Just Plain Harry

Chapter 3 A Talk with Professor Moody

Three weeks later, Harry nervously paced his room. All of his things were packed, and he was just waiting for the Weasleys to pick him up. He wondered how they would do it - the last time, they had tried to use Floo Powder, but since the Dursleys had an electric fire, that hadn't worked well. Just then, Harry heard an enormous honking coming down the street. He poked his head out of his window and saw a large car coming towards the house. He recognized it - it was a Ministry car. Harry ran downstairs quickly - he wanted to see Uncle Vernon's face when he saw the impressive car.

He wasn't disappointed. Uncle Vernon stared with shock when he saw Mr. Weasley, still in his shabby robes, get out of the car. Ron, Fred and George piled out, too, and Harry could see the driver glare at the twins as he came to the door. They were most likely the ones who had been honking the horn.

Getting his stuff downstairs and into the car went smoothly, once Mr. Weasley told the twins sternly to behave themselves. So this time it was Ron who dropped a piece of candy in Harry's room, grinning as he did so. Just as he was about to leave, though, Aunt Petunia stopped him.

"I hope things work out for you, Harry," she said, not looking at her husband. "Try not to let everything get you down. And tell...never mind." At that, she did give a quick, scared look to Uncle Vernon, but then looked back at Harry.

"Yeah, thanks, Aunt Petunia," Harry said, not looking at Uncle Vernon either. "Well...bye."
As they all piled into the car, Ron, Fred, and George said with one breath, "What was that all about?"

"Um, nothing," Harry said. They started to ask him again, but both Mr. Weasley and the driver said, "Enough!" That made Harry look more closely at the driver.

"Professor Moody!" he said.

Moody winced. "I'm not a professor anymore, Harry," he said.

"Oh, yeah, sorry Prof-Mr. Moody," Harry said, trying to ignore Fred and George's snickering. It wasn't difficult to figure out why he was there - Mad-Eye Moody was one of the best Aurors ever, even if he had retired. And he had obviously come out of retirement, which Harry completely understood. If someone on the other side had stunned him and kept him locked up in his own trunk for ten months while they impersonated him, he'd want to fight again, too.

"So, is Hermione coming?" Harry asked Ron.

"Yeah," Ron said, but he obviously didn't want to say more in front of Fred and George, who were making kissy noises and batting their eye-lashes at him, which made Mr. Weasley say, "Boys!"

When they got to the Burrow, Ron still didn't seem to want to talk about it. He barely allowed his mother to greet Harry properly. Mrs. Weasley had hardly given Harry a big hug and a cookie, before Ron suggested Quidditch. Even Fred and George agreed with that, so they all trooped upstairs for their broomsticks. But when they came back down again, Mad-Eye Moody was waiting for them.

"I need a word with Harry," he said. Harry wasn't sure he wanted a word with Moody, but the Auror obviously wasn't going to take no for an answer, so everybody else left the two of them alone.

Moody sat down at Mrs. Weasley's kitchen table, propped his wooden leg up on one of the other chairs, and turned both his natural and magical eyes on Harry.

"Dumbledore told me about your dream," he said.

"Oh," Harry said. Whatever he had been expecting, it wasn't this. "Is that why you're here, then?"

"No, although I'm glad to help out the Weasleys, too. But Harry, you know better than that. I'm here to help keep you safe. You're more important than all the Weasleys put together."

"NO, I'M NOT!" Harry yelled, jumping up from his seat. "How can you say that? How can one person be more important than nine? Especially...I mean...this is the WEASLEYS we're talking about here."

Moody chuckled, not fazed by the yelling at all. "Sit down, boy, sit down. I'm glad to see you've got heart as well as head. But right now you need to use your head. To the Weasleys, to Dumbledore, to Sirius, you are Harry, their friend, someone they care about. But to the rest of the wizarding world, you are a symbol. You're Harry Potter, The Boy Who Lived. Imagine what a boost it would give Voldemort if he managed to kill you. That alone might win the day for him. And we can't let that happen, even if it means sacrificing many other people."

Harry thought about that. Logically, it did make sense. But he just couldn't think about losing Ron or Hermione, or even Percy. He could make himself think that he was more important than they were, but he couldn't make himself feel it. He stared at Moody, not sure what to say.

Moody nodded at him. "I can tell you're your father's son, Harry, you want to save the world all by yourself. Sometimes that just isn't possible, especially when you're just fifteen years old. You're going to need help, and you're going to need to admit that you can't protect everybody, that you're going to have to let other people go into danger, deliberately into danger. And you're going to have to stop feeling guilty about it."

Harry stared down at the tabletop. How did this man, who had just met him today, after all, know so much about how he thought and felt?

"You're going to have to work through that on your own, Harry. I know it will be hard for you, living with the knowledge that you're so important to our side, and yet can't get out and fight like you want to. Because you can't, Harry, not yet, not until you're ready."
Harry did look up at that. "But I want to help - I need to help! How can I just go back to Hogwarts and go to classes, knowing that there's a war going on outside the school that I can help win?"
"Well, for one thing, because you are that symbol to most people, Harry. You're The Boy Who Lived, so you have to do just that - live. That means living a normal life, not just surviving, and a normal life for a fifteen-year-old boy means going to school. For another, well, you won't just be going to classes. You, Ron, Hermione, some other students that either Voldemort knows about or that we think would be useful, will be trained for the coming war, in addition to your regular classes, of course."

"Trained how?"

"Well, you'll start off with some of the basic Auror training, as though you were apprenticing as an Auror after your seventh year. I don't know if you had thought about becoming an Auror after you graduated, but I'm afraid you won't get much choice for now. All of you that we've chosen will need this training, so it will be mandatory. But in addition, each of you will get trained in specific areas - areas that are already strengths, so you can be of most use to the effort."

"Strengths?" Harry said. He couldn't really think of any strengths that he had, except maybe flying. But he didn't think Moody meant Quidditch.

"Yes, so your friend Hermione, though she has the potential to be one of the best Aurors in a century, and a lot of other things besides, will not be trained as a Seer. You will. Ron, on the other hand, is one of the best chess players of his age that I have ever seen. He will be getting private tutoring from Dumbledore."

"Wow!" Harry said, amazed for his friend. "Wait a minute - I'll be trained as a Seer? But Professor Trelawney-"
"You will get your additional course schedules when you get to Hogwarts." Moody said, standing up. "Needless to say, Professor Trelawney will not be training you as a Seer, or as anything else. Various other people will be, you'll find out who when it happens. I'll be doing some of the basic Auror training, so I suppose you can call me Professor."

"Professor Moody," Harry said. "Um...is Professor Snape going to be one of those people?"

"Ah," Moody said. "Well, since he must appear to hate you and to be working against you and all that you stand for, I don't think that would be a good idea. And since he really does hate you, you shouldn't think it a good idea, either. To answer your real question, though...it is very hard to trust a double agent. Dumbledore trusts this one, but the rest of us must make up our minds, one by one."

He clumped to the door, but turned back at the last moment. Harry was still sitting at the table, staring in shock. He just couldn't take all this in.

"By the way, there's one more reason why you should go back to Hogwarts and try to lead a normal life, Harry," Moody said, once again fixing both eyes on him. "Because you can."

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

Chapter 4 Quidditch, Anyone?

"Oh, there you are, Harry dear," Mrs. Weasley said, bustling into the kitchen where Harry still sat at the table. "Where's Ron? We're late at Hermione's."

"Ron? Ron's out playing Quidditch," Harry said, confused. He had thought that they were picking Hermione up tomorrow.

"Oh, well, never mind," Mrs. Weasley said, though she looked somewhat disappointed. "Would you mind going with me? I can't send Arthur - we'd never get him back, crises or no crises."

Harry had to laugh at the thought of Mr. Weasley so enthralled by Hermione's Muggle parents that he never came home. He thought that at least one of Hermione's friends should help get her, though, and since Ron was acting strangely, he was happy to go. His half-formed thought was that they would use the Ministry car again, but Mrs. Weasley got out the jar of Floo Powder.

"We've arranged for the Grangers' to be put on the Floo Network," she said as she peered into the jar. "Just in case..."

Harry didn't want to think about just in case, so he grabbed a handful of Floo Powder, threw it into the fire, and travelled to Hermione's. He stepped out of the fireplace and looked around. There was no question where Hermione got her love of reading - every wall had at least one bookcase, and they were all full. The room looked cozy and friendly, even with all the books, everything the Dursleys' wasn't. Of course, he knew there were Muggles like this, but, so far, the only people who had ever made him welcome were wizards. Then he saw Hermione.

She was standing near the doorway leading out of the room, and she had changed over the summer. Her hair, which Harry remembered as a bushy mass that spilled over her shoulders, was confined in an intricate braid, drawing attention to her face. And she was dressed Muggle style, in a bluish sundress. Harry couldn't even pretend that she had done all this for him - she was looking hopefully behind him, and her face fell when Mrs. Weasley stepped out of the fireplace. She hid it well, though, and came forward to hug first one of them and then the other.

Hermione's parents welcomed them, too, though Mrs. Granger, at least, looked a little disappointed as well. They hugged their daughter good-bye, but just as Harry was about to step back into the fireplace, Mrs. Granger said, "Wait."
She pulled a small box out of her pocket and gave it to Hermione, who opened it and gasped. Inside was a gold chain with a small pendant of some stone that looked white, but seemed to change color as it moved.

"Grandma's opal!" Hermione said, staring at it. "Oh, Mum, thank you so much!"

"You're old enough for it now," Mrs. Granger said. "And you're...I mean, we don't know...I mean, I just wanted you to have it. We're so proud of you, Hermione." She looked like she was about to cry, especially when Hermione flung her arms around her.

Back at the Burrow, Harry couldn't help but notice Hermione looking around again, and again seeming to deflate when the person she was looking for wasn't there.

"Fred, George, and Ron are out playing Quidditch," he said, as nonchalantly as he could. "Do you want to join them?"

"What? Oh, sure," Hermione said. "Let me just change my clothes." She reached behind her to undo her braid.

"Don't," Harry said, surprising both of them.

"Don't what?"
"Don't change, don't take your braid out," Harry said. "I like it."

"Oh," Hermione said. She thought for a moment, then smiled. "Okay. But let me get a book - I'm not getting on a broom."
When she came back down, Harry noticed that she was wearing the opal pendant, but he didn't say anything. They walked out to the field where sounds of Quidditch could be heard. All of a sudden, though, Harry stopped.

"Didn't Ginny want to come?" he asked.

Hermione stared at him. "Didn't Ron tell you? Ginny's spent the last two weeks at a friend's house. She'll be going straight to King's Cross from there."

"Oh," Harry said. "So that's why I haven't seen her yet. I wanted to thank her for her birthday present."

"You didn't thank her yet?" Hermione said. "Honestly, Harry, that present took a lot of effort, the least you could have done was write to her-"
"Hang on, hang on, I did write to her," Harry said. "I just wanted to thank her in person."

"Oh," Hermione said. She walked in silence for a few moments, then stopped and turned to face him. "Harry, promise me you won't tell Ron who gave me this pendant," she said.

Harry instantly saw what she was getting at, but he didn't like it one bit. "Hermione, I can't lie to Ron, and I can't believe you're asking me to."

"You don't have to lie," she said. "Just don't tell him."
"What about when he asks if I know? You know he will."

"Just say that I didn't tell you who gave it to me. It's the truth - I haven't told you anything."

"Hermione. Why are you two always fighting? Why don't you tell him how you feel?"

"What do you mean? How do you - I mean, what am I supposed to say?"

"Say that you like him," Harry said, thinking how weird it was that he was giving one of this best friends advice about starting a relationship with his other best friend. "This is Ron we're talking about, he's going to need to be kicked in the head."

"Harry, please. He's being ridiculous, and I don't know what to do. Maybe this will bring things to a head...but I suppose I should have known you'd take his side." She started walking again, leaving him standing there.

"Hermione, wait," Harry said, catching up to her easily. "I promise, I won't tell him." He couldn't believe he was doing this, but he agreed with her - Ron was being ridiculous, and something needed to be done. He couldn't blame Hermione for not wanting to take the first step without at least a little encouragement.

"Thanks, Harry!" Hermione said, and hugged him. Harry just stood there, patting her back, and thinking about his friends. He could feel that she had changed in other ways than her hair and her clothes, but this was Hermione, so it didn't matter to him. He tried not to imagine holding Cho like this, just concentrating on Hermione until she let go, sniffling a little. Then he smiled at her.

"Ready to watch some Quidditch?"

When they got to the field where the Weasleys practiced Quidditch, there was a general outcry of greeting. Fred and George came down on their brooms to hover and say hi to Hermione, but Ron stayed aloft, just waving at them. Harry watched Hermione sort of deflate again. She sat down on the ground and took out her diary. He remembered how surprised he had been when he found out that she had one - Hermione just didn't seem the type. But he was glad she had it now, with Ron being such a prat. Suddenly, he couldn't stand the look on her face anymore. He mounted his broom and took off, heading straight for Ron.

"Oy!" Ron said as Harry got close. "I'm going to try out for Keeper this year, what do you think? We need to get practicing, though. What did Mad-Eye Moody want to talk to you about?"

Harry knew all about Ron trying out for Keeper - they had been writing all summer, after all - and though he knew that Ron did want to know what Moody had wanted, he really didn't think Ron wanted to know right now. Besides, this was getting worse than ridiculous.

"Ron, Hermione's supposedly one of your best friends, the least you could do is go down and say hi to her, even if you are fighting!" he said, glaring at his friend. "I think she was disappointed when you didn't come along to pick her up, too. What were you thinking?"

"You think so?" Ron said, looking down at her. "What did she do to her hair?"

"It's in some sort of braid," Harry said. "I like it, it suits her."

"I bet Vicky likes it, too," Ron said, but he headed down anyway. He tried to hover like Fred and George had, but he was staring at Hermione so much that he almost fell off his broom, so he dismounted. He didn't seem to notice what he had done, or the twins laughing so hard that they almost fell off their own brooms.

Harry grinned, and stopped watching them. He hoped everything would be all right between the two of them - he had a pretty good idea how they both felt, and he just wished they would admit it to each other. They were both pretty stubborn, though, especially Ron, so he wouldn't bet on it.

Besides, being on a broomstick again felt so wonderful. Flying was one of the things Harry missed most when he was at the Dursleys - it just felt so natural to him, like he could be up in the air for days without needing to come down. He tried some really steep dives, just for fun, though the dive was one of the most useful tactics for Seekers, so he did need to practice them. After one of the most spectacular, he looked down at Hermione. She and Ron were watching him, and waved. That was normal - even with a book in her hand, Hermione always looked up when she saw him go into a dive out of the corner of her eye. She said that she never got used to his dives; she always thought that he wouldn't be able to pull out of them in time.

This time, though, something felt wrong to Harry. It took a few more dives, with a few more looks at Hermione to realize what it was. He was expecting to see someone else sitting next to her, watching and waving at him. Ginny. She never missed one of these informal practice sessions, and he knew (because Lavender and Parvati had told him) that she often watched the Gryffindor practices from the tower window at school. He just hadn't realized how much he enjoyed having her there. No, that couldn't be right - relied on her being there? Was used to her being there? Well, whatever it was, Harry didn't like it that she wasn't there.

He put it out of his mind, though, as Ron came back up at that point, looking much happier. They had a good practice, and Harry thought that Ron probably would make the team as Keeper. He made some great saves, and he certainly had the mind for the strategies of Quidditch, like Oliver Wood, the Keeper who had graduated two years ago. Quidditch had been cancelled all last year, because of the Triwizard Tournament, and Harry, Fred, George, and Ron couldn't wait for it to start up again. Besides, even Mad-Eye Moody thought Ron had a head for strategy.

He remembered about Ginny, though, once they were back on the ground returning to the Burrow. Ron finally noticed the pendant, and he did ask Hermione about it, but all she would say was that it was a present, so he wasn't in the best of moods. To distract him, Harry asked about Ginny.

"So, Hermione said that Ginny's visiting a friend - anyone I know?" he said, trying to ignore Fred and George's exaggerated starts of surprise when he voluntarily brought up Ginny's name. He couldn't really remember Ginny having any friends, but he supposed that she must. She didn't spend all of her time sitting around waiting for him to notice her, after all. At least it made Ron smile.

"No, she's - get this - a Muggle. Dad's over the moon; it was all Mum could do to stop him from going on a visit, too. Ginny met her in Diagon Alley when she went shopping with Mum one day last month. I think Mum didn't want to leave her home alone."

Harry could definitely understand that, but he didn't want to think about it. "How did Ginny meet her in Diagon Alley, if she's a Muggle?" he asked instead.

"Oh, her younger brother is a wizard - he's starting at Hogwarts this year. But this girl's Muggle through and through, and she doesn't even mind that her brother's going to be doing all this cool stuff that she can't. Ginny says she's really smart; she's planning on going to University and graduate school and everything." Ron said the last sentence as though he couldn't imagine a worse fate. He pronounced 'University' wrong, too.

"Honestly, Ron, you say that as though it's a bad thing to be smart," Hermione said.

"Well, if that's all a person is, it gets dull," Ron said, ignoring Harry's head-shaking.

"Really! So I suppose you think I'm dull!" Hermione said.

"No! But you're not just smart, you're...you're...you're lots of other things, too." Ron started out well, but then he seemed to remember Fred and George behind them, so he trailed off.

Hermione still looked annoyed, but luckily they had reached Ron's room at the top of the house by this time, so another fight was averted. Instead, Hermione turned back around, muttering something about changing again. She was staying in Ginny's room. Ron stopped her before she got out the door.

"Don't take out your braid," he said, with a wicked smile on his face.

"Why not?" Hermione asked, her eyes narrowing in suspicion. When she turned back around, her braid flipped over to rest on her shoulder.

Ron tugged on it, and said, "It's too much fun this way."

Hermione, to Harry's great surprise, blushed, and rushed out the door. Harry turned to Ron, who looked as shocked as he did.

"Well, um..." he said, and stopped.

"Never mind," Harry said. "I don't want to know."

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