Restitution

"Restitution"

by Paracelsus

Chapter 2: The Not-Exactly-Calm Before the Storm

Ron made certain his guest was soundly asleep on the couch before he left the living room and went into his tiny kitchen. For good measure, he closed the door quietly behind him and put a Silencing Charm on it. After all, Harry needed his rest... and more to the point, Ron didn't want him to overhear the conversation he was about to have.

From a cabinet he brought out a small brazier, about the size of his hand, which he set on the kitchen table. He filled it with oil and, with a tap of his wand and a soft "Incendio!", set it ablaze. (Lupin and Hermione had tried to teach him the trick of hand-held flames, but after three failed attempts they'd given it up as a lost cause. The increasingly sarcastic remarks from Fred and George about burnt palms and self-abuse didn't help, either.)

Then Ron brought out a small pouch of very special Floo powder.

After their experiences with Umbridge in their disastrous fifth year, it had become clear that the Floo Network was no longer secure. Conversations could be monitored by persons in the Floo Network Authority - who needn't necessarily be working for the Ministry of Magic. Yet the wizarding world had few other means of quick communication: owls took too long (and could be intercepted), and Muggle electronics were unreliable around magic.

Hermione had come up with a way to create Floo fires that weren't attached to the Floo Network. She'd gotten the idea from "heckers", people who did a similar trick with some Muggle contrivance called the Inner Net. Her "detached Floo" calls were undetectable, untraceable, and (since any fire could be used) far more convenient. In sixth year Hermione'd charmed this special Floo powder, enough for the three of them - and for the Order of the Phoenix, once they recognized how valuable the stuff was.

(Ron remembered how he'd predicted that someday, no fireplaces would ever be used for Floo calls; everyone could carry a portable fire, and could call or be called no matter where they were. Hermione had replied, "Any sufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from technology," and smiled in that superior way she had.)

Now Ron opened the pouch and took a pinch of powder. He sprinkled it onto the flames while saying "The Burrow!" in a low voice. At once, the flames turned the shade of green typical of a Floo fire, with the side tinges of magenta due to Hermione's added charm. He closed his eyes, thrust his face into the fire, and opened his eyes again.

He found himself looking into a familiar scene, the living room at the Burrow. Two sets of legs were standing in his field of view. He cleared his throat to draw attention, and Hermione and Ginny knelt down to face him in the fire.

"He's asleep," Ron said by way of preamble. "No chance he'll hear us. What about your end?"

"Mum's gone back to her room," said Ginny. "She'll probably tell Dad tonight, but no one else."

"We should wait until tomorrow to tell the rest of your family," Hermione suggested. "Learning that he's alive will be a terrible shock to them. And Ron, you should send..."

"Tell me something," Ginny interrupted. "Why are we keeping this such a secret? It's bound to get out by tomorrow, at his so-called memorial service."

"Harry asked us to," replied Ron. "On our way home from New Zealand." He chuckled. "He had an idea that nobody needed to be told he was alive, that he could quietly retire to the countryside and let the world think he was dead. Mpfyeah, right, as if that's likely to happen! I mean, if nothing else, each Point on the Beam automatically recorded our names as we came through. It'll only take a day or two before someone notices Harry's."

He waggled his eyebrows in the facial equivalent of a shrug. "But if we keep mum for the moment, we do get a little breathing space - a chance to figure out what we're doing next."

"Yes, so as I was saying," Hermione resumed, "you need to send an owl to Professor Dumbledore tonight. I mean, obviously the memorial service can't go on as planned." She looked from Ron to Ginny. "It's not as though we can cancel it completely - too many people to contact, on too short notice."

Ron nodded. "Right then, I'll ask Dumbledore to come over tomorrow morning. He can figure out what to do once he's talked with Harry." Ron noticed that Ginny had pinched her mouth tightly shut at the mention of Harry's name. Hoping to draw her out, he continued, "You can still all meet here at my place tomorrow, before we head over to Hogwarts - "

"I'm not going," Ginny announced flatly, as Ron had expected she would. She glared defiantly at Ron; when he didn't respond, she continued, "Well, he's not really dead, is he? There's not much point in going to a memorial service for someone who isn't dead."

"And when he stands up and tells everyone he isn't dead, that service will turn into a bedlam," Ron pointed out. "Harry's going to need our support more than ever. He needs his friends beside him."

"What friends?" snorted Hermione.

"Me, for one," Ron shot back. "And you, I should hope. Or are you telling me you went halfway 'round the world to find him because you're not his friend?"

"Well, I thought I was," Hermione returned volley. "But evidently I'm just a useful acquaintance of his. Good for digging through libraries, but not trusted to -"

"Halfway 'round the world," Ron interrupted loudly, "on the off chance he might still be alive. And he'd've done the same for you, Hermione, and you know it."

"That's just it, Ron," snapped Hermione. "I don't know it, not anymore. Not after what he did to me..."

"I'm not saying that wasn't bad," replied Ron, "but it was, y'know, understandable. This is Harry we're talking about, after all. He's proven loads of times, he'd do anything to save your life. Even lie to you. Even die for you, Hermione." He caught her eye and held it. "And you'd've done the same for him, and you know that too."

"Well, I wouldn't have..." Hermione began, and then trailed off uncertainly.

Ginny jumped into the lull. "Yes, well, he didn't die, did he?" she said acidly. "We only thought he died..."

"It wasn't from lack of opportunity, Ginny," Ron told her. "He fully expected You-Know-Who to kill him. And from what Harry told me tonight after you left... well, it looks like You-Know-Who did kill him." Ron shook his head as Ginny began to object. "I know what he said earlier, Gin, but this is the truth. Harry died at Druid's Dolmen."

"Then how is he alive now?"

"He doesn't know, or at least couldn't give me any details. 'Course, he may just be mistaken, and only thought he died." Ron smiled as the barb sank home. Ginny's scowl lost some of its force.

"Even so," said Hermione after an awkward pause, "even so, that doesn't excuse his treatment of me - of us. Of all of us, Ron, including you."

"Yeah, I know. I was pretty damn mad. I've just finished reaming Harry up one side and down the other," Ron admitted. "But believe it or not, Hermione, he feels worse about tricking us than he did about facing You-Know-Who. He apologized to me... and he'd apologize to you too, if you'd only let him."

"I can't believe you're taking his side, Ron!" exploded Ginny angrily. "Hermione's your friend too, and I'm your sister - don't we count for anything? He treated us like... like... Bloody hell! Ten years we've stood with him, and then he ditched us! Why are you defending him?!"

"Well, it's not like he's going to defend himself, Gin," Ron said with his first sign of impatience. "You know Harry, he does guilt better than anybody. He'll accept any penance you give him. Look at that face slap tonight... which was pretty impressive, by the way."

"He deserved that!"

"He thinks so too! Ginny, you git, he's got the fastest Seeker reflexes anyone's ever seen, and years of Auror training on top of that. Did you really think you could lay a finger on him if he didn't let you?" Ron let his words sink in, then added softly, "He didn't even try to block your blow, sister mine. He knows he deserved it."

Ginny looked at the floor and picked at some of the threads in the rug. Her expression was almost empty now, her scowl gone. For the moment, her anger appeared to have run out of steam. She didn't continue the argument, but it was clear that she wasn't yet in a forgiving mood.

"Um... it's getting very late," said Hermione into the silence. "We'll all feel better for some sleep."

"One last point," said Ron. "Just a reminder, really, 'cause you already know this. You-Know-Who..." He stopped, then gritted his teeth and forced himself to start again. "VVVoldemort is gone. And it was Harry who defeated him. He's singlehandedly kept our entire world intact... saved how many lives?" Ron sighed. "And we've all been on his case tonight because we don't like the way he did it. Maybe, just maybe, could we cut him some slack? That's all I'm saying."

Hermione nodded; Ginny gave no sign of having listened. Ron's eyes flicked from Hermione to Ginny. "Well, uh... well, I hope I'll see you both tomorrow. I'm for bed. G'night."

With a small pop, Ron's head disappeared from the fireplace. Hermione got stiffly to her feet. Waist-high Floo fires, she thought irrelevantly, is that so much to ask? After hundreds of years, you'd think wizards' knees would hurt enough to start putting Floo fires at eye level.

"He just doesn't get it, does he?" asked Ginny bitterly.

"No, he doesn't," Hermione replied. "Would that be because he's your brother, because he's Harry's best friend, or simply because he's male?"

"Pfft. All of the above."

"Or maybe it's because he's a chess player." Hermione slowly rotated her head, hoping to ease the stiffness in her neck. She was starting to feel very tired... but she couldn't go home to bed just yet.

Ginny paused in her examination of the rug. She raised her head slightly but didn't quite meet her friend's gaze. "Come again?"

"You know. Someone used to dealing with gambits. Someone willing to sacrifice a knight if it means capturing the king." Hermione spoke slowly, as if thinking aloud. "Maybe he reckons... if he'd been in Harry's place... he might've done the same."

"We aren't chess pieces! We're real people, with real feelings." Ginny stood and dusted her knees, still avoiding Hermione's gaze. "Feelings that can be hurt."

"Yes, as ours were. I don't think I've ever been so crushed as when Harry told how he'd manipulated us. He didn't used to be that way." Hermione pursed her lips in recollection. "I mean... all right, Harry's always tended to keep things to himself - he's done that since we've first known him. At worst he'd tell little fibs, like he did with the golden egg. But deception on a scale like this, as part of a grand scheme..." How very Slytherin of him, Hermione concluded silently.

"Ron just doesn't see how much it hurt us," Ginny continued. "Or he wouldn't defend him like that..."

"Well, to be fair, Ron would probably say we weren't really hurt. After all, we're alive, and physically undamaged..."

"Now you're doing it! Making excuses for him!"

"I just like to see both sides of a question."

"What 'both'?! You know how he hurt us - and it was a lot worse than any physical hurt." Tears began to well in Ginny's eyes, but she finally faced Hermione resolutely as she continued, "We weren't good enough to stand by his side. He sent us away - didn't let us come with him, it amounts to the same thing - because only he was capable. We were... we were just parts of the plan... but in the end, we weren't part of his life." She wiped her eyes. "Just... just not on his level, were we?"

Hermione rubbed her brow wearily. She saw Ginny's point - and felt Ginny's pain, for it was the very pain she herself felt. Oh, she was sorely tempted to Apparate to Ron's living room that instant, to relieve her ache in a face-to-face confrontation...

And yet (said an impartial voice in the back of her mind), that point simply didn't square with Harry's attitude for many years: respect for her abilities, pride in her accomplishments. He'd said so, time and again, to her and to others - Merlin, it was his defense of her that caused his break-up with Cho Chang! And since they'd left Hogwarts, she'd been an increasingly welcome part of his life. Somehow, Hermione didn't think Harry was a good enough actor to have fooled her for all this time.

"I work alongside some brilliant scholars," Hermione said slowly. "Good men, most of them... they'd never intentionally hurt anyone. But sometimes, it seems they only see a cute little girl when they look at me - I swear, Patterson almost patted me on the head once! It took years before they accepted me as a scholar like themselves - and I suspect they still don't regard me as their equal." Even though I found the bloody cache.

"Some of that may be simply because I'm so much younger than they," she added, determined to be fair. "But being younger and female is a double-strike against me: I can't possibly be as capable as they. So I know exactly what you're talking about, Ginny - Harry's shoving us aside like he did was an insult to our dignity."

Ginny nodded vigorously at this new interpretation. "Our pride."

"Our self-esteem." Hermione allowed only a trace of irony to show in her voice. "Our feelings were hurt. Our egos were bruised." She put her finger to her temple as though she'd just remembered something. "And, oh yeah, our world was saved."

With an expression torn between surprise and a sulk, Ginny sat down heavily in her comfy-chair. She remained silent for a minute. "When you say it like that," she begrudged, "you make it sound so petty."

"No," Hermione shook her head, "not petty, not at all. We were hurt. I was merely putting it in perspective." She hesitated, then plunged ahead, "I suspect Harry's insinuations about your 'purity' added to the hurt."

"Frankly, I'm surprised you weren't tearing his head off about that, too."

"Oh, Harry expressed himself with the utmost delicacy, I assure you," Hermione said gravely, but with one eyebrow arched. "He managed to maneuver Ron and your father so they'd have to ask you about the men in your life. Which they never would..."

Ginny snorted at the thought. "No, they never would." She returned Hermione's arch look with one of her own.

"I'm not, either," Hermione added hastily.

Ginny nodded, satisfied. "Just for the record," she said with a note of finality, "and not that it's anybody's business, but if anybody'd had the stones to ask me, I could've told him I've never... well, just take it that I could've gone to the Dolmen with him."

"Your secret's safe with me," said Hermione dryly. "Beside, I suspect Harry would've found another reason he had to go alone. Another lie to try to save our lives." She grimaced. "Damn. I cannot tell you how much I loathe admitting Ron's right, but..."

"I'm all too familiar with the feeling. But he wasn't right, so what's the problem?"

"He was right on one point. What he said about me, a minute ago? He was right." She shook her head. "I would have lied to Harry if it were the only way to save his life. In fairness, how can I hate him for doing what I'd've done?" She rubbed the back of her neck, winced, and added, "Of course, that still doesn't make it right..."

Ginny didn't reply directly. Instead, she patted the floor directly in front of her chair. Hermione accepted the invitation and sat on the floor, her legs crossed, her back to her friend. Ginny began to knead the muscles in Hermione's neck and shoulders. "Thank you," gasped Hermione. "Owwww."

"Any time," said Ginny gently. No more words were said for another few moments as Ginny continued to massage.

"I believe I recall forgiving you for using an Unforgivable Curse," she said after a pause.

"So you did," agreed Hermione. She didn't pursue the point, but let Ginny draw her own conclusions.

"So," Ginny continued, as she ran her thumbs down Hermione's spine, "so... you'll forgive him? Just like that?"

Hermione sighed. "Say rather, I'll give him the chance to apologize. My forgiveness he'll have to earn."

Ginny sat up straighter. "'Earn.' You mean - we get to make Harry beg?" It was the first time she'd spoken Harry's name since returning to the Burrow. Even without looking at her, Hermione could imagine the evil smile playing on Ginny's face.

The corner of Hermione's mouth quirked. "Well, you have to admit - we're in one hell of a bargaining position."

*

Two things would normally have conspired to keep Ron in bed until an advanced hour on Saturday morning. First, the fact that he'd had a late, exhausting night. Second, the fact that Ron wasn't by any stretch of the imagination a morning person.

But he'd barely opened his eyes when the events of the previous evening came crashing unbidden into his mind: Harry's memorial service at noon. Dumbledore coming at Ron's request, to see why Ron wanted to change Harry's memorial service. And of course, Ron's reason: Harry alive and asleep on Ron's sofa.

With a martyred groan, Ron rolled out of his bed and stood up. He showered and dressed more quickly than usual. ("I really don't think that color of shirt looks good on you, dear," his mirror tried to tell him. Of course, it tried to tell him that every morning, and Ron always ignored it.)

Leaving his bedroom, he discovered Harry still lying on the sofa with an open book on his chest. Apparently he'd awakened in the wee hours of the morning, started to read one of Ron's books, and fallen back asleep again.

"Hey," said Ron, and nudged Harry's foot. He kept his expression carefully neutral.

Harry's eyes snapped open and tried to focus. He reached down to the floor, recovered his glasses, and put them on. "Hey yourself," he said cautiously. His hair was even messier than usual, his complexion pale, his cheeks gaunt. There were dark smudges beneath his eyes. Harry might have slept soundly, but he hardly looked rested.

"At the risk of sounding like a cliché," said Ron, "you look like death warmed over."

"Ah, humor," Harry replied. "How I miss it." He ventured a small smile, and Ron returned it.

"Listen, Dumbledore will be here soon to take you to Hogwarts," Ron continued. "You might want to make yourself presentable before he shows up."

Harry nodded agreement. "At the very least, I want to get out of this stupid hospital gown."

"Oh, I don't know," Ron said lightly. "I think it shows your legs to advantage."

"Fine. Let's see you wear it." Harry sat up tentatively. Whoof, he thought, I'm still a little groggy. He lost his smile as he took a breath and returned to a previous topic.

"Um, listen Ron, about what I said last night... you know, about dying and everything? Could I ask you to, well, keep that to yourself? I know I haven't any right to ask you for anything, but, um..." He faltered, unsure how to proceed without more of a sign from Ron... whom Harry hoped was still his friend.

"But it'll be bad enough facing everyone if they've only think you've survived, without them thinking you've been resurrected?" Ron finished.

"Something like that, yeah."

Ron made a show of reluctance. "Well, all right... but you're going to disappoint Trelawney."

Now Ron was grinning fully.

Harry couldn't help laughing. Ron was grinning - Ron was joking with him! It was as though a cold steel clamp had been loosened, just a bit, from around his chest.

"She was always expecting me to drop dead, wasn't she? Poor woman..." He stood and stretched his arms overhead, then relaxed. "I'll go shower and dress, then. Are you... will you be coming with us to Hogwarts?"

"No, you and Dumbledore should go on ahead without me," said Ron. "I reckon you'll have things to discuss. M'family's gathering here - I'll stay here to meet them. Once they've all arrived, we'll tell the family about your return. I don't think Mum will've told anyone about you yet - maybe Dad, but no one else."

Ron looked Harry in the face, his expression now serious, and answered the question Harry had really wanted to ask. "Once that's done, we'll come to Hogwarts so we can be with you there. All of us. I'll make sure of it."

Awash with gratitude, Harry tried to reply, but somehow the words wouldn't come out of his mouth. Instead he held out his hand, as did Ron... they didn't shake hands, but grasped one another's forearms in a firm grip for a long minute. They held on strongly as they looked at one another with sober faces - brothers again in all but blood.

"But the Thousandth Man will stand by your side to the gallows-foot - and after," Harry finally murmured.

Ron blinked. "Beg pardon?"

Harry gave a nod towards the open book that had fallen from his chest to the floor. "Something I read last night... from your book of Muggle poetry. Kipling said it a lot better than I could." He released his grip on Ron's arm. "All I can say is... thank you." He took a few gingerly steps and headed for the shower.

Ron watched him go, the grin returning to his face. He had a feeling it would be there for a while. This morning, he didn't mind.