Saving Harry Potter

Chapter Four - Hermione's Quest

Dumbledore left the Dursleys shortly after Hermione, just as interested in her reasons for leaving as Harry obviously had been. His conversation with Petunia had been necessary, if not pleasant. Still, his main concern centred on Harry and whether what he'd seen playing out on Harry's bed had in fact been what he'd hoped it was, then the answer to Harry's problem could very well be a single letter away from being manifest.

He Apparated to Hogsmeade and then walked swiftly to Hogwarts, through the entrance hall with a nod at Filch and on up to his office. Fawkes was asleep on his perch, his head tucked underneath a wing to keep out the light of the day. A sheaf of parchment was stacked on his desk next to several bottles of emerald ink and a collection of eagle feather quills. After considering the situation for a moment, taking care to make sure he was not mistaken about Harry's behaviour around Hermione, he sat at his desk, pulled a single sheet of parchment from the stack, chose a clean quill and dipped it in a new bottle of ink.

Once the letter was completed, he charmed the ink dry, folded and addressed it to Remus Lupin, and then made his way to the school owlery. It was crucial that this letter be delivered as soon as possible.

*

Remus Lupin had lived through better days. After a terrible transformation the week before without the aid of Wolfsbane, he'd healed slowly and was still stiff and sore from the agonizing transformation. Resting in his bedroom at Number Twelve Grimmauld Place, his thoughts turned to Harry, and the visit he'd had with him the day before the full moon. He'd been alarmed at the depth of Harry's depression, but was not overly surprised by it. Who had the right to be depressed if not him? He had always marvelled at the boy's seemingly inexhaustible ability to rebound from emotional shocks that would have seen grown men committed to St. Mungo's. Still, Remus could not conclude that Harry would recover from this shock if something was not done to forestall its effects. This was why he was so glad to have spoken with Hermione after the meeting at the Burrow.

Her concern for him was evident, but there seemed to be a deeper level to it than he'd remembered. They had clearly grown close over the intervening years since he had been their Professor. Remus toyed with the idea of trying to match them together, but immediately dismissed it as being too interfering. Harry wasn't exactly in the right frame of mind to find love.

He walked to the kitchen, conjured a pot of tea, and began to rummage around the pantry for something to eat. With Molly gone back to the Burrow, there had been a distinct downgrade in the quality of meals served at Number Twelve Grimmauld Place. Just as he was about to settle on a few slices of toast, there was a great crashing sound from the entrance hall. Thankfully, there was no accompanying shriek from Mrs. Black's portrait - a carefully applied Silencing Charm had taken care of that. He put his bread on a plate and set it on the table when a smiling, pink-haired Tonks appeared in the doorway.

"Wotcher, Remus," she said with a wink. "Tucking in to a spot of tea?"

"Hi, Tonks," he replied and began to charm the bread into toast. "I'm afraid I'm not much of a cook, but there's more than enough bread for the both of us. Care to join me?"

She beamed at him and took a seat. "Love to," she said.

*

By the time the mail owl arrived for him, Tonks was napping upstairs before her next shift of Auror duty. Remus rewarded the owl and then carefully unfolded the letter.

Dear Remus,

As you are aware, Harry has been suffering from severe depression over his recent loss of Sirius and likely, because of the tremendous burdens that are uniquely his to bear due to his connection with Voldemort. I will not attempt to disguise my concern for him and hope that you share in that concern. If so, please assist me in helping Harry heal from this trauma and, hopefully, to become more powerfully entrenched in that which will enable him to defeat Voldemort once and for all. I am speaking, of course, of love.

While visiting with Harry's Aunt Petunia, I was fortunate to intrude upon Harry visiting with a young lady that I think has a special place in Harry's heart. He seemed to react to her in ways that no one has yet been able to duplicate. In fact, if I may be so bold, I believe that he may have developed romantic feelings for her. It is no surprise to me that he has come to this realisation, for Hermione Granger is a gifted witch, has demonstrated time and again her love for him, and is in very many ways a good compliment to his personality. This development has the potential to accomplish our goal of helping Harry, if we can somehow persuade Hermione to evaluate her own feelings on the matter and at the very least, exercise the platonic love that she most definitely has for him.

I admit to not being sure if she returns his romantic feelings, for just as I discovered them together, she left in very great haste. Having not been involved in the wonderful world of romance for quite a number of decades, I am calling upon you to covertly investigate Hermione's feelings for Harry and if she is indeed inclined to think of him that way, to encourage the development of this relationship. It could very well mean the difference in young Harry's life.

Faithfully,

Albus Dumbledore

The letter dropped to the table, where the tea service had recently been. Having just been musing on this very subject, Remus considered again his thoughts on matching Harry with someone. If Dumbledore was correct in his observations, however, perhaps he had half of his problem already solved.

He thought about the situation for a full thirty minutes, debating how intrusive he could safely be and still accomplish his goal, before making up his mind. He performed a complex charm to duplicate the letter and then made several modifications to the duplicate, including an Attraction Charm and an Eyes-Only Charm. Knowing that Hermione, Ron, and Ginny were arriving that very night to prepare for Harry's arrival, he took the letter to an upstairs room and placed it on one of the nightstands. Then, with a smile that hadn't graced his lips for many months, he went back to his room to begin preparing for the rest of his plan.

*

Hermione arrived at Grimmauld Place after a bumpy yet quick ride on the Knight Bus. Ginny and Ron were with her and they stepped off together in front of Number Twelve as Stan Shunpike was pulling their trunks toward the door. Ron helped Ginny with her other bags but Hermione refused his assistance.

"Don't worry about me," she said distractedly, waving off his outstretched his hand. "I can handle it on my own, thanks." She really could handle it after all but her mind was so occupied with Harry that she couldn't be bothered with Ron at all.

They'd fought like third year again and it was really more than she could handle at the moment. He wanted to tease her for her success with Harry, but it ended up coming across as rude and mean spirited. Even Ginny had told him to sod off.

They walked inside and were pleasantly surprised to see the portrait of Mrs. Black, completely uncovered and completely silent. Her face was contorted in rage as she stared hatefully at Hermione. Her lips were moving soundlessly, with flecks of spittle flying from them.

"At least they've figured out to shut up that old bat," Ron said cheerfully, as if they'd never fought. He always did that - acted as if none of their bickering ever mattered.

Mrs. Black turned to shout at Ron and Hermione detected the words "blood traitor" and "filth" plainly before she turned away.

"Good thing, too," Ginny said from beside him. "Or I'd have been tempted to cut the thing out with a knife."

Hermione snorted despite herself and Ron became distracted by a movement from the kitchen door.

"Hello," greeted a tired-looking but smiling Remus Lupin. "Glad you three could make it." He took Ginny's trunk from Ron and motioned towards the stairs. "Why don't you ladies make yourself comfortable? I'd like to speak with Ron about a few matters."

Ron's ears immediately perked up. "Did I get an owl from...?" but he looked apprehensively at Ginny and with slightly pink ears, didn't finish.

Hermione raised an eyebrow at the younger girl and together, they walked upstairs, leaving Ron to talk with Remus.

Ginny threw her book bag unceremoniously onto the floor by her bed and flopped exaggeratedly onto it. "I'm going to hate O.W.L. year," she said with a half-hearted kick at the offending books. "I can already tell."

"No you won't," Hermione retorted as her eyes snapped to a letter sitting on the nightstand. "It's just dismal-looking now because you haven't found out how exciting the subjects are." The wax seal broke easily and she had the briefest recollection of something she wanted to ask Ginny before she began to read.

Dear Hermione,

As you are aware, Harry has been suffering from severe depression over his recent loss of Sirius and likely, because of the tremendous burdens that are uniquely his to bear due to his connection with Voldemort. I will not attempt to disguise my concern for him and hope that you share in that concern and that you will desire to assist me in helping Harry heal from this trauma. This will hopefully allow him to become more powerfully entrenched in that which will enable him to defeat Voldemort once and for all. I am speaking, of course, of love.

While visiting with Harry's Aunt Petunia, I was fortunate to intrude upon the two of you together. If I may be so bold, I believe that he may have developed romantic feelings for you. It is no surprise to me that he has come to this realisation, for you, Hermione Granger are a gifted witch, you have demonstrated time and again your love for him, and is in very many ways you are a good compliment to his personality.

I admit to not being sure if you return his romantic feelings, having not been involved in the wonderful world of romance for nearly nine decades. I am calling upon you to covertly investigate your feelings for Harry and if you do indeed have romantic feelings for him, I encourage you to act on this. It could very well mean all the difference in young Harry's life.

Faithfully,

Albus Dumbledore

A thousand thoughts flooded through her mind as she scanned the parchment again. Her face became slightly pink at the notion that she might have non-platonic feelings for Harry. Still, there was a small bubble of self-satisfaction in knowing that someone else had noticed. Perhaps it meant that Harry felt the same way towards her?

"What are you looking at?" Ginny asked suddenly, sitting beside Hermione on the latter's bed.

Hermione quickly folded the parchment and was about to slip it into her book bag when it burst into flames, leaving the ghostly silhouette in the smoke of a wolf, howling at a transparent moon. Both girls gasped.

"What on earth?" Hermione began, momentarily distracted from her thoughts of Harry holding her hand the day before.

"Someone's tampered with that letter," Ginny commented. "I've seen Fred and George do it loads of times to the ones they've been sending to Lavender from Ron. Only... the smoke from their letters always showed two foxes sniffing around a chicken coup."

While Hermione wasn't familiar with any charm that would have resulted in her letter bursting into flames, or why it would show a distinctive picture in the smoke, she did know that something wasn't adding up. Professor Dumbledore wouldn't just send a letter to her that was so... direct. Maybe if she was of age, but even then, it just wouldn't be Dumbledore's style. He might send something like that to her parents, however, and the thought of her mother's voice asking a million questions about why she was on Harry's bed with him made her face flame in unrealized embarrassment.

"Ginny," she said suddenly. "What were Fred and George doing with that charm? Were they writing their own letters to Lavender, or something else?"

"No," Ginny replied with a giggle. "They'd trained Pig to come to them every time Ron sent Lav Lav a letter." Ginny made a face at Ron's pet name for his girlfriend. "Then, they would change the letter around to make Ron sound even more pathetic than he normally is."

"So how do you know the letters exploded and showed two foxes if they went on to Lavender?"

Ginny smirked. "I guess Ron figured it out one day when he got a particularly funny letter from Lavender. Never did find out what it said that tipped him off," she remarked. "He caught them in the act of charming it and the spell went off by mistake. It was the funniest thing I've seen since they left instructions to Peeves to attack Umbridge. Ron was not happy."

The wheels were moving fast in Hermione's mind. Her letter had been tampered with and she was going to figure out who the perpetrator was. Besides, she needed something to distract her from the fact that every time she thought about Harry, she felt like running to Number Four to spend more time on his bed.

*

That evening, Hermione lay on her bed, three books on magical courting principles from the newly opened Grimmauld Place library and a trashy novel borrowed from Ginny in front of her. They hadn't been much help with her current fascination with Harry, but they did allow her to put her energy into something constructive.

Currently, there were three crumpled pieces of parchment next to the romance novel and one that was halfway full with a list she'd been working on. Actually, it was two lists, but since they were designed to help her make her mind up about the same thing, she considered them one list.

Why I am or am not romantically in love with Harry Potter

Why I am

1.) He's loyal

2.) He's handsome

3.) He's got a saving people thing

4.) He makes me laugh

5.) He can be really smart when he wants to

6.) He's brave

7.) He makes me want to be better than I am

8.) I cry when he gets hurt

9.) I cry when he's rude to me

10.) I cry when he's sad

11.) I smile when he's happy

12.) He's got a cute bum

Why I am not

1.) He can be intolerably cruel to people

2.) I have to prod him to do his work

3.) He frightens me when he's angry

4.) I cry when he's rude to me

She threw down her quill after thinking for a full hour about reasons she didn't love Harry romantically. Scanning the list again, she reluctantly came to the conclusion that her reasons for not loving Harry were not only dwarfed three to one by the reasons she did, but that some of the things in the smaller list weren't reasons at all and some were even mirrors of the reasons indicating that she did feel more for him than just friendship. It was terribly confusing and altogether frustrating. When Ginny came to call her down for dinner an hour later, a similar, if not identical list about why Harry would or would not love her was sitting in front of her. Despite her misgivings about whether Harry's reciprocated these feelings (the memory of Harry's head falling slowly towards hers always managed to pop into her head when she had these thoughts), Hermione was rapidly spiralling into a conclusion that not only deeply frightened her, but it excited her in a way that was completely irrational and altogether wonderful. Unless she was mistaken somewhere in her analysis, it was quite possible that she was in love.