Save One Thing

Save One Thing

Chapter Seven

Your hands are itching and feel like they might start to shake again if you can't keep them constantly moving. You sit on the sofa and flex your fingers, using the remote to flip through channels on the television. When you start to think you might not want to watch anything that's on, the television turns off, and the lamp beside you turns off, and the remote zips out of your hand and settles itself in the corner of the table between the coasters and the magazines, just where your mum liked to keep it.

You get up faster than you thought you'd be able to and run up the stairs to your room, only to find your computer flashing on and off and your remote control airplane doing wild dives and twists around the ceiling and the clothes and clutter thats always been on the floor shuffling and slithering and crawling about from one side of your room to the other. You slam the door shut without going inside and take off down the hall until your hands find the next door and you fling it open and seal yourself inside a room you haven't seen in months-- your parents' room.

It's neat and clean and just the way they left it, like it's waiting for them to come back. You almost don't want to touch anything, as if that would be breaking some secret rule, but you're starting to feel cold, so you sit down carefully on their bed and pull the covers up and tell yourself the magic won't follow you here. You would have believed it if your eyes hadn't been drawn over to the side table by a sudden, strange movement, and you turn to stare at the picture there of you and your mum and dad, and from the picture, you stare back-- really stare, and then you blink.

You grab the frame in your hands and shake it, whispering, "Stop it. Just stay still." But that only seems to rouse your picture-self faster, and soon he's waving at you and smiling, and soon your parents are waving too. "You have to stop," you tell them before slamming the picture face down on the table and running out of the room and down the stairs and back into the kitchen. You open the refrigerator and take out a very large slice of chocolate cake, and you stare at it, breathing hard.

There shouldn't be chocolate cake in the refrigerator. There shouldn't be any cakes or puddings or biscuits at all, because your mum wouldn't have been here to make them, and she wasn't expecting you to be here without her. Besides, you're still supposed to be on a diet, so if she made anything for you it would probably involve vegetables and taste like that foul stuff Harry tried to get you to eat.

You shove the cake back into the refrigerator and try not to think about it, but your hands are still itching, so you go over to the sink and pick up a sponge and start washing the dishes. You don't know why you're doing it, and you don't really know how to, but it's what your mum used to do, and it's about the farthest thing from magic that you can think of, and you promise yourself you'll make sure to eat something messy so they'll be something left for Harry to clean up later.

You're scrubbing a plate when the cold wind slams you in the back, nearly stealing your breath away, and you let the plate drop, but it doesn't fall. It hangs in the air, and the sponge keeps wiping in careful, circular motions, and then a cloth flies over and dives into the soapy water, and a bowl bobs across the sink to meet it.

You shut your eyes tight, and you can feel the magic all around you, but this time you don't try to shut it away or hide from it. You reach out with a part of your mind you never knew existed and try to shape it, to shift something small and change what it's doing. "Stop!" you shout, and to your surprise, the plate and the bowl crash back into the sink.

You trail your fingers over the tabletop and along the cabinets, trying to keep their twitching under some control. Most surfaces in the kitchen are surprisingly clean except for the floor, and as soon as you think someone should sweep it, Harry's broom flies into your hand. It doesn't feel like a broom should, at least, not a normal broom, but you don't have much experience with brooms so you can't really be sure. It's smooth and warm, and it feels like there's something alive coursing through the wood beneath your fingers, which have finally relaxed and gone still.

You sweep every inch of the house that needs sweeping at least twice, and all the while, you wonder whether you're doing it because you're scared of what the other magic could happen or if you're just sweeping just because the broom fits so well in your hands. It seems to lead you through the house in a strange dance, and even though you can't be sure of the steps, your feet seem steadier than before, and you don't stumble.

You know the broom shouldn't be trusted. It's a freak thing, and no freak things should be trusted. It doesn't even make you feel normal like Harry did. It makes you feel weird and anxious, almost the same way you felt right before your boxing matches, except stronger than that, like you're expecting something big to happen, something that could change everything else.

You feel trapped in the house. You hadn't though about leaving it for as long as you've been back, but as soon as you saw Harry walk out the door, you wanted to get out too-- to go better places than he could and have more fun than he would with his stupid freak friends.

You don't want to let him beat you, but what you want doesn't seem to matter so much anymore. If your mum and dad were here, things would be different, better, the way they should have stayed all along. It's Harry's fault they're gone, not yours, no matter what he wants you to believe. So you take a deep breath, and you tell yourself you haven't conceded yet, and you go outside to sweep the front steps.

You're greeted by sunlight and the smell of grass and fresh, cool wind blowing in your face. When you shut the door behind you, magic starts flashing everywhere, like hundreds of tiny cameras, and for a second, you think it might be the most amazing thing you've ever seen, but seconds like that usually pass the quickest. "Stop it," you say, using your mind to send the wind in the opposite direction and calm the flashing until it fades completely.

The handle of the broom is getting warmer than it had been. You tighten your hands around it and try to sweep, but it starts moving on its own in patterns that you can't follow as easily, and it starts rising from the ground, taking you with it. You try to call out, but you don't have enough breath left in you to tell it to stop or even to shout for help.

You're hanging below it almost level with the roof of your house, and the magic starts flashing just like before, and the wind finds you again. You try to pull the broom down or to pull yourself up onto it, but you can't do either. Your arms are aching from the strain of having to hold yourself up, and just as your fingers are starting to slip, the broom darts away in a backwards loop flips around between your legs. You have only a second to steady yourself and adjust your grip around the handle before it shoots straight up into the sky

You scream.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Even with Dudley holding him up, Harry still manages to get to the bus station in time, and he's surprised that the ride to Hermione's neighborhood takes little more than an hour. The bus is empty and plain and not exactly comfortable. It certainly isn't the knight bus, but that's not such a bad thing, really, except when, mid-ride, he gets the inexplicable desire for some hot chocolate.

Her house is easy enough to find. As soon as he spots the oversized Chudley Cannons sign and a ten foot high stack of wire and metal engine part, he knows the Weasleys have left their mark. He walks around the brightly colored pinwheels and stoops to examine a few very strange lawn ornaments carved to look like real garden gnomes rather than the cheerful muggle representations, and then his eyes meet a spectacular garden of flowers and ferns and fruit trees.

"Like the yard?" asks a voice from very close behind him, and he turns quickly to come face to face with Ron, who smiles and points towards the houses down the street. "I think the neighbors are starting to think we're all a bit wrong in the head. I think Hermione's starting to tell them that, actually."

"What?" Harry asks, still a bit dazed.

Ron puts his hands in his pockets and rocks back and forth on his heels. "That was a joke. Hermione's not telling people we're crazy . . . at least, I don't think she is."

"You've gotten taller," Harry says, realizing he has to tilt his head slightly further back to get a good look at Ron's face. "I didn't think that was possible."

"Impossible things happening, mate," Ron says nodding, "either that or you've just shrunk." He takes a hand out of his pocket and gives Harry a few rough pats on the back. "You okay there?"

"Yeah, I guess so." Harry shrugs and looks over at Hermione's house, which seems to exude that untouchable normalness that Number Four Privet Drive had before Dudley became anything but normal. "I thought I'd be surprising you."

Ron begins walking towards the back of the house, and Harry follows. "I was expecting you for a few days, actually. I didn't know when your owl would get back to you with the letter. I told her not to rush it. Have the muggles been treating you decent?"

"No, I mean-- sort of." Harry closes his eyes and takes a deep breath. "My aunt and uncle got stuck wherever they were hiding from Voldemort, so it's just me and my cousin at the house. You remember Dudley-- he's . . . well he's something."

"Hmmm." Ron gives him a look that seems to know more than it should and nods.

"Everything okay here?" Harry asks, trying to get off the subject of Dudley, who he wants to avoid thinking about for at least that day. "Your parents? Hermione? You had me worried there for a while."

"My parents have always been fine," Ron says slowly, still looking at him, "and Hermione's better, definitely back to being Hermione again. She says she's thinking about going to a muggle university, because there's still so much she doesn't know." He rolls his eyes, and Harry bites back a laugh. "You ask me she'll be bloody disappointed when she gets there and finds it's all a bunch of stuff she taught herself before even starting school."

"Ron," comes a voice from the side of the house. "Are you talking about m-- Harry?!" Harry spins backwards again and this time finds Hermione pulling him into a rough hug. "Harry, I can't believe you're here!"

"Well at least someone's surprised," Harry says, hugging her back.

"Don't know why," Ron mumbles, looking down at the ground and scuffing his feet awkwardly through the grass. "I told her you'd be showing up soon."

"Well, I'd be quite foolish if I were to believe everything you told me," Hermione says, turning her head back to Ron before giving Harry a kiss on his cheek. "He said he's been sending hints in his letters all summer to get you to come here, and I told him that was completely impossible." From the corner of his eye and through Hermione's hair, Harry sees Ron look up at him and wink. "I also told him that you wouldn't even understand his letters," Hermione continues. "Besides his idea of subtlety is 'Harry get over here now!'"

"I'm right here, you know?" Ron snaps.

"Of course you are," Hermione says, finally releasing Harry. "Where else would you be?"

Harry watches her lay a hand on Ron's arm, and he watches Ron bristle from the touch. Ron looks back to him. "Hey, Harry, you fancy a game of Quidditch?"

Hermione's arm falls back to her side. "Oh his Quidditch," she says, rolling her eyes. "Harry, you really have to see this."

"He already told me about it, actually."

"Did he?" she asks. "Did it make any sense?"

Ron crosses his arms over his chest and glares at her. "I'm sure Harry will like it a lot more than being lectured on toasties."

"Toasters, Ron," Hermione corrects him, "and honestly, you almost suck your hand in one."

"You told me to take the bread out," Ron mutters darkly. "How am I supposed to know there was a bloody button?"

"So about that game of Quidditch?" Harry asks, trying to help ease the tension between them.

Hermione tucks a few wisps of hair behind her ear. "It's horrible," she says to Harry, smiling this time. "It's the most ridiculous thing you'll ever see."

Ron's face reddens, and he crosses his arms over his chest. "You seemed to be having a pretty good time last game we played. If you want, you can just stay inside moping with you books and old essays, and me and Harry will--" Harry takes decisive action and punches Ron hard in the arm. "Ouch-- that is-- er I--"

Hermione raises her eyebrows at them both. "You'll what?"

"Uh, I think it's up to you," Harry says, silently urging Ron not to open his mouth again, "whether we play or not, I mean."

"We can play," she says giving a sigh that sounds more amused than exasperated. "I'm sure everyone else will be up for another game."

"Great," Ron pipes in. "Harry can be seeker."

"I get to crawl around in the grass, then?" He asks, and Ron curiously pokes at the still bare patch in the back of his head until Harry slaps his hand away.

"Don't worry," He says. "You'll against be up against Neville, and he gets distracted whenever he finds an interesting clover."

"Great," Harry mutters, and Hermione starts to laugh.

An hour later, Harry finds himself on his hands and knees tossing aside dandelions and butter cups as he searches for the "snitch". The ground, he thinks, is a very different place than the sky when you're trying to find something small and golden, much dirtier and lacking the thrill of flight and the excitement of a head to head competition. For the seeker, Ron's Quidditch isn't about speed or skill, but stubborn meticulousness and the ability to make yourself keep at it when you'd rather not be bothered at all and maybe, Harry thinks, just a bit about good luck. He's absently scanning the nearby grass and thinking of how much he misses his broomstick when he feels a hand on his shoulder.

"Ron was right about this," Hermione whispers from behind him.

He looks up at the streak of mud across her shirt and the red spot on her knee where she was hit with the football. "He was?"

"Well not about this new version of Quidditch," She says waving a hand to indicate everyone in the yard. "I still think it's a completely pointless game, but I never liked the other kind nearly as much as you two did."

"I guess not."

She nods and sits down next to him. "He was right that we have to keep playing it, even if we can't fly anymore, even if all we can do is crawl around in the grass."

"Oh." Harry looks toward the action in the center of the yard where Ron's in front of the goal hula-hoops, keeping and shouting out orders to everyone else. They're listening, all of them, even his dad, even his older brothers, even the people on the opposing team, and even when he's silent they all look back to him, expecting him to say something, or maybe just for reassurance. "When did this happen?" he mutters to himself.

"He thinks there's still magic around," she whispers. "He says we just can't use it now, but we'll be able to again later as soon as it gets stronger for enough to be released again. He has this whole crazy plan worked out, and it doesn't make any sense, but he believes it. He believes it so much everyone else is starting to believe it too. At first, I thought it was just an excuse so he wouldn't have to learn about anything muggle, but maybe . . ."

"There is still magic around." Harry says, smiling and brushing his grass-stained hands on the legs of his trousers.

"There could be." Her forehead wrinkles, and she bites her bottom lip. "I mean it is possible--"

"No. There is, really. You wouldn't believe me if it told you--"

"Oi!" George yells as a tennis ball zips between him and Hermione, clipping her in the arm. "Break it up, you two. You're supposed to be on different teams."

"There is," he whispers, "and you should tell Ron that he's right."

She nods and pokes at his head just like Ron had earlier. "Would you like a hat?"

"What?"

"It's just that it really is quite noticeable," she says taking a step back and blushing. "I just thought . . ."

"No!" Harry shouts, and for a second, everyone in yard turns to look at him, but it doesn't last long, because there is another shout from over by the garden, where Neville waves a galleon above his head, yelling, "Found it!"

Harry smiles and let's himself collapse into the grass. Above him, Ron joins Hermione and whispers, "At least he isn't growing a ponytail."

"It's your fault," Harry mutters into the ground, but by then, even he's laughing, and he rolls over and lets them pull him up by the arms.

Inside, it seems Hermione's house is loosing a fight to keep at least some remnants of sensible normality amidst the piles of robes and stacks of cauldrons and ancient looking scrolls. He sits at a long table covered in spell books and potion ingredients and eats a lunch that would make even Dudley jealous. Afterwards, he plays a round of chess with Ron, who keeps forgetting that the pieces won't move where he tells them, but still manages to win easily. Then they spread themselves out on the sofa, just like they had back in the tower at Hogwarts, and they talk until there's nothing left to say.

In the silence, he looks at them, really looks, even though they're too busy looking at each other and having some very quiet argument to notice. Ron has scars on his arms from when he was attacked by a brain in the department of mysteries, and Hermione has marks on her neck left by the enchanted wire that nearly choked her when they fought to keep St. Mungo's from being taken, and Harry has a lightning bolt on his forehead and words on his right hand and a thin line going up his ankle where it was broken. They're safe now, and they're happy. They don't have magic and they're happier than he's ever seen them. He smiles and thinks that he just might be happy too. He just might be happier than he ever was before.

Ginny and Neville went out looking for Trevor in the back garden, though Harry suspects they're doing something else, because Trevor is sitting safely in his terrarium. Fred and George are reading through catalogs of muggle jokes and arguing whether they should spend their money on fake vomit or itching powder, even Percy is beaming as he tells his mum about his trip to the post office.

Harry's watching Bill and Charlie playfully fighting over a newspaper and wondering if a ponytail is really that bad of an idea when he's pulled from his thoughts by two sharp knocks coming from the front door. The twins spring to their feet, and Harry can hear laughter just barely stifling a low, angry growl.

"Is that--" Fred begins.

"Yes," says George.

"I do believe--"

"He's gotten bigger."

"Harry!" matching voices call in to him, followed by a decidedly angrier one yelling, "HARRY!"

Harry jumps up from the sofa, pushes Fred into the wall and runs out the door where he comes face to face with a wide-eyed, messy-haired Dudley who looks at least twice as pink as usual. "Uh-- I--" Dudley begins, but Harry doesn't let him finish.

"You followed me!" he exclaims, pushing Dudley off the front landing. "I can't believe you."

Dudley stumbles, trying to regain his balance. "I didn't!" he says, but Harry's in no mood to listen.

"I tried to get away from you for one day-- just one day, and you followed me." He hops off the landing and shoves Dudley backwards again. "What on earth are you doing here?"

"I didn't follow you," Dudley says, voice dropping to a whisper, and Harry knows he must be shaken by something, if only because he's letting Harry push him around so easily.

"You'd better explain what's going on soon or I'll set Fred and George on you again."

He takes a deep breath and stands just a bit straighter. "They can't hurt me, not now."

"Oh?"

Dudley grabs Harry by the arm and pulls him away from the door so they won't be seen by anyone inside. "I flew," he whispers, going an even deeper shade of pink. "I-I flew here."

"What?!" Harry shouts, and Dudley clasps a meaty hand over his mouth to keep him silent.

"Shhhh," he hisses, slowly drawing his hand away. Then he takes a few steps to the garden and lifts Harry's firebolt from the nearby flower bushes. "I used your broom."

"Are you mad?! Harry screams, waving his arms in front of him so Dudley won't try to cover his mouth again. "You could have fallen off! Someone could have seen you! There are laws against just doing that!" Harry pauses to take a breath, and his mind centers itself on what could be the worst consequence of Dudley sitting on his broom. "You didn't break it, did you?!"

"No," Dudley says, snorting incredulously.

"You even sound like a pig," Harry mutters, grabbing the broom away from Dudley and carefully examining the handle for any cracks or fractures before looking up at him. "Are you sure?"

"Shut up."

Harry hesitates a second before shoving it back into Dudley's large, pink hands. "None of this makes any sense. You realize that, don't you? I mean, you flew, and now you're-- how did you find me?"

Dudley shrugs. "I don't know. I just did."

"But--"

Dudley carefully runs a few fingers down the broom's handle and smiles to himself. "I just did."

"But . . ." Harry trails off as the realization dawns on him and feels himself beginning to smile back. "Oh."

"Yeah," Dudley says nodding and peering back at the decorations on the front lawn. "Besides, you freaks are pretty obvious."

There's an awkward few moments they share staring at each other before Harry manages to clear his throat. "Good job, Dud."

Dudley scowls back at him. "I should go," he says before roughly pressing something cool and metal into Harry's hands.

Harry looks down to see a small golden key attached to a Grundings keychain in the shape of a drill. "What's this?" he asks.

"It's to the front of the house," Dudley says, "so you can get in."

"Why?"

"Because, you were wrong. Because I am going to lock the doors." He takes a deep, shaky breath and then smiles. "Because you told me I wouldn't, but I'm going to anyway."

"Okay." Harry rolls his eyes and decides not to bother telling Dudley that it won't count as being locked out if he has a way to get in.

"You were wrong," Dudley repeats quietly, more to himself than to Harry.

"Fine, you already said that."

"I'm going back now," Dudley says, fingers twitching over the broom's handle.

"Yeah, then go."

"I will." His face contorts in look of intense concentration, and on Dudley, the expression seems almost painful.

"You do remember how you got here, right?" Harry asks.

"Shut up," Dudley says, and something sparks in his eyes. In less than a second he's on Harry's broom and shooting up into the sky. He zips over the rooftops and around trees, doing upside down corkscrews and perfect imitations of the Worinski feint. At first, Harry thinks he has no control, going impossibly fast and impossibly high, but then he lowers himself, doing perfectly steady loops over the street and the neighboring houses. "I guess you freaks got something right," he calls down to Harry. "This isn't so bad. I'll give you that."

"Show off!" Harry shouts up at him, but his voice are muffled and carried off on a cold wind. It doesn't really matter, though. By the time the words leave his mouth, Dudley's much too far above to hear anything.

"Don't worry," says a voice behind him. "He's not any better than you were." Harry turns to see Ron standing on the front landing with Hermione beside him. He's grinning and she looks like she's either laughing or about to cry.

"So this is how you knew?" she asks in an unsteady whisper. "Your cousin he's--"

"He's something," Harry says before she can finish.

Ron gives him that surprisingly perceptive look that isn't quite as surprising as it would have been once. "Oh definitely something," he says. "Be careful there, Harry."

"I can take care of myself."

Ron nods. "I don't doubt that."

"You were right," Hermione says, looking from Ron to Harry and back again. "You were right about everything."

Ron grins wider than before. "Not everything," he says with laughter in his voice. "You can't go telling a bloke something like that."

They stand with Harry looking up at the sky until Dudley is just a dot over the horizon, and his silhouette is diminished by the slowly falling sun.

"I have to go back," Harry whispers when Dudley's no longer in sight. "You know I don't really want to but--"

Before he can finish, Hermione hugs him, muttering things about how he was right and Ron was right and everything's gone backwards, and to his surprise, Ron keeps smiling.

"I have to--" Harry begins again, but Hermione interrupts him.

"It won't be forever," she says with a surety in her voice that he hasn't heard since they left school. "You know that, right? It won't be forever."

"Yeah," Harry says. "Yeah, I know."

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~