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Author: Mistral Story: Just Plain Harry Rating: Teens Setting: Pre-OotP Status: Completed Reviews: 3 Words: 143,689
The next couple of days passed uneventfully at the Burrow. Harry and Ron played Quidditch, Ron and Hermione fought, and they all studied a little. Hermione studied more, of course, but she was able to convince Harry and Ron to do a little work. "Think of all the extra work we're going to have this year, with the Auror training and the extra classes! Not to mention that we take the O.W.L.s at the end of the year. You don't want to fall behind before we even get there." Harry groaned, and Ron called her crazy, but she had a point, so they did study some. But they also played lots of Quidditch and chess, and just plain talked. It was the most fun Harry had had in a long time, and he tried to enjoy every second of it. One evening, the whole family - plus Harry and Hermione, but minus Ginny - was sitting around the dinner table, teasing Fred. Mrs. Weasley was planning a huge dinner for the last night before they all left for Hogwarts, and Fred had invited Angelina Johnson. Harry, Ron and Hermione couldn't stop teasing him about it, though they liked Angelina. Everyone did; she was a chaser on the Gryffindor Quidditch team, really smart, and loads of fun. Just the thought of Fred with a girlfriend, though, kept them snickering throughout the meal. Everyone stopped laughing, though, when a huge black dog bounded into the room, put its paws on Harry's chair, and growled at him. Pandemonium ensued, but that was nothing to what happened when the dog disappeared with a pop, and Sirius Black stood there, glaring at Harry. Fred and George lept to their feet and pulled out their wands, Percy gave a huge yell, Mrs. Weasley gave a little shriek before she could muffle it, and even Ron and Hermione looked stunned. They had no idea why Sirius would act like that. Harry did, though, so it was no surprise when Sirius began to yell at him. "How could you not tell me, what were you thinking? You told Dumbledore - did you think I wouldn't want to know? I want to know everything about you, Harry, and especially when your scar hurts and you have dreams like that! Gods, Harry, how am I supposed to help you if you hold out on me?" Harry just sat there, opening and closing his mouth, not sure what to say. Mr. Weasley, though, tried to calm Sirius down. "It's okay, Sirius, he's okay, we're all okay. You were in the field, maybe Harry couldn't get an owl to you-" "And you!" Sirius yelled, turning on Mr. Weasley. "You knew - and you didn't tell me! Some friends I've got. Don't you realize what this means?" Before Mr. Weasley could answer, though, Harry jumped up out of his chair and turned on him. "You knew? You knew and you let Ginny go to those Muggles with no protection? How could you? I thought you didn't know, I was trying to figure out how to tell you that your whole family is in danger because of me, and all the time you were letting your only daughter step into a trap, maybe, and-" he broke off at the sight of Mr. Weasley's face. He took one look at Mrs. Weasley, and fled the room. Half an hour later, Harry heard the door to Ron's room open. "I don't want to talk right now, Ron," he said. "Well, you're going to have to, Harry," Mr. Weasley said, shutting the door behind him and sitting on Ron's bed. Harry turned over, sat up, and glared at Mr. Weasley. He supposed that he should apologize for yelling at him down there - he was a guest in this house, after all. But he didn't feel at all like apologizing. So he just glared. Mr. Weasley sighed. "Harry, do you plan on having kids?" That was probably the last thing Harry had expected him to say. "I suppose... eventually... I'd like a family, yeah." "Well, then, when you do, you'll find out that probably the second most difficult thing as a parent is seeing your children in danger. The first is realizing when they're old enough to decide to put themselves into that danger." After a moment, Harry realized what Mr. Weasley was saying. "She knows," he said. "She knows. We had to tell her, because she was so insistent on going, and we always try to have good reasons for denying our children things. Then, too, Dumbledore had asked us if we would consider letting her be..." "Bait." Mr. Weasley gave him a small smile. "That's just what she said. She agreed to do it immediately, of course." He must have noticed the horrified look on Harry's face, because he continued, "Please don't think she's doing this for you. I mean, she's fond of you...we're all fond of you, and she might have done it for someone she cared about, or she might have done it altruistically for The Boy Who Lived, but she didn't have to. Ginny has a very well developed sense of right and wrong, and she would do this for someone she didn't even know. Then, too, she knows exactly what evil we are all facing - she's faced it herself." Harry thought about that, and remembered Hermione saying that Ginny was "the only person besides Harry who has come in direct contact with Voldemort." She was right, and he could certainly understand Ginny wanting to fight that evil in any way she could. It was what he wanted to do, after all. He still meant to have a talk with her - there was no reason why she had to throw herself into danger, just for him. He wasn't worth it. "So...do the rest of them know?" Harry said. "About the dream, and what it means?" "Well, they certainly do now," Mr. Weasley said, chuckling ruefully. "But, no, we hadn't told them before. There was no real reason to, we wouldn't have done anything any differently." "And Ginny has protection, right? There's people there - Aurors, or something?" "Oh, yes, Ginny's probably safer than the rest of us. Or than we were before Alastor came. And that's because of you, Harry. If you hadn't come to visit us, we would already be in danger, but wouldn't have the extra protection. So don't go thinking that this is all your fault." Harry couldn't think of anything to say to that. He didn't go back downstairs, though he knew he should go talk to Sirius. He just didn't want to face Ron and Hermione, now that they knew how much danger they were in, all because he cared about them. He should have told them before, and he knew it, but he had wanted to put off them knowing as long as he could. So he stayed up in Ron's room, and when Ron came up to go to bed, Harry pretended he was asleep. He was wakened the next morning by Pigwidgeon flapping around and around his head. He had a letter attached to his leg, which Harry groggily opened. But then he saw "Dear Hermione," in a small, firm hand. It took a moment for him to recognize it, and another for him to realize that he shouldn't be reading Ginny's letter to Hermione. Why had Pig delivered it to him? He snapped it shut, but not before seeing his name on the page. Looking down at the letter in his hand, Harry let out a small groan. He shouldn't read it - he wouldn't read it. But if he wasn't going to, he'd better take it to Hermione immediately. He didn't think his resolution would hold out very long. With a quick glance at Ron, still sleeping peacefully, Harry slipped out of the room and went to knock softly on Hermione's door. "Who is it?" "It's Harry, Hermione. Can I come in? I have something I'd better give you." He heard a quick scrambling around, but then Hermione opened the door for him to come in. She was wearing slippers, and a bathrobe over her nightgown, and she sat on the bed, looking at him curiously. "Pig delivered this to me by mistake," Harry said, holding the letter out to her. Her eyes widened when she realized who it was from, and she raised an eyebrow at him. "I didn't read it," Harry said. She just looked at him. "But I was tempted," he added. Hermione laughed. "Okay, I believe you that you didn't read it. Do you mind if I do right now? Ginny might need an answer, but I want to talk to you afterwards." "Okay," Harry said, though he wasn't sure he wanted to hear what she had to say, if it was about last night. He sat down on the desk chair and looked around. He had never been in Ginny's room before, and didn't really know what he had expected. But it looked quite normal - no frills or ruffles, just neat and comfortable. The bedspread was white with a blue pattern, and the small fluffy rug was the same blue. The only unusual thing about the room was the number of candles scattered around. There was at least one on every surface, and Harry, staring in amazement, said the first thing that came into his head. "Is Ginny afraid of the dark, or something?" Hermione looked up from the letter. "No," she said. "But I'd advise you to ask her yourself about the candles. I'm not going to tell her secrets. But," she added, smiling slightly. "I am going to tell you what she said about you in her letter, since I'm pretty sure you saw your name." Harry grinned at her, and didn't deny it. "She said, "I'm glad Harry is being so sympathetic about you and Ron," Hermione said. "Sympathetic? Me?" "Yes, you. You're helping a lot." Hermione looked down at the letter, but she didn't seem to be seeing it. "Oh, Hermione," Harry said, leaning forward. "It'll work out. Ron can't ignore something like this forever." "Can't he? He's very good at -" Just then, Ron's voice could be heard through the door. "Hermione? Are you in there? Harry's not in his bed, and I'm worried about him." "Ron, come on in," Hermione said, quickly hiding Ginny's letter and wiping her eyes. But when Ron saw Harry, his expression changed from incredulous surprise to anger. "What are you doing here?" he said. Harry leaned back in his chair and grinned at him. "This is what I do - visit girls in their rooms early in the morning. You'd just better get used to it." Hermione said, "Harry!" but Ron's fists unclenched and he laughed. "All right, you don't have to tell me," he said. He looked around for a place to sit, saw nothing but what was already taken, and plopped down next to Hermione. "Don't be silly, Ron," Hermione said. "Pig delivered Ginny's letter to Harry by mistake, so he brought it to me." "Really," Ron said, drawing out the word. "So, what did it say?" Harry just grinned at Ron. "I didn't read it." "Whaddya mean, of course you read it," Ron said, but then he looked at Harry again. "You really didn't, did you? Mr. Heroic doesn't want to tarnish his reputation." He shook his head. Hermione opened her mouth, probably to demand to know if Ron would have read the letter, but Harry didn't want to watch them fight right now. "So, what did you want to talk to me about, Hermione?" he asked. "Oh," she said, shooting another look at Ron, but allowing herself to be distracted. "I've been writing to Professor Lupin." "Really?" Harry said. "What about?" "Well, I wanted to know what it was like, going to school the last time Voldemort coming to power. I thought he might have some ideas about how to deal with it." Even Ron was interested now. "Did he?" Hermione shook her head. "He said that it was completely different from our situation. Sure, Voldemort was out there then, but he wasn't about to attack Hogwarts, and he wasn't targeting anyone specific in their group of friends. They had to worry about their families, of course." Here, she stopped and swallowed before going on. "But there wasn't the worry that..." "That Voldemort would risk everything just to get one of them. And now, maybe, all of them," Harry said, bowing his head. He hadn't wanted to talk about it, but he knew that wasn't an option. "Yeah," Ron said. He and Hermione exchanged a look, then he continued. "Actually, I'm sort of glad this has happened." "What?" Harry said, snapping his head up to glare at his friend. "See, now you know how we've felt ever since we became friends with you," Hermione said, her words tumbling out as though she had wanted to say this for a long time, and wasn't going to let anyone stop her now that she started. "You've always been in danger, Harry. First year we thought it was Professor Snape, then second year was the Chamber of Secrets, then third year it was Sirius, and last year the Triwizard Tournament. We're always in this constant worry about you, and it's been hard, Harry, so hard..." "So...you don't mind that I didn't tell you about the dream? I just couldn't..." "Well, we do mind, actually," Ron said. "If you ever keep something like that back from us again, I don't know what we'll do to you, but we'll probably get Fred and George's help, so don't even think about it." He couldn't help grinning as he said this, but Harry could tell that he was serious. "But we understand, Harry," Hermione said. "We know all about wanting to protect your friends, because that's how we feel about you. We want to do this together, though, no secrets, no keeping back things to protect us. Or you. Or, oh, you know what I mean." Ron laughed, and Harry laughed with him. "Yeah, all for one and one for all, that's us." "Ron!" Hermione said, finally laughing, too. "When did you read The Three Musketeers? It's a Muggle book." "Ah, you forget that I'm now an important Ministry official, having to do all sorts of things that I don't want to, even reading -" He was cut off as Hermione threw a pillow at him, and the three of them got up to get ready for the last day of the holiday. But as they clowned around, teasing each other, and feeling their friendship as an almost tangible thing, Harry still felt that something was missing. No, someone was missing.
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