her, tried to get her to put her head on her shoulder. Hermione would have none of it, sitting up again pointedly, refusing to be coddled.

“I was traveling with the Grangers from Greece to Bulgaria, but I had gone to meet with Professor Snape here when the abduction occurred. We talked to the headmaster of Hogwarts, who felt that this would be the safest place for Hermione until school starts. Her parents will go into hiding for their protection; arrangements are being made.” The Grangers looked grim about this.

“We--we have a check we can give you. For Hermione’s room and board for the rest of the summer,” Hermione’s mother told the Dursleys. Harry saw his aunt’s eyes light up. Aunt Petunia rarely turned down money, and the Grangers looked pretty normal, except for traveling in the company of Sirius and Snape.

“Can she stay?” Sirius asked the Dursleys. They seemed afraid to refuse him. Vernon Dursley gave a very small nod, and Mr. Granger took out a checkbook and started writing a check. He handed it to Harry’s uncle, who opened his eyes wide and suddenly seemed to wake up.

“Harry!” he barked. “Take your friend’s luggage up to the guest room!” He practically grabbed the check from Mr. Granger, who looked taken aback. Harry picked up Hermione’s bags and said, “Your room’s upstairs.” She nodded and followed him out into the hall. Sirius changed back into a dog, prompting another scream from Aunt Petunia. Snape and the Grangers moved into the hall with the large black dog.

“Thank you, Mr. and Mrs. Dursley,” Snape said in an oily voice, as though speaking to Muggles were extremely distasteful to him. “We will leave now.”

After the front door shut, Harry and Hermione continued up the stairs. She was still holding her head up stoically. Harry put down the bags to open the door, then reached in and turned on the light, letting her go first. He followed her in, placing her luggage on the bed and then standing, watching her carefully. The room seemed very quiet.

Suddenly Hermione whispered, “Close the door.”

Harry closed it, and immediately, Hermione took off her dark glasses, revealing eyes red from crying. “Oh, Harry!” She went to Harry and flung her arms about his waist, sobbing into his chest. Harry slowly put his arms around her, his cheek on the top of her head (he was surprised to find that he was now several inches taller than her; they used to be the same height) and he brought up one hand to smooth her hair, surprised at the soft texture of the curls. She had last hugged him on the train platform at King’s Cross at the end of June, and given him a kiss on the cheek that surprised him; she had never done that before. But this wasn’t like a brief goodbye hug; they had never held each other like this while she cried into his chest. They stood that way for what seemed a long time, then, when she had been simply sagging against his chest for a while and had stopped crying, he lifted her face to look at her and kissed her gently on the forehead.

“You’re tired. Get some sleep.”

He went to the door and opened it. She looked at him like a deer caught in the headlights.

“Good night, Hermione.”

“Good night, Harry.”

Harry closed the door gently, finding Dudley in the hall with a questioning look on his face. Harry shook his head firmly. “She needs to rest.” Dudley nodded and went to his room. Harry went into his own room and shut the door. He undressed for bed, but paused before getting in and went to the shelf above his desk and took down the picture of Hermione on Corfu, carrying it to the bed and sitting on the edge. Then he propped it against the lamp on his bedside table and looked at it for a long minute. Finally, he took off his glasses and turned out the light.

Harry felt his bed bounce. Startled, he opened his eyes. The sun had come up, but only just. There was a pale, grey light outdoors and a slight apricot tinge at the edges of the sky. He squinted down at the foot of his bed, finding Hermione sitting there. She was wearing what he supposed were summer pajamas, some light blue cotton shorts and a matching button-down shirt with a pointed collar and a pocket. She sat with her arms around her legs, her knees pulled up to her chin, staring into space. He rubbed his eyes and fumbled for his glasses. When he had put them on, he pulled himself into a sitting position, the sheet falling to his waist. She was looking at him strangely, he thought.

“Hermione?” he ventured, hoping to bring her out of her catatonia. She looked him in the eye now.

“You look different,” she said simply.

“I’ve been doing manual labor all summer,” he told her, holding up his hands. “My calluses have calluses.” But he felt her eyes on his torso, not his hands.

“Your voice is lower, too.”

“Yeah, but my singing voice hasn’t improved any. Right now I’d say I’m a tenor, but I may wind up a baritone.”

She didn’t say anything for a few minutes. Harry wasn’t used to her being so quiet; she was usually talking unless her nose was in a book. She had positively gabbled at him and Ron on their first train ride to Hogwarts. Her eyes moved around the room. He saw her look at the photo of herself on the bedside table; he wished now that he’d put it in a drawer or something. Then she seemed to be looking at Sandy on his arm, and the basilisk amulet that rested on his sternum.

“You haven’t met Sandy,” he decided to say, to break the silence. He leaned down to speak to the snake. “Sandy? Are you awake?”

Sandy raised her head. “I am now.”

He looked at Hermione, who now had her mouth open. “You know,” she now said, “I’ve only heard you speak Parseltongue one other time: in the Dueling Club second year when you were telling the snake Malfoy had conjured to leave Justin alone, and everyone thought you were egging it on.”

“Until I heard Sandy talking in the garden, I forgot I could do it. She’s with me a lot now. It’s nice to have her to talk to.”

“It is nice to talk to you, too,” Sandy told him. “I have learned much about humans.”

“What did she say?” Hermione wanted to know. Talking about Sandy seemed easier for her than what Harry really wanted to talk about : the attempted abduction.

He smiled. “She said that she likes talking to me, too, and she’s learned a lot about humans.”

For a moment, he considered telling her about snakes having the Sight. But then he remembered that he had thought about what it could do for him to have Sandy with him in school for his fifth year, especially in Divination, telling him what was going to happen in a few minutes...Hermione would probably consider this cheating, and not worthy of a prefect, or more importantly, not worthy of him, and he decided not to mention it. He still hadn’t decided whether he would go through with it. It did smack of cheating, he supposed.

“What’s that?” she said after a prolonged silence, pointing to the amulet. Harry reached down and fingered it. “It’s a birthday present. From Ginny.”

“Ah,” Hermione said, understanding the connection. Harry thought Hermione probably wouldn’t have chosen to give him a basilisk amulet if she had been the one down in the Chamber of Secrets, like Ginny. As it was, Hermione had figured out first that the denizen of the Chamber was a basilisk, and had looked at it using a mirror. But that didn’t offer her enough protection, and she had been petrified. She was in a near-death, open-eyed coma, broken only by a potion made from mandrake root. Hermione didn’t have any romantic ideas about basilisks.

Suddenly, she looked shrewdly at him. “Are you hiding under those covers for some reason? Sleeping in the buff?”

Harry was shocked. “No! But--well, close. Just my drawers. Could you--excuse me while I get dressed? Dudley and I go running every morning.”

She smirked. “Boxers or briefs?”

“Boxers.”

“Color?”

“Black.”

“How wizard-like. Come on, it sounds about the same as swim trunks.”

“Hermione, please...”

“All right, all right, I’m going.” She got up and went to the door, looking pointedly again at the photo of herself on the bedside table, but not saying anything. When he had gone, he swung his legs out of bed and went to his wardrobe to get some running clothes; he had been able to do some shopping with the money he was making from working in the garden, and for simplicity’s sake as much as anything else, he had bought virtually all black clothes: black shorts and singlets for running, along with black socks and running shoes, plus black jeans and turtlenecks and button-down shirts for wearing with his school robes in the fall, plus a few black sweaters and T-shirts. He’d even, as he’d already told Hermione, bought black boxers.

After he’d gone to the wardrobe, his bedroom door opened again. It was Hermione. She stood with her hand on the knob for a moment, smiling at having caught him in just his drawers.

“Can I go running with you two? I’ve got some appropriate clothes. And after what happened in Bulgaria--let’s just say that I’d like to be in better physical shape, for times when I can’t use magic, you know?”

Harry stood his ground, refusing to hide or blush. “Sure. Meet us at the front door in five minutes.” She nodded, not moving, and he felt her eyes on him again. They looked at each other for a long minute before she left. Harry looked at the photo on his bedside table, thinking, Oh, well. Fair’s fair. I’ve seen her in that....

The three of them met in the front hall, Harry in his black running clothes with Sandy around his arm still (Dudley had gotten used to it, but Harry had avoided letting his aunt and uncle see the snake), Dudley in his running clothes and Hermione in a grey running bra and very tight royal blue bicycle shorts. Dudley goggled and Harry tried not to; she didn’t look like she was out of shape to him, but if she wanted to come along, he was fine with that.

They all had some water and Harry led them in doing stretching exercises on the front lawn after he’d taken Sandy off his arm and put her under a bush to await his return. Hermione wasn’t used to the warm-up routine, but she caught on fairly quickly. Harry tried not to look at her any more than was absolutely necessary.

Dudley was making no such effort to avert his eyes, however, and once they started running, he seemed to purposely position himself behind Hermione for the view. They went back and forth to the park three times, and Hermione never fell back or seemed to be straining.

After breakfast, Hermione came out to the garden with him to watch him work. She was dressed in a simple green checked sleeveless blouse and white cotton shorts and sneakers. Her brown curls were still slightly damp from her shower, and her tan made the whites of her eyes look very bright. Harry was in his usual black clothes, a sleeveless T-shirt and shorts and black work boots he’d gotten because the steel toes would protect him if he dropped any stones on his feet (which he’d done several times). She sat against the wall of the house in the position she’d taken that morning in his bedroom; arms around her legs, knees drawn up to her chin. It occurred to Harry that she was trying to be invulnerable to attack; she was a fortress under siege. He wondered exactly how traumatic the attempted abduction had been, and what Lucius’ thugs had done to her...

She watched him all morning, silently. He had been wearing his tape player from Dudley to while away the time while working, or sometimes talking to Sandy, but he had left the gift inside today, and when Sandy lifted her head and spoke to him, he hissed back softly, “Sorry, Sandy. We’ll talk later. This isn’t a good time.” The snake accepted this without comment, resting her head on her tail again and going to sleep.

They ate their lunch in the garden, and as had been his wont, Harry removed his shirt afterward and leaned back on the grass to get some sun. As the sun beat orangely against his eyelids, he was vaguely aware that Hermione had moved, then he felt her recline beside him, mere inches away, and after a few minutes, eyes still closed, he said her name. He got no response at first, so he said it again. Before he’d gotten the second syllable out, however, she said slightly impatiently, “I heard you.”

He was silent again for a half-minute, then said, “Sorry. I wasn’t sure. I just wondered whether you felt like talking yet. About Bulgaria.” He stayed on his back, eyes closed, hoping that if they didn’t have to look at each other it would be easier for her to talk. She sighed, as though she were going to tell him again that it was too soon, but instead, she plunged right in.

“We were in the marketplace. Viktor’s mother and my mum were looking at bread at the bakery, Viktor and my dad were buying some chicken, and I was supposed to be getting the vegetables. It seemed pretty safe; the vegetable stall was just two away from the chicken vendor, and I was just going to get some onions and peppers...But then I suddenly felt all lightheaded and floaty, like I was under the Imperious Curse. I tried fighting it, but there was nothing to fight, I wasn’t being told to do anything I didn’t want to do. I decided that I had an incredible urge to buy vegetables, but that’s what I was already there for. I remember being very confused, like I was waiting for instructions, but they didn’t come.

“I remember reaching for a red pepper like I was in a trance, and I tried to ask how much it was, using a phrase Viktor’s mum had taught me. But when it came out, it didn’t sound like my voice. The woman who was running the stall said I didn’t look well--she sounded very far away--and I thought, maybe I’m not under the Imperious Curse, maybe I’m just ill. I’m in a foreign country, I’ve gotten ill on unfamiliar food and water before, I had some Muggle medicines in my purse, I could just take something to feel better. She brought me round to the inside of the stall where she sat, and she was so nice, she was just patting me and talking to me in English--and now that I think about it, she shouldn’t have been speaking to me in English, should she? She didn’t even have a Bulgarian accent.

“Then I just--stopped. I absolutely stopped. It was like I was a light that had been switched off. I don’t remember hearing any incantation. I don’t remember being given a potion--nothing. When I--started again, it was dark out, and on either side of me were two men in grey wizards’ robes, both with their wands pointing at me. My head felt all right again, but I forced myself to look kind of spacy, as though I weren’t really with it, because they were talking and I wanted to hear what they were saying. The woman who had been running the vegetable stall had disappeared. The marketplace was empty.

“One of them said, ‘Lucius will be very pleased.’ They spoke English. The other one said that the four others were taken care of, three other girls from Hogwarts and a Muggle boy who had still been at his Muggle school in June when they’d done it--whatever ‘it’ was. Then they talked about me, about the way I looked, and about whether they should do anything--extra--”

That’s what he was afraid of. It was an effort for Harry to remain where he was with his eyes closed. After another beat, he said, “Go on.”

She took a deep breath and said, “Well, as far as I know, they didn’t do anything--extra. Then they both pointed their wands at me at the same time--I felt like I couldn’t move--and they both said an incantation which I can’t remember. It’s possible that they put a memory charm on me after that, which might be why I can’t remember. You know I only need to hear an incantation once, and I can usually remember it...”

“I know,” Harry said softly.

“Then--I stopped again. And when I started once more, it was daylight, and I opened my eyes, and I was lying on the couch in Viktor’s house, and he was lifting me up and calling to my parents, telling them that I was back, that it was all right...”

“But you’re not convinced of that.”

“Well, it’s not that; it’s just that I don’t know. I’ve got--all this lost time. Who knows?”

Harry reached out his hand blindly, found Hermione’s and laced his fingers through hers. He felt her grasp his hand almost spasmodically and he squeezed back. They didn’t talk anymore, and when the alarm on his watch went off, he opened his eyes and got up to work as though nothing had happened. He let go of Hermione’s hand and put on his shirt. He looked down at her, still lying on her back, her eyes closed against the sun, tears running out from under her eyelids. He ached so for her; if there was one thing she needed, it was certainty.

Suddenly she sat up and shook her head impatiently. She wiped her eyes quickly, as though the tears were merely an irritation, and then got to her feet briskly and said, “Right, then. No point to me just sitting about and watching you do all the work, is there? What do you want me to do?”

Harry looked at her, amazed. Was she just going to pretend that she hadn’t been discussing what happened in Bulgaria--and what could have happened, that she just didn’t know about? Apparently she was. “Well,” he started, hesitating, “we have to plant these rose bushes near the wall here; they’re climbers, and eventually they’ll cover the trellis. It’s all just like Herbology, but without the bubotuber pus making your hands swell up.”

Hermione laughed; it was such a relief to hear it. “Oh, that howler! And the other letters! All those people who believed Rita Skeeter when she said that I was toying with you and Viktor!”

Harry had to smile too. “By the way,” he said. “Whatever happened to Rita Skeeter?”

Hermione looked like she had just forgotten to tell him that she’d won the lottery. “Oh! Harry! Rita Skeeter! Wait till you hear!”

“I am waiting!” Harry replied in falsetto, imitating her. She threw a clod of dirt at him.

“Don’t mock me. When we got to London, I took Rita home with me, but I didn’t let her out yet. I wrote to Professor McGonagall and explained to her about Rita. Since she’s a registered Animagus, she doesn’t hold much with those who want to skirt the law. Anyway, she talked to Dumbledore, and they both Apparated to my house. Mum and Dad didn’t know what to think; McGonagall made like that was always how they told students that they were going to be prefects, in person. Anyway, when mum and dad had left the room, I took the Unbreakable Charm off the jar I’d been keeping Rita in, and I let her out of it. She was reluctant to become her human self. I think maybe she hoped that if she stayed a beetle, McGonagall and Dumbledore would think I was daft and making it all up. Finally, they threatened to force her to reveal herself--you know, like Sirius and Lupin did to Wormtail--so she decided to give in, and the next thing we knew, there was Rita, sitting in my living room, looking at me. And boy, if looks could kill...”

“You did keep her in a jar eating leaves for about two weeks.”

“And she maligned my and your and Viktor’s good names, not to mention Hagrid. No more than she deserved; quite a lot less, I think.”

Harry tried not to laugh; funny, he could laugh about Rita Skeeter now. During the Triwizard Tournament he never would have believed it. “Anyway--” he prompted her.

“Anyway,” Hermione continued, as though he hadn’t just said the same word, “McGonagall immediately started in on her about the reasons for all Animagi to be registered, but Dumbledore stopped her and said that in covert work, having an unregistered Animagus on your side could be very advantageous.”

“Well, he was referring to Sirius, obviously.”

“Yes. But he was also making a proposal to her; he said, ‘If you don’t mind taking orders from an obsolete dingbat, I’ve got a job for you.’ She didn’t want to get fined or even jailed for the unregistered Animagus business, so she listened to what he had to say, and--”

“And what? What’s he having her do?”

Her face fell. “That’s just it. I don’t know. He made me leave the room with McGonagall, so she could keep an eye on me and make sure I didn’t find some way to eavesdrop. When we went back to the living room they were already gone, and then McGonagall said congratulations on being a prefect, I’d get an official letter, and she’d see me in the fall.”

“Then what?”

“Then nothing. She was gone. Poof.”

Harry frowned. “And how does Dumbledore know that Rita Skeeter will do the right thing? That she’s not an unregistered Animagus so that she can work for Voldemort?”

“Well, I think she just did it because it makes it possible for her to get all those scoops. It’s a great way to be a fly on the wall--or beetle, rather. And I don’t know how Dumbledore knows what her loyalties are. We keep wondering why he trusts Snape, but that hasn’t blown up in his face.”

“Yet.”

“Oh, Harry. You have no idea. Snape was actually very--nice when he came to Bulgaria. He seemed very concerned about me. I half expected him to take points from Gryffindor for me being stupid enough to get myself kidnapped. But he didn’t ream me out at all. He really let Viktor have it for not keeping an eye on me, though...”

“And why did Sirius say Viktor thwarted the kidnapping? It sounds like you were returned. Like they kidnapped you and then changed their minds.”

“Oh, Viktor said that he was in the marketplace waiting outside the vegetable stall just when those two wizards aimed their wands at me. He did a very fast stunning spell on both of them, and then put a full-body bind on them both and left them there. He took me back to his parents’ house, but it took until morning before whatever they’d done to me wore off. When Sirius got to the vegetable stall, they were gone, though.”

“Or at least, that’s Viktor’s story.”

She nodded grimly. “Or at least that’s his story. Don’t think I haven’t thought about that, Harry. I mean, I was having a good time with Viktor in Sofia, he was...” she looked down and colored, “...sort of...you know, my first boyfriend...” she avoided looking at him. “But I suppose I don’t...I don’t really feel about him the way he feels about me. It’s just a--” but she turned even redder and didn’t finish.

“Just a what?” Harry suddenly very much wanted to know. Hermione looked up at him.

“It doesn’t matter. What does matter is that I’ve got a real problem now.”

“More of a problem than almost being abducted by dark wizards working for Lucius Malfoy?”

“It could be all the same problem. Like you said, Viktor’s version of how things went--that’s his story, and no one can corroborate it. Maybe they meant all along for me to be returned. Maybe even now I’m under some kind of spell and don’t know it. I don’t feel like I am, but you never know...The problem I’m talking about is how to get rid of Viktor.”

“You want to kill Viktor?” Harry said, shocked.

She threw another clod of dirt at him. “No, you stupid--I mean, he thinks of us as girlfriend and boyfriend now. He’s going to come to Hogsmeade when we have weekend visits. And I can’t break up with him and I can’t stay with him!”

“What?” Harry sputtered, confused.

“See, if I break up with him, he might be angry. I’ve seen him angry. And he was trained in the Dark Arts, don’t forget. I’d hate to think what he’d do if I broke up with him and he became--agitated. But I can’t just stay with him because I’m afraid of how he’ll respond if I break up with him. That’d be daft. But if I broke up with him and someone like Lucius Malfoy wanted him to work for him, he might be angry enough that he wouldn’t need to be coerced. Plus, as we’ve already seen, he’s not at all able to fight the Imperious Curse. You told me how Moody--I mean Crouch--put the Imperious Curse on him in the maze, and he turned right around and put the Cruciatus Curse on Cedric. He was very easily manipulated. And although I don’t have any proof, that could have been what happened in Bulgaria, as well. At least, I’d rather believe that he did that while cursed than voluntarily, if he did cooperate with Lucius’ underlings. Let’s just say that being with Viktor doesn’t exactly make me feel safe and well-protected. Here I feel safe.”

“Here?” Harry was mystified.

She looked at him with her eyes narrowed. “You don’t know, do you? Ever since you were a baby, there have been charms protecting your house for several blocks around. It’s impossible to Apparate in and out, or even to use a Portkey--Snape had one we used to come back to your village, but we had to land about a mile away. I’m not convinced the protection reaches that far, but he wanted to play it safe. That’s why we were knackered when we got here last night--it was late, I was hauling my trunk, and Snape wouldn’t let Sirius put a spell on it to make it lighter.”

Harry was puzzled. “Once, the Weasleys came by Floo Powder. They got the living room fireplace temporarily added to the Floo Network, got special permission from the Ministry of Magic. Of course, it didn’t work too well, since the fireplace is boarded up...”

“But, see? They had to get special permission to do that. There are also Dark Magic detectors all over the place here. Why do you think Voldemort or his Death Eaters haven’t just come here to get you?”

Harry pulled a face. “I guess I always thought they were repulsed by the prospect of meeting the Dursleys.” They both laughed then, and decided to finally get to work.

It was nice to have someone to work with again, after Dick, and Hermione wasn’t afraid to get dirty or do heavy lifting, although he tried to spare her the worst of it. For the rest of the week, Hermione went running with them in the mornings and worked with Harry in the garden the rest of the day. After the second day, Dudley noticed Hermione on her hands and knees in the garden, and volunteered to come help them. Harry understood why, but he didn’t mind. He couldn’t blame Dudley, really. Although it was more than a little disturbing when Hermione got rather--flirty with him. He’d never seen her do that. She’d gotten rather silly at times when she was around Gilderoy Lockhart, during second year, but she’d only been twelve then.

With all three of them working, the garden was soon done, and Harry collected his last five pounds from his aunt. Now, after morning runs, he went into the garden to do some basic watering and weeding, but otherwise had the rest of the day free. He and Hermione worked on some summer homework, sitting on benches under the new arbor, while Dudley sat nearby, playing video games on a small hand-held unit. Sometimes he let Harry or Hermione use it when they were tired of working; he seemed to feel it was quite necessary to hang over Hermione’s shoulder when it was her turn.

At the end of the third week of August, Aunt Petunia was being quite petulant at dinner. She started muttering under her breath about cooking for an extra person, pointedly looking at Hermione. Figuring that he’d made all the money he was going to from the garden (and having spent most of it) Harry felt compelled to defend Hermione.

“She cleans her own room and does her own laundry. Plus, her parents gave you a pretty hefty check...”

But suddenly, Dudley was shouting hotly at his mother, “You leave Hermione alone! She’s the most--the most--”

“Dudley!” his mother exclaimed reproachfully. His father glowered at him.

“Don’t forget, boy!” he growled. “She may look normal, but she’s a--a--one of those!” his father sputtered.

“Say it, Dad! Just say it! She’s a witch! A witch! Why won’t you just talk about it normally? Harry’s a wizard and Hermione’s a witch, and they call us Muggles! They fly around on broomsticks and--and--at least she’s not something beginning with a B that rhymes with witch!” he finished, looked pointedly at his mother before storming out of the room.

“Dudley!” both of his parents exclaimed.

After Dudley left the room, it was very quiet. Harry and Hermione glanced furtively at each other, continuing to eat their food quietly. The silence was deafening. Harry was reminded uncomfortably of his birthday. What had gotten into Dudley lately? he wondered. It wasn’t just Hermione’s arrival, either; this had been going on all summer. Oh, well, Harry thought. I suppose most fifteen-year-old boys rebel against their parents in some way. He tried to imagine what he would have been like if he’d been raised by his own parents, how he would relate to them now that he was in his mid-teens. Try as he might, he couldn’t imagine being anything but relieved to have parents. Perhaps that was the problem, he thought. Most teenagers just didn’t know what it was like to not have parents at all. Although in Dudley’s case, in Harry’s opinion, he’d have been lucky to know what that was like. He tried then to imagine the scenario that Dudley had raised before, Harry’s parents living and taking in Dudley in the event that something happened to Petunia and Vernon. He couldn’t imagine that any better than he could imagine rebelling against the parents he had never had a chance to know.

Perhaps because they had a guest--even though his aunt was already being rude to her--Harry’s aunt and uncle didn’t say another word. Before they had a chance to rise from the table, however, Hermione spoke.

“Don’t worry about the clearing up, Mrs. Dursley. Harry and I will do it. And I would also like to make a special dinner on my last night here, as a thank you for letting me stay. I took a course with this amazing chef in Athens while we were in Greece in July...please say yes,” she said sweetly, looking at them both placatingly. Harry’s uncle squirmed uncomfortably and looked at his wife.

“All right,” he said, rising from the table. Petunia Dursley followed him out of the room, looking rather hurt still about Dudley’s outburst. Harry and Hermione cleared the table and stood together at the sink to wash and dry the dishes. Harry heard the television come on in the living room.

“Cooking class while on vacation? Are you never not going to school?” he asked her. She laughed and splashed him with some suds. He splashed her back, and it threatened to become a free-for-all, but Sandy (under his shirt sleeve, where his aunt and uncle had been unaware of her) said that his aunt was coming into the room, so Harry stopped abruptly and whispered to Hermione, “Aunt Petunia’s coming.”

She looked at him quizzically, then turned and looked at the doorway. Nothing happened. “Are you sure?” she asked.

“Give it a minute,” Harry whispered, wiping dishes. Hermione counted to sixty under her breath, and when she reached sixty-one, Aunt Petunia came into the kitchen. She looked at Harry again, almost scared.

“How did you know--” she started to whisper, but Aunt Petunia had other ideas.

“The two of you had better not break anything!” she exclaimed shrilly, her hands on her hips. They looked at her, wide eyed, assured her that they would be careful, and she turned and left again.

Hermione looked at Harry. He avoided her eyes, wiping dishes and glasses, thinking, I’ve got to keep her from knowing that Sandy has the Sight...that was a little close...

The next day, after their morning run and showers, Hermione and Harry sat under the arbor in the garden while Dudley sat nearby, playing his portable computer game. Hermione had brought her notebook from the Greek cooking class and was paging through it, looking for the right recipes for the meal she was planning to serve before they left for the Burrow. She made notes on a piece of lined paper with a ball-point pen; it struck Harry that this was the first time he’d ever seen her not writing on parchment using a quill and a bottle of ink. Sometimes he forgot that she’d had a Muggle upbringing, like him.

At one point, Dudley got up to go in and get a different game, and Harry leaned back contentedly, considering the summer. “You know,” he said to her, “With you here, and with Dudley being friendly to me now, it’s almost like having a brother and a sister. It’s nice.”

He was perplexed to see the expression of appalled dismay on Hermione’s face. “Sister?” she said softly. “Sister?” she repeated. Harry didn’t know what to think. When Dudley returned, Hermione closed her cooking notebook and rose, saying she was going inside to read.

Harry watched her go, wondering what he’d said wrong...

After lunch, Dudley had to go shopping for his school things with his parents. As they were leaving, however, Harry’s uncle suddenly looked at Harry and Hermione shrewdly, suspiciously. “I don’t know whether we can trust you two here alone together...” he started to say. Hermione looked up at him brightly.

“Oh, don’t worry, Mr. Dursley. We’re both prefects. And we know how serious it would be to break the law against underage--you know--”

He looked at her through narrowed eyes. “That wasn’t what I was talking about,” he said through his teeth. Harry noticed that Hermione was flushed under her tan before she abruptly left the room. “You!” his uncle suddenly barked. “What are you going to do?”

“I was going to weed in the garden. Should take a while; dandelions are all over the place, trying to take over,” Harry told him.

His uncle looked somehow unconvinced. “All right,” he grumbled, and soon the Dursleys were off to buy Dudley his new Smeltings books and uniforms (the old ones would be far too large after the running he’d been doing).

Harry changed into his work clothes and went to the garden shed for a trowel and a kneeling pad. Hermione came to the back door. “Do you mind if I get some sun while you’re working? I haven’t been able to for a while, and I may not again since the summer’s almost over.”

Harry shrugged. “Sure. I don’t need help with the weeding.” She went back inside and Harry picked a spot to start, kneeling on the pad, pulling on gardening gloves and starting to dig out dandelion roots. (He didn’t like the idea of using weed killer.) A short while later, he heard the kitchen door open again and Hermione came back out. He wasn’t facing the door, he was bent over a particularly annoying dandelion root which seemed to be the source for all of the weeds in the garden. Then he looked up and goggled at the sight of Hermione.

She was wearing the bikini. She spread a towel on a patch of grass and sat on it, then picked up a bottle of sunscreen to protect her skin. He tried to look away, but he always seemed to see her out of the corner of his eye. He couldn’t tell where she was looking; she had her dark glasses on again. If he thought the picture in his room was amazing, it was nothing compared to live-and-in-person.

When she was done, she lay down on her back and seemed to have her eyes closed. Her arms were by her sides, her whole body seemed to glisten in the sun, and Harry felt his mouth go dry. He dragged his eyes away, looking down at the dandelion root again.

He tried to concentrate on his work, but it wasn’t easy. Several times he pulled out small flowers instead of weeds, and tried to unobtrusively replace them, in case she was watching him. After a while, she sat up and then put her sunglasses up on top of her head. “Harry? Do you suppose you could help me put some sunscreen on my back?”

Harry looked at her, terrified. “On your back?”

She nodded. “I can’t reach.” And with that, she rolled over onto her stomach and pillowed her head on her arms. Harry took off his gardening gloves and walked over to her cautiously. He knelt by her side and picked up the bottle of sunscreen, put some on his hand, and began to rub it into the skin of her back. He sucked in his breath as he worked, trying to keep his breathing even and measured, trying not to think about how her skin felt. It was an effort not to give a sigh of relief when he was done, although he in fact felt tremendous relief. He rose to go, but she said, “I need help with the back of my legs, too.”

Harry looked down at her legs, starting to feel like his head was swimming. Maybe I could fake my scar hurting right about now, he thought. That might get me out of it. But he obligingly knelt down next to her again, putting sunscreen on the backs of her legs. When he touched his fingers to the back of her left knee, she flinched and sighed. Harry drew back in alarm.

“Go on,” she whispered.

“Are you okay?” he ventured.

“The backs of my knees are just--sensitive.”

He tried to quickly apply sunscreen to the rest of her legs, trying to cloud his mind and ignore the sounds she made when he touched the back of her other knee, trying not to look at her at all, or linger over her skin...

He was glad to finally be done, and went back to his weeding, but it went slowly; the hot sun made him feel lightheaded and stupid, and so did the sight of Hermione, lying on the towel in her small bikini. He avoided looking at her, he thought, and yet it seemed that he spent quite a lot of time looking at her.

Finally, he was able to put away his weeding supplies, having rid the garden of dandelions once more. “I’m going in,” he said when he’d locked the potting shed. He opened the kitchen door, to escape into the house, but when he looked behind him, she had already risen and wrapped the towel around her waist, carrying the bottle of sunscreen and padding after him. Her short curls looked like they’d been touched by the sun too, golden highlights glistening here and there amidst the brown. In the kitchen, they both tried to get a cold drink out of the refrigerator at the same time, and Hermione wound up standing very close to him when they’d closed the door. Her face mere inches from his, Harry looked down, then jerked his eyes back up to her face guiltily. Her eyes seemed very close to his, the whites so white they looked tinged with blue at the edges.

“Still thinking of me as your sister?” she said almost in a whisper. She turned to go then, not seeing Harry’s jaw drop, as he stood there, frozen in place, trying to figure her out.

He sat down at the kitchen table, hearing the shower turn on upstairs, and then trying not to think about that. He drank several glasses of water, to avoid dehydration, trying not to think about anything at all, and succeeding in thinking of nothing but her. When she came back downstairs, she was wearing some jeans and a simple blue blouse, looking very much like the school-year Hermione except for the new haircut and the deep tan. Her skin glowed, her hair shone, and Harry thought, why did I ever think Cho Chang was pretty? But then he was disturbed again by something: why had she flirted with Dudley?

She sat down next to him at the kitchen table, and almost before she was settled, he found himself blurting it out: “Why have you been flirting with Dudley?”

She smiled and looked down at her hands. “Only to make sure that he’s another ally. When Snape told me that Dumbledore wanted us to come here, I figured it would be a good idea to--cultivate him.”

Harry nodded, then couldn’t stop himself as another question came bursting forth. “You do realize that Ron is very jealous of Krum, don’t you?” Not that I am, he said in his head. Not that I am, not that I am...

She smiled ruefully. “Ron is an immature git. Don’t get me wrong; I love him like--”and she looked pointedly at Harry-- “a brother. But if he’s jealous of Viktor, well...I just cannot believe the way he acted about the Yule Ball, even now. The way he finally asked me--if that could be called asking me. Hermione, you’re a girl... How flattering for him to notice! At least you actually walked up to the girl you liked and asked her, and then you managed to get Parvati to go with you and fixed up Ron with Padma...He didn’t even get his own date! I don’t think he’s going to have a girlfriend for a long time....He’s still such a big baby, and won’t say how he feels...” she trailed off, as though this were upsetting to her, but she was trying not to think about it.

Suddenly she looked up at him. “Do you think you’ll ever try asking Cho Chang out again?”

Harry grimaced. “Are you kidding? When I’ve thought about her this summer, all I can see is the way she was crying during the feast at the end of term, when we were toasting Diggory. Just buckets of it, streaming down her face. And I even had a dream that I was on a date with her; and she was saying things like, ‘Oh, Harry, isn’t it a good thing you got Cedric killed so we can be here like this?’ So, no, I don’t think I’ll be asking her out again until this massive wave of guilt over Diggory passes--which will probably be never.”

Hermione nodded. “I wondered whether you were convincing yourself you were responsible. Believe me, Harry, no one thinks you’re to blame, not even his parents--”

He put his hand on her arm. “Save your breath, Hermione. I’m going to feel guilty about him for the rest of my life, and that’s that. End of story.”

She swallowed and put her hand over his. “You’re still letting that eat you up, then?” He nodded, looking at the table. “Well, we need to find a way for you to think about other things, like helping me get rid of Viktor--or at least making sure we’re not alone together. I know! You could go out with us in Hogsmeade!”

“You want me to go on your dates with Viktor?” He was appalled.

“Well, that might seem odd. Ron could come too. And Ginny. Maybe Parvati and Lavender, and George and Fred. We could make it a big group thing. He has a very hard time saying no to me; if I tell him that’s how it’s going to be, that’s how it’s going to be.”

Harry promised to come along, and she leaned over suddenly and kissed him on the cheek, thanking him. Their faces were very close together. Suddenly, Harry stood, nearly knocking his chair over. “I--um--need to take a shower. Gardening--sweat and grime--you know--” He practically ran from the room, while he tried to convince himself he wasn’t an immature git like Ron for having done that.

Just as he was passing through the front hall, the Dursleys returned. Harry told them he was about to take a shower before dinner, since the gardening was done, and Dudley said, “Does that mean Hermione’s not doing anything? Hermione! Want to place Space Wars on my computer?”

Hermione came into the front hall and smiled at Dudley warmly. “I’d love to.”

They all three went upstairs, Dudley and Hermione into his bedroom, and Harry into the bathroom. Standing under the spray, Harry thought again of Hermione sunning herself in the bikini, touching her skin while he was putting the sunscreen on her...But then he realized that even if Hermione were interested in him (and it was certainly starting to seem that she was), if she was already in danger merely for being his friend, how much more dangerous would it be for her to be his girlfriend? And there was Viktor Krum to consider. And there was Ron...Hermione thought he was annoying and immature, but he could turn into quite a formidable enemy if he were angry about Harry and Hermione being together--as Harry suspected he would be, if that were to happen and he found out. Then Harry would go from having two friends to having a girlfriend and yet another mortal enemy...

Harry got out of the shower with his head whirling. He dressed and went to Dudley’s room, sitting on the bed and watching Hermione and Dudley at the computer, not saying anything. He felt like he was in a trance, trying to sort out his feelings and his desires, and trying to figure out if any of it was worth putting her life at even greater risk than it already was. He went down to dinner when it was time, and then he volunteered his and Hermione’s services for clean-up duty again, so he could talk to her, but he couldn’t seem to say anything to her that wasn’t related to dishwashing and drying. She didn’t talk much either, except for one time when she suddenly said, “You know, Harry, I never told you how proud I was that you stood up to Voldemort. So many adults wouldn’t--or couldn’t.” She sounded a little like she was quoting Sirius’ letter to the Dursleys--Sirius had probably said the same thing to Hermione, he supposed. He got the impression that she, however, was speaking of Viktor as one of those who couldn’t or wouldn’t.

They played chess in the living room after cleaning up, while the rest of the family watched an American comedy on the television, the laugh track filling the empty spaces in conversations so that no one felt compelled to talk. It was strange, now, Harry thought, to be playing chess and not having the pieces moving of their own volition...

After they finished the game (Harry won; he played a lot of chess with Ron, so he was used to having to work hard at it, but not used to winning) they said goodnight to the others and went upstairs. In the hall between their rooms, Hermione suddenly leaned forward and kissed him on the cheek again. Harry swallowed, looking at her in terror, then tentatively leaned over and also kissed her on the cheek. She sighed.

“I suppose that if you want to think of me as your sister...” she trailed off. Harry grinned at her and whispered, “Too late,” then forced himself to go into his room, after seeing her smile and blush in a satisfied-looking way, forcing himself not to step across the small hall and behave toward her in a far less brotherly fashion...

The next day would be their last before going to the Burrow. After the morning run, Hermione, Harry and Dudley went to the store to buy the ingredients she needed to make dinner. She wanted their help carrying it all back to the house. After lunch, she shut everyone out of the kitchen and started working on the meal. When it was close to time, Harry and Dudley moved the table and chairs out into the garden for the al fresco meal, per her instructions. When Hermione finally called them all to dinner, they were stunned. She had made sautéed mushroom caps with roasted peppers, olive tapenade, pesto and melted Gruyere cheese; a salad of wild greens with a balsamic vinaigrette; leg of lamb with sautéed spinach and truffle risotto; and chocolate gateau with Turkish coffee for dessert, plus fruit and cheese besides.

It was by far the most elegant meal any of them had ever eaten. Petunia and Vernon seemed to have forgotten who had made it and went into raptures over every mouthful; Dudley was thrilled to be rid of celery and lettuce; and Harry thought, She should teach the house elves at school how to make this...then tried not to laugh at the thought of the house elves allowing themselves to be taught recipes by the mad reformer, Hermione Granger, who scandalized them every time she called their situation enslavement.

After dinner, Harry and Hermione cleaned up again. It seemed that she had used every pot in the kitchen. When they were done, it was only just getting dark, so they went out to sit in the garden, settling on the bench under the arbor. It seemed natural for Harry to put his right arm along the back of the bench behind her shoulders, then to bring his hand to rest lightly on her bare shoulder, stroking her soft skin lightly, moving his fingers in circles. Hermione leaned her head on his right shoulder, resting her left arm on his leg, as they listened to the symphony of the crickets and watched the pink glow fade from the sky and become sapphire velvet. Harry wasn’t sure how long they were sitting like this when he looked down at her and saw her looking up at him. He couldn’t think of anything to say; he didn’t want to talk, and he hoped she didn’t either. Then he knew what he wanted to do, knew it more clearly than he’d ever known anything before. Their mouths gradually grew closer and closer; he could feel her warm breath, smelling of chocolate and coffee, and he felt her lips begin to brush his.

“A large black dog is coming.”

Harry started, pulling away from her. Sandy had spoken under the loose sleeve of his T-shirt. He looked around the garden, left and right, and over his shoulder. Then he looked back at Hermione, who seemed more than a little annoyed.

“What is it?” she said, an edge to her voice.

“Sirius is coming,” he said simply, still looking around, trying to see his godfather, wondering whether he was already there and had seen them. He removed his arm from around her and crossed his arms over his chest. Hermione crossed her own arms, frowning; he thought it was possible she assumed he was just making excuses. But then, after another minute, glittering eyes appeared around the corner of the potting shed, and a large black dog came padding over to them quietly. Hermione looked at Harry again, annoyed and perplexed.

“You keep doing that!”