Dream Chasing

Dream Chasing

Chapter 8: Reunions - and Introductions

A brilliant sun blazed down on the picture-perfect beach in a fantasy island, watching two young girls walking swiftly, unheeding of the heat emanating from the powdery sand. One of the girls, somewhat stocky, round-faced and rosy-cheeked but with an instantly arresting face, was muttering and mumbling continuously under her breath - regrets, remorse and recriminations pouring out a mile a minute, while her slim, oval-faced companion walked quietly beside her, shifting the bag of books she carried from shoulder to shoulder, wondering whether to let her long, black hair hang loose or keep it in the ponytail she was wearing when they woke up in this place - wherever it was.

"I don't believe it! Me and my big mouth ... why, oh why did I have to barge in like that? I was so happy to see the place ... I just knew that they'd be there. It's embarrassing! Why, why ... I can't stand it! They'll kill me ... they'll throw me into a pit so deep only the worms will know where I am ... what were they thinking? What were they doing?"

"They were making love," Carolyn replied in a straightforward, no nonsense voice - and Cindy stopped to glare at her best friend, classmate and fellow Gryffindor. Before a sound could escape Cindy's throat, Carolyn continued in the same tone: "And they're doing it very badly."

"Ca!" Cindy's jaw didn't just drop at the quietly positive observation coming from her eleven-year old friend - it positively waggled. Her eyes were round as she stared at her Muggle-born friend and wondered whether the statement was a judgment call - or coming from hard-won experience. She could remember Carolyn and the other Muggle-borns in her year snickering about something they called "sex education" - and wondered whether that subject included live demonstrations.

A musical sound broke through her bewildered mind and she blinked at a bent over and laughing Carolyn, ponytail undone and her long, thick hair swinging in the breeze, pointing at her and gasping, "That was a joke, you ninny! You don't honestly think-- "

Cindy blinked again, and remembered Carolyn's lapses into Muggle humor -- telling them about the three French brothers who'd happened on the farm boy and a village wench in a barn ... and her glare was back in place as she stuttered, "You ... you ... Arrrgggh!"

She lunged at her laughing friend, who easily evaded her and stepped back a few paces - and quickly stuck out her tongue. Before she could say anything, Carolyn was on the run, moving as gracefully as a gazelle towards a grove of coconut trees down the beach - and Cindy finally understood what Carolyn meant about running track.

But that didn't mean that she could get away, she thought - and she was after her friend in a flash. She can run all she wants, the young girl thought, but I will have my revenge for that joke!

She quickly overcame the gap, a few more seconds and she'd be at Ca's heels. She was about to lunge and tackle her friend when the latter suddenly skidded to a halt with a loud "Eeeek!" - and Cindy slammed into her back, causing the two of them to fall face down into the soft sand of the beach.

Cindy felt the wind knocked out of her, and quickly rolled off her best friend - and caught sight of two adults jumping apart from whatever they had been doing (and Ca's cry of surprise told her what it was that they had nearly barged into) - and the thought blew through her mind: "What is it about this place?"

She struggled to sit and felt herself being helped up by a thin man in glasses and rather untidy hair, wearing a floral patterned shirt, shorts and beach sandals. As she shakily stood up, she saw Carolyn being assisted by a very pretty woman with dark red hair, in a red and gold swimsuit, a sarong wrapped around her slim waist and, for a moment, wondered what a Weasley relative was doing here of all places.

"Are you all right?" the man helping her up said. "I'm sorry, we didn't mean to frighten your friend...."

Cindy didn't respond immediately as she noticed the red-haired lady staring at Carolyn with something approaching recognition, but the moment faded when the lady turned to look at her - and Cindy felt herself staring into startlingly green eyes that somehow seemed familiar....

Carolyn, however, must have seen the same thing: she was looking at the lady who was holding her up with a puzzled frown - turned to look at Cindy and saw the man staring at her with the same seeming recognition on his face and her frown deepened.

Cindy gave a small cough as she stepped closer to Carolyn and the seeming trance of the two strangers was broken. The man and the woman looked at each other and shrugged their shoulders, shaking their heads at the same time, and the latter said, "I'm sorry ... it's just that you reminded me of someone I - we -- knew a long time ago."

"Your mother wouldn't happen to be a Hogwarts alum, would she?" the black-haired man asked with a winning smile.

Carolyn shook her head and replied in her soft voice, "No, sir ... she's a Muggle." She glanced up at the two adults, biting her lip at the same time, an action which the lady noticed, and she quickly reassured the young girl: "Oh, don't worry about that, my dear. There's no shame in being Muggle-born; after all, it's the choices we make, rather than our abilities, that make us what we are."

The two girls smiled at the adults, as the lady continued, "As my husband said, our apologies for frightening you. We, uhm, just didn't expect anyone on the island ..."

"Yeah," the man said with a wide grin, "and the palm trees were simply irresistible as a snog--"

The lady's glare was a sight to behold - and the two young girls giggled as they wondered whether the lady was related to either Minerva McGonagall or Hermione Granger (or probably both -- a thought that sent shivers down their spines). Her husband apparently thought the same thing: with a visible shudder, he said in a plaintive voice, "Will you quit that? I've had seven years of Minerva giving me THAT look ..."

The pretty woman broke off and gave a surreptitious wink at Cindy and Carolyn, to which the two responded with a smile that only women could ever understand. The three turned to the black-haired man as he asked, "I wonder if you could help us ..."

The two girls were about to explain that they were also strangers in the place but were interrupted by the woman's eager voice, "We were wondering if you would know if Harry Potter is around here somewhere?"

The look of shock and surprise must have been obvious, because her husband quickly cut in, "Is something wrong?"

Cindy started to answer, "Oh, no sir, nothing's wrong. It's just that ... ah, they're uhm-"

"Cindy!" The girl quickly clamped a hand to her mouth in dismay, but the adults had quickly picked up on what she was about to say.

"They?" the red-haired woman said, a wide smile breaking out on her face - a smile matched only by the gleeful expression on her husband's face, and repeated her question, "They?"

The two girls looked at each other and shrugged; the faux pas had been made, and there was no way they could take back the words - they could only hope that their mentors were decent by now. With a small sigh at Cindy's big mouth, Carolyn replied, "Miss Hermione's with Sir Harry, ma'am. They're at the bungalow down there ..." waving her hand in the direction they had come from.

The gleeful expression on the man's face seemed to double or even triple, if that were possible - and was matched only by the wide, wide smile on his wife's face. With a sudden grab of her arm, the man was hurrying her down the beach, leaving the two young girls gaping in surprise.

His wife seemed reluctant to follow and she glanced back at the two girls, apparently intent on waving a good-bye or to say 'thanks,' but was stopped by her husband's eager, laughing voice, "Let's go ... I want to see if Harry needs any instructions in snog-"

"Oh, you!" she said, slapping her husband on the arm - but Cindy and Carolyn couldn't help but notice that she seemed to be as eager as the other in hurrying down the beach - looking for all the world like teens out for a major prank on their unsuspecting mentors. They glanced at each other and shrugged resignedly.

With a sigh, Carolyn set down her bag on a sandy spot beneath a coconut tree and leaned back on the tree, staring out at the vista of blue water and sky that surrounded her. Cindy quietly walked up beside her and asked in a bemused voice - "What is it about this place?"

"Huh?"

"Everyone we've encountered so far seems to be snogging ..." Cindy's smile suddenly turned into an evil grin at Carolyn's confused look. "And since you're the only one left ..."

Laughter pealed out on the deserted beach as the long-haired girl jumped back, stumbled - and fell on her behind, a look of pure horror on her face as she stared at her friend. Cindy's laughter stopped for a second as she stuck out her tongue at her friend and said, "Gotcha!" before diving after Carolyn, intent on tickling her friend to death for having gotten one over on her earlier.

* * *

The bungalow was quiet except for the insistent tapping of slim knuckles on a door - and the sound of a shower running.

"Harry? Harry - are you all right?" A rising tide of panic was engulfing Hermione and she fought back the urge to rattle the door knob, to see if the door to Harry's bathroom would open and she could check with her own eyes that her best friend was all right.

She'd been standing on the veranda for what seemed like hours, fighting down the embarrassment and fright that threatened to erupt from her throat every time she remembered what had almost taken place in her bedroom. She didn't know exactly what to do ... but she knew that they had to talk.

They had to clear the air between them.

They had to reach an understanding of whatever it was that had driven them to that point - whether hormones, the stimulating breeze of this island, the alcohol they had consumed the night before ...

Or whether their bodies were telling them something that their minds refused to admit.

She'd glanced at her watch and gasped - Harry had been in his room with the water running for far too long, and a rising tide of panic started coursing through her.

'What is he trying to do? Drown himself?' At that thought, she ran for his bathroom door and started knocking ... and now, with only the sound of the shower within, she started pounding on the door in a panic, rattling the door knob in her fear and fright ... and stopped when she heard Harry's voice through the door.

"Hermione?" She expelled a sigh at the sound of his voice and leaned her head on the door as relief passed through her - and nearly fell on her face as the door opened and she felt strong arms wrapping around her, stopping her fall. Impulsively, she wrapped her arms around her friend to stop herself falling ... feeling him stagger back but quickly regaining his balance and holding her tightly.

For a long moment they stood there - arms around each other; Harry feeling the loud thumping of her heart as she kept her arms tight around him; felt her squeezing him as her head with its bushy mop of still-wet hair rested on his chest, murmuring softly to her, "It's all right, Hermione ... it's all right."

She could feel herself rambling, mumbling as she held her best friend tight, chastising him for taking so long in the shower that she thought that something had happened to him, seeking comfort in the arms around her, unheeding that her shirt was getting wet from the water on his chest and the arms around her back ... all that was on her mind was that Harry was safe, that nothing had happened to him, that he wasn't trying to drown himself--

She felt his hands on her shoulders, pushing her back and she let go of him ... trying to turn away from him in sudden embarrassment at her rampaging emotions and churning fears, but she felt his hands cupping her face, gently forcing her to look up - and her eyes met his, concerned, fearful ... frightened even, at the sudden surge of emotions that she had displayed.

"What's wrong, Hermione?"

The soft and gentle words brought another surge of emotion welling up in her and she simply flung her arms around him again, leaning her face into his chest and mumbling, "Nothing ... nothing. I'm such a girl."

"I know you are, Hermione."

The words were innocuous - but they froze, hidden meanings and deeper thoughts suddenly rising to the surface as they held each other - and the shadows of what had happened earlier in her room fell over them.

"I think we should talk," she mumbled, her face still pressed against his chest.

"I think so," he agreed, through lips pressing on her hair.

But they didn't make a move - they continued holding each other quietly, tightly, unwilling to break the circle of their arms, reluctant to break the quiet moment of companionship ... both unwilling to discuss the dimensions of something that they both knew they were more than willing to fall into--

And Hermione knew that she didn't need to "fall into" whatever it was that had almost happened. In that mad, insane instant before his lips touched hers, she knew that she was more than willing to leap into the flames ... more than ready to immolate herself in the fire of her emotions for her best friend.

How and why, she would never understand.

And she knew as she stood there with her arms around him, that she would never care or even ask - all that she knew was that there was no place on earth that she would rather be, than to be here in the arms of her best friend.

She felt him moving away again, murmuring "Let me dry off and get dressed, Hermione" - and realized that he must have jumped out of the shower at her insistent - panicked - pounding.

And, with a sudden flush, she also realized that she had been embracing her wet-from-the-shower friend - who was wearing nothing but a towel around his waist.

Merlin.

From the blush that she could see covering his chest, she knew that he knew - had just realized, as she had - that he'd been standing, hugging, embracing, and talking with his best friend (his best female friend, at that!) wearing nothing more than a towel ... which was threatening to fall off after all the hugging and close contact with Hermione.

Meep.

What the hell was happening here? He knew that he was flushing but somehow, somewhere in the reaches of what he thought of as his logical mind, something was telling him that he was not blushing at what was happening, that he was flushed from ...

Let's not go there, he thought, slamming down the hatch on the part of his mind that led to the gutter. This is Hermione we're talking about here ... Hermione Granger, best friend, constant companion, classmate and Housemate through all of his five years at Hogwarts, the person he looked forward to seeing first thing in the morning - and the last person he wanted to look at before he or she went up to their respective dormitories ... the one I would want to wake up to in the morning, and the one I would want to fall asleep with in the night ...

And where the hell did that come from?

But as soon as the thought popped into his mind, he realized the bare - or naked -- truth behind those words.

There was no one in the world he would rather have at his side than this bushy-haired, bossy, know-it-all companion of his five years at Hogwarts. When she had become so important to him, he didn't know - was it in first year when she was wheedling him to have even a bit of toast as he quivered with nerves before his first Quidditch game?

Or was it in second year in the Hospital Wing when Dobby was trying to convince him to go home -- and he had reacted in fury, because one of his best friends was Muggle-born and that she would be first in line if the Chamber of Secrets had been opened and he couldn't leave her behind?

Maybe it was in third year when they met up in Diagon Alley and she was scolding him for blowing up his aunt, telling him that he would have gotten in trouble for that - and he realized that she was really concerned for him and was not angry about rules being broken?

Or could it be fourth year when the Dark Mark bloomed in the sky and she grabbed his arm and was literally dragging him away from the site they were resting in, moaning in fear but again with his welfare uppermost in her mind?

There were a hundred, maybe a thousand, incidents like that throughout his life at Hogwarts -- and in all of them, Hermione was a constant feature. She was with him in all his major adventures - but what always came to mind whenever he remembered her were all the small incidents of their daily lives at Hogwarts: the small episodes and occasions that wove together into a tapestry of mutual support and understanding, of something deeper than friendship working its magic between them.

All that he knew was that this was where he belonged, this was where he would have wanted to be - safe in the circle of Hermione's arms. And he couldn't care less if he was clothed and she was unclothed: at this point and at this moment, there was nothing more that he wanted to be, but to feel her arms around him while he comforted her, soothed her fears, and held her warm body in his arms.

His swirling thoughts and emotions were suddenly cut as if a guillotine had crashed down on his mind - and his eyes suddenly focused on those oh-so-familiar brown eyes of his best friend, and a tiny spark of worry and concern lit up in the depths of his mind as he saw a sudden twinkle or a glint of laughter in her eyes and he knew, he knew that there was something suddenly naughty and mischievous that had gotten hold of her ... and his hands were already on the way to the towel around his waist but he was late ...

He was too late.

With a sudden move, she grabbed the towel from around his waist and, before he could even react, she was already on the run out of his room, her musical laughter filling his senses and his mind, leaving him for just a split second with his mouth open before he leaped after her with a mock-scream of outrage, pausing only momentarily to grab a pair of trunks from his bed where he'd laid it out - and rushing out the door of his room without a thought to his condition when he heard a cry of surprise from his best friend.

He ran out the door in a rush, only to slam into Hermione's back as she stood there frozen and shocked; it was sheer luck, however, that his momentum had not built up to the point that they would have gone sprawling on the floor like a couple of ten pins - as it was, he'd almost toppled himself and Hermione over but his Seeker's instincts and physical coordination stopped him from doing so.

He flung his arms around Hermione to stop her from falling - and looked into the shocked faces and gaping mouths of the two adults who were standing in the living room - two people whose faces and features were so familiar to him, after hours and hours of looking at their photographs and staring for nights on end in front of the mirror of Erised, etching their faces into his memory ...

"Mum?" he croaked. "Dad?"

* * *

The sun was well on its way to its zenith and continued to stare down impassively on the picture-perfect beach below, where a solitary figure in a bikini and a large T-shirt worn as a caftan was striding purposefully towards a grove of coconut trees.

Her mind was in turmoil, roiling between sheer joy at the reunion she had witnessed and utter and complete embarrassment at running into Harry's parents inside the bungalow, his towel in her hands, hearing him running up behind her and knowing, knowing that the stupid git would have rushed out at her cry of surprise without even thinking of pulling up his knickers -

She didn't know, the moment she felt him slam into her back, whether to throw the towel over her face, or use it to cover the shocked faces of Lily and James Potter as they stared at the tableau before them: Hermione Granger in her bikini and wet T-shirt, with their one and only Harry James Potter in his wet, wet birthday suit with his arms around her - for all the world looking as if she'd just come from the shower where she'd been scrubbing his back!

A wave of mortification coursed through her body and she almost fell on her knees ... wanting to do nothing more but to burrow into the powdery sand of the beach and bury herself where no one would find her for a hundred years, by which time the absolute shame she was going through should have dissipated, and James and Lily would be able to hear the name Hermione without malice ...

On the other hand, she thought, they didn't know Hermione Granger from Eve ... and she wondered whether she could get away with calling herself Ginny Weasley, maybe Cho Chang or even Pansy Parkinson for that matter.

But even as the thought came to her mind, she threw it away - what was there to be embarrassed about? Why should she be ashamed of her love for her best friend? That he happened to be famous Harry Potter was incidental - she'd been with him through almost everything that life and Voldemort had thrown at him ever since he'd stepped into the magical world. So why should she be ashamed of being caught with him on this picture-perfect fantasy island where all they had done was dance, and swim, and hug, and kiss ...

She was so engrossed in her thoughts that she didn't hear someone squealing her name in delight, didn't see two young girls running towards her, didn't realize until they had slammed into her in a many-armed hug - one of them chattering away questions and apologies like a rapid-firing machine gun - and the thought passed through her mind as she hugged and embraced the two young girls that she and Harry often thought of as their younger siblings that at least, someone on the beach loved her.

* * *

"Dad."

There was a hint of steel and the edge of a warning barely controlled in his voice - a tone that made James Potter step back from his son in surprise, and made Lily Potter raise an eyebrow in inquiry.

It had been a joyous reunion for the sundered Potter family. Harry had taken full advantage of his parents' momentary shock and surprise to unobtrusively slip on the swimming trunks that he'd fortuitously grabbed on his way out of his bedroom, hoping that they wouldn't notice that he'd been holding it in his hands just a moment before. The moment he'd slipped it on, he'd jumped on his parents with arms outstretched in a hug that had been denied him for years ...

The only other time he'd seen them like this - whole and seemingly unharmed - was in a graveyard in Little Hangleron, surrounded by a dome of golden light and with the song of the phoenix reverberating in his ears as he was locked in a deadly duel with Voldemort.

The memories of that night assailed him - Cedric Diggory's body on the grass, eyes wide open and staring up at the sky, the golden beam of light connecting his wand and Voldemort's, the tiny bead of light that he had forced back into Voldemort's wand through sheer willpower ... the screams of pain emanating from the wand and, soon after, they had appeared: Cedric, an old man that he had seen only in a dream, the shade of Bertha Jorkins that he had seen in Dumbledore's Pensieve, followed by his mother and lastly, by his father ...

He knew that they were remembering that night as well as he did as he felt their trembling arms around him, as he heard his mother's softly murmured "Harry, oh Harry!" and his father's barely suppressed sniffles--

And perhaps even more as his mind replayed again the voices of his mum and dad that fateful night in Godric's Hollow - the voices and the green light that he would remember every time a Dementor got near.

He didn't know or even notice that Hermione had quietly slipped away from that many-armed embrace, but it was the thought of her and his wish to introduce her properly to his parents that made him break away from them and look around frantically for her.

"So who's the little crumpet, Harry?" James Potter said in a light, teasing voice - but it was that very tone that had suddenly set Harry's teeth on edge and he'd reacted, saying "Dad" in a voice so venomous and deadly, his green eyes taking on a such dangerous glint that his own father stepped back in surprise and sudden fear.

It was his mother's warm hand on his shoulder and her soft voice saying his name that made him break off his glare - but he didn't get a chance to apologize because his father suddenly wrapped his arms around him in a ferocious hug that rivaled Molly Weasley's rib-breaking embraces or Sirius Black's bear hugs.

"I'm sorry, son," James Potter said in a voice full of apology and shame. "Lord knows, I should have learned when to keep my big mouth shut after all this years!"

He felt his mother's hand on his shoulder and heard her soft but amused voice saying, "That's your father for you, Harry; you'd think that after seven years of Minerva McGonagall staring him down that he'd learned his lesson! But no, oh no! Trust a Potter not to learn something as common as manners!"

His father broke off his hug to step back and stick his tongue out at his mother: "That's why you love me so much, Lily."

Harry glanced at his mother in time to see her rolling her eyes, "Some things never change - still as egotistical as ever."

"Notice something, son? She doesn't refute my statement; in fact, she's trying to divert attention away from it."

"Which means?" Lily Potter said, eyebrows rising towards the ceiling.

"That you still love me, in spite of everything," her husband said, a devil-may-care smile on his face.

"Sometimes I wonder why," Lily countered. A decidedly evil glint sparked in her eyes, "Are you sure you didn't whip up a batch of Love Potions during your detentions with Severus?"

"Love potions? What would that slimy git know of love?"

"Oh, I don't know, James ... but who knows? The way he was making moony eyes at you all the time ..."

"Ewww!" Lily smiled at her husband and son, reflecting for a brief moment how much they sounded alike. Her smile faltered, however, as she looked at Harry and caught a palpable sense of gloom emanating from him -- and she quietly cursed, once again, the dice that Fate had rolled their way ...

Harry had been watching his bantering parents with a smile, enjoying their interaction and the thrust and parry of their wit, and wondering whether Hermione and himself acted that way -- and his smile faded.

Have we ever acted that way, he wondered? His mind raced back over the years and he sighed to himself. It seemed that there had been precious little in the way of laughter over the years -- and he felt his face suddenly burn in mortification as he remembered his thoughts back in fourth year: 'There was much less laughter, and more fun in the library when Hermione was your friend ..."

Which was true, he reflected. Although there were moments of hilarity that stood out -- especially the time when Moody/Crouch turned Malfoy into the Amazing Bouncing Ferret -- those often seemed to be few and far between. At the moment, it seemed that there had been far more moments of laughter packed into the few days they'd spent on this fantasy beach than all the time they'd spent together in the real world ....

And he once again thanked whatever fortuitous bit of luck, magic or love that had sent him and his best friend here.

"Harry? Is there something wrong?" He blinked and stared, for a moment wondering when Hermione's eyes had turned green -- and he blinked again, realizing that the eyes which had been looking at him with that on-so-familiar look of love and concern were the eyes of his mother, not those of his best friend.

He shook his head and smiled at her, willing himself into a jovial mood, but cursed himself as he heard his mouth running away from him: "It's nothing, Mum ... I was just wondering where Hermione went."

"She's probably hiding her head in the sand."

"Dad!" But this time, Harry's glare simply bounced off his irrepressible father, who continued in a teasing, bantering tone, "Well, what else would you expect, Harry? You probably embarrassed the poor girl to death, running out here in your birthday suit ..."

"Dad!" He couldn't stop his face from turning the shade of his mother's hair and tried to say something, but could only open and close his mouth like a fresh-caught fish on the beach. It didn't help that his mother started giggling and he couldn't stop himself feeling as if he wanted to rush out and join Hermione wherever she was, burying her head in the sand of this picture perfect beach.

"Is there anything we should know about her, Harry?" Lily Potter asked, her eyebrows wiggling suggestively, a broad grin now breaking out on her beautiful face.

Green eyes met green in a silent conversation ... and from somewhere deep within him, he heard his voice answering her in a soft, confiding tone: "I love her, Mum."