The Joy of Summoning

The Joy of Summoning

Blizzards guarantee at least one person being lost and/or seriously injured in them, probably in the trackless wastes of the Forbidden Forest. A member of the opposite sex will save them. When two students are missing, wait a little while and go looking in Hagrid's hut. Knock before entering.--Rugi and Gwenna, The Tough Guide to Harry Potter

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Harry tucked an asphodel root in his pocket and let the greenhouse door close behind him with a satisfying thud. He squinted and set off in what he hoped was the direction of the castle, with no four-pointer spell to guide him through what was shaping up to be a spectacular blizzard.

Just an hour before, Snape had locked Harry's wand away in his desk with a barely contained smug smile. "No magic in detention, even for you, Potter," he had said, and the smile hadn't been contained at all when he added, "Now go out to the greenhouses."

So it was probably understandable that while Harry's feet were slogging on, his mouth was busy damning Snape to the fiery pits of hell. He was actually a bit pleased with his creativity; some of his obscenities rivaled anything Ron had ever come up with, both in colour and sheer vindictiveness.

Snape had certainly chosen his night well. It was the coldest night so far this year, and the wind was bone-chilling and strong, blowing a wet, blinding sea of white into Harry's face and straight through his robes. Harry was determined not to give Snape the satisfaction of wandering into the forest. He wasn't going to end up in the mouth of an Acromantula, or worse. He was going to make it back to the castle and cough any germs he'd caught tonight all over the slimy bastard.

Then again, maybe not.

After twenty minutes of trudging through snow and rage, Harry had to admit defeat: He was lost. The best he could hope for was to become a frozen Harry Popsicle, too hard and too cold for any of the creatures that roamed the forest to nibble on.

And that Hermione knew how to magically defrost Popsicles.

When he finally ran face-first into a rough wooden wall, Harry could have sobbed for joy. Or sung the Hallelujah Chorus. Or something. Instead, he spit out splinters and felt his way along the wall. When his grateful hands grasped the doorknob, Harry slipped inside.

His body was shaking and his teeth chattering so violently that Harry barely noticed as the door to Hagrid's hut closed behind him. His robes were soaked through and plastered to his skin, which was starting to tingle unpleasantly. Harry had seen enough programmes on the BBC to know that bad things like black, crackly skin and amputated extremities were sure to follow. He peeled off his clothes with stiff, numbed fingers, tossed them onto the floor, and made a stark naked dash for the bed.

It was dry in the hut, but in every other way it resembled a very large icebox. Harry shuddered under the covers, mostly from cold, but also from the ickiness inherent in putting the concepts of naked and Hagrid's sheets together in his mind. For once, he was thankful that his large friend was off on a super-secret mission.

When his brain had thawed slightly, Harry poked his nose out from under the covers, trying to gauge the distance from the bed to the woefully inactive fireplace. He burrowed back under after the briefest of deliberations. Too far and too cold.

But he was a wizard, wasn't he? And one with a reputation to uphold. Somewhere within him lurked a bad boy who blew up aunts with a single thought and freed massive carnivorous reptiles in the blink of an eye.

Little magical fire? No problem.

Five minutes later, Harry was ready to concede that, okay, maybe there was a little problem.

He gave himself a mental slap. Forced accidental magic was, of course, impossible. It was right there in the name. An oxymoron, Hermione would say.

And anyway, most of those other times, he'd been totally worked up, flushed and hot, his blood pressure through the roof. Which was sort of the problem. Harry wasn't sure if he'd even win a "hot and flushed" contest with Nearly Headless Nick, right about now.

Again, icky mental images.

But... he was starting to notice that one place on his body, one particular place, did seem to have its own warmth.

No. No, no, no. It might be a fun way to warm up a little, but it would be wrong. He was in Hagrid's bed. It would be more wrong than a whole list of wrong things.

But... it was such a convenient place, perfectly suited to the length of his arms. His hands wanted to go there. And they fit just perfectly.

Really, when it came down to it, it was all a matter of survival.

Harry closed his eyes and simply let the hands have their way. Soon enough, the hands he pictured weren't his any longer; they were soft, gentle, feminine. Hands that spent time holding quills and turning pages instead of performing death grips on wands and broomsticks.

Not that he knew whose they were. Not at all. Or had any sort of impure, illegal-in-several-nations thoughts about any of his best friends.

But oh, were these hands talented. They skimmed over his skin in all the right places, slowly, deliberately, excruciatingly... and it was warm and wonderful everywhere that they touched.

This had been a good scheme. One of his best.

The only problem now was that they were only hands. He wanted more, he wanted her, so much so that it was completely taking over his body and mind. He wanted tendrils of her hair caressing his face, her chest pressed to his, her mouth on his, her curves enfolding him, all of him...

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"Ron, we need to go find him."

Ron dragged Hermione back from the portrait hole. "Why? So we can get detention for being out past curfew? He's fine, Hermione. He'll be back any minute."

She made her way to the window, Ron trailing in her wake. "But he's out there, Ron." She tapped on the glass, where the wind was driving innocent white flakes to their death. "He's out there and it's cold and he shouldn't be alone."

Ron frowned. Hermione was biting her lip and pacing; she was clearly on the verge of working herself into a state, and Ron wasn't really in the mood to see that. True, a wound-up Hermione was often fun, but much more so when he was the cause. That sense of accomplishment, of I did that - well, it was just priceless.

It had also never, ever led him to run the risk of freezing his bits off.

"Look, Hermione, you don't know that. Why don't you sit down?"

Hermione added hand-wringing to her repertoire.

Ron grabbed her by the shoulders. "Come on. You need to calm down. You need to find something fun to do. Before you know it, he'll be back."

Hermione looked unconvinced, and began to eye the portrait hole again.

"Look," Ron said desperately, as his mind considered and rejected a hundred things as fun for Hermione, "why don't - why don't we study?"

The frenzied look in Hermione's eyes began to melt away, and Ron let out a breath. She let him settle her in at a table that already held a good-sized stack of her books. He sat down and watched her warily for a few moments. When Ron was convinced she was focused on her homework, he fished a Quidditch magazine out of his robes and began browsing it under the table. It was only fair, he thought righteously, that he relax after so manfully averting a crisis.

For a while, the only sound was the turning of pages. Then Hermione spoke. "I left my favorite quill upstairs. I'm going to go get it, okay?"

Trust Hermione to have a favorite quill. Ron nodded, but didn't look up from the article on Chesty Chasers. (Okay... so maybe it was a little more, um, detailed than your average Quidditch magazine. Thank Merlin for those brilliant Buyer's-Eyes-Only illusion charms.)

Ron was so engrossed, in fact, that Hermione had one leg through the portrait hole before he caught on.

"Bugger!"

Ron shoved the magazine into his robes and rushed after Hermione. He caught up with her out in the corridor.

"Hermione! Are you mad?"

"He needs me, Ron. He needs me, I'm supposed to go, and I'm going."

"Since when did you turn into that bloody bat Trelawney?"

Hermione turned on her heel and marched off.

It only took two of Ron's long strides for him to reach her. "All right. We'll do this. But let's get the map, and the cloak, okay? We need to be practical here."

There was something supremely unnatural about any situation that left him channeling Percy, Ron thought. He shuddered at the sound of his own words as they turned back towards the Fat Lady.

Correction: As they turned back to the painting where the Fat Lady was supposed to be.

"All right then, Hermione," Ron said, when he ran out of expletives. "Let's go."

Hermione led him straight to the front doors of Hogwarts. She wasn't fooled for a minute by trick staircases or disappearing corridors. They made it all the way out of the castle without meeting a single living or non-living soul; proof positive, Ron thought, that it was a bad time for nocturnal adventures. If Filch and the ghosts weren't out, then no-one should be out.

Hermione paused right outside the great front doors. She hit them both with a warming spell and an Impervius charm, before dragging Ron out into the snow. Soon enough, they landed on Hagrid's front doorstep.

"He's here? Are you sure?"

"Yes," Hermione said firmly, reaching for the doorknob.

"Wait. Shouldn't we knock first?"

Hermione nodded, and Ron pounded on the door. He strained his ears to listen for any signs of life inside, but if there were any, they were completely obscured by the howling wind. Ron raised his hand to knock again, but Hermione was faster; she grabbed the knob and opened the door.

The hut was dark, and Ron followed Hermione inside, straining his eyes. He saw the still figure in the bed just as Hermione did.

"It's your fault, Ron!" she shrieked. "You wouldn't let me come and now he's dead!"

The figure sat up, proving Hermione wrong, Ron noted with satisfaction.

"Hermione? Ron?"

How in hell had Hermione known Harry was here? It had to have been some kind of spell, but he'd only seen her do those two simple charms... But something had to have let her know, something had to compelled her to act so strangely.

Ron shrugged, and stared at Harry. Naked to (at least) the waist, tousle-haired, with a grin Ron didn't see too often - the one that meant he was unusually pleased with the world and himself.

Ron turned, and stared at Hermione. Breathing hard, face flushed, with an expression that suggested she liked what she saw, and she wouldn't say no to seeing a bit more.

He began backing away, slowly. He'd been right all along.

This situation? Completely, totally, and supremely unnatural.

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"Just as long as you're concentrating really, really hard on it, it'll come." -Hermione on Summoning Charms, GoF.