Chapter Thirty
It was a rotten kind of day before Ron even rolled out of bed in the morning. By the time he got up and dressed Dean, Seamus, and Neville were already downstairs in the Great Hall, no doubt happily tucked into their breakfast.
Harry, apparently, was having a lie in, as he was still sound asleep when Ron was set to head downstairs. Ron resented him immensely for it. He was tempted to throw something at his once best friend to end his comfy little doze, but Ron didn't fancy having to deal with him once Harry woke. Just as like it would lead to some really unpleasant row, and Ron didn't fancy insults for breakfast. So Ron silently scowled his heart out at Harry instead and left the boys' dorm… just as Hermione, dressed for the day, was bounding up the stairs.
"Oh! Morning, Ron," she greeted him in passing, absently, all too eager to hurry past him in her bloody rush to get up to Harry. She acted like there wasn't a damn thing wrong with her just barging right into the boys' dorm room. And she stepped past him with that mere off-hand hello, as though it wasn't colored a thousand shades of buggered. She wasn't even sorry or ashamed. He resented her for that. Maybe not as much as he resented Harry, but Hermione had earned her share of it, the way Ron figured.
They both should have bloody well told him. No, they shouldn't have done it in the first place, but at the least they should have had the decency to tell him. Not that it would have changed anything, Ron would still be spitting furious at the both of them for the whole mess, but it would have been the friend thing to do.
Some bloody good friends he turned out to have.
Ron shoved his way into the space on the Gryffindor table next to Seamus that was hardly wide enough for Colin Creevey to squeeze into, let alone Ron's larger frame. Ron had taken to spending his free time with Seamus and Dean, but oftentimes it hardly seemed they wanted him around.
Assumed he belonged in another lot, most like, and Ron was mad at Harry and Hermione for that, too. He couldn't fit in properly with anyone else because of that stupid 'Hogwarts trio' label the three of them seemed to carry. Like Ron couldn't expect a place outside of Harry and Hermione's clemency.
'Well, they can just go screw themselves,' Ron thought lividly. When the double entendre of his own thoughts clicked he took it out on his bacon. Seamus noticed Ron then, once the redhead was flaying his bacon with a vengeance.
Ron seemed cursed to look up from his plate of shredded pig-meat at the very moment that Harry and Hermione came down to the Great Hall.
Together.
The only spot open enough for the both of them to sit next to one another, because Merlin forbid they have to part for the duration of breakfast, was unfortunately close to where Ron had weaseled his way on to the had a floor seat to the whole repugnant Harry and Hermione show.
Ron hated how he couldn't turn off the masochistic side of him that made him notice every ugly detail. How Harry's hand strayed to Hermione's shoulder just there, how the moony-eyed sappy girls up and down Gryffindor table sighed like it was so ruddy romantic, how Harry leaned in toward her to reach for the eggs when he could and should have asked her to pass them, how Hermione smiled at him. Ron threw down his fork with a clatter and gulped down a good amount of pumpkin juice like it was last call. He had to make a supreme effort not to acknowledge the bewildered looks from the guilty parties in question when he brought down his cup. Last thing he wanted was to explain himself to Harry and Hermione. Beside him, Seamus was jinxing a link of sausage to take flight and beat a deserving Slytherin about the head.
Ron feigned interest. It was someplace else for Ron to look but at Harry and Hermione, at least until they forgot about him again. Which took all of three seconds.
And to top off breakfast, the insult to a morning of injuries, Ginny had to butt in.
"Morning, gorgeous! Don't you look tussled. Long night?" she leveled that smile at Harry, the one Ron had seen Ginny use on the dragon-keepers in Romania. The one that made his skin crawl and his blood boil with brotherly ire. How dare his sister know she was a girl and doubly how dare she use it. And worst of all, directed at Harry. Ron would almost prefer Ginny fawn over Draco Malfoy. Almost.
The fact that Harry was not affected in the way Ginny aimed to affect him, but instead was thoroughly uncomfortable, regretfully didn't take the bitter sting out of his sister's solicitous attentions toward Harry. Odd, that. "Umm… just studying," Harry stammered an answer.
"Mmmm hmmm… and what exactly would you be studying there, Harry?" Ginny teased and looked pointedly toward Hermione. Hermione very nearly smirked.
Ron didn't get it. Hermione used to bristle when Ginny put her moves on Harry, but lately it was like it was some big joke between them. Hermione was completely unbothered by it, and that made it loads worse. Somehow. It just did.
"Potions. And a bit of spell work," Hermione answered easily. Ron had never realized just how accomplished and flawless Hermione could be at lying before. It was depressing if he thought on it too hard. Just when he thought he knew his friends they proved him dead wrong. Five years of friendship, and for what?
"Aww, sounds a dreadful ordeal," Ginny crooned sympathetically and reached across the table to pat Harry's hand. Harry jumped slightly and drew back… away from Ginny, toward Hermione.
Ron had had enough. He rose from the table and marched up to where Ginny sat. "Let's go," he said gruffly and grabbed her by the arm.
"Hey!" Ginny snapped indignantly, and he knew he was in for ten rounds with the infamous Weasley woman wrath, but if he got to vent a little first it would be worth it. Ron dragged Ginny away from the Gryffindor table, out of the Great Hall, and only turned her loose once they were in the corridor.
Ginny faced him angrily, eyes blazing and mouth pinched in righteous fury.
"What is wrong with you, Ronald? How dare you man-handle me like that!" "Oh, you're one to talk!" Ron said hotly.
"And what does that mean?" Ginny asked in a low, dangerous voice. In their mother, it would be the cue to take flight. Run far and fast. Luckily, Ginny had a bit more experience to put under her belt before she could make men cower like that… but sadly she didn't lack much. Ginny had done a lot of growing over the past summer, it seemed. Apparently everyone had, and none of it had been for the better in Ron's opinion.
"Don't even pretend like you don't know what I'm talking about, Ginerva! The way you're all over Harry, flirting with him like some Quidditch groupie, it's disgusting. I'm warning you, stop it right now."
"Or what?" Ginny scowled at him a moment, expression borderline to murderous, then she spoke again, a little less volatile this time, "I'm just having a bit of fun. There's no harm in it."
"What do you hope to get out of this? Harry's not going to fall for your tart act. It may have worked for those mutton-head dragon-keepers of yours, but Harry's too smart to be taken in by it." Ron could not believe, in the interest of arguing with his sister, he'd vouch for Harry's honor and integrity. Seemed old habits died hard when it came down to it. Either that, or Ron was so dead set on knocking down his sister that, for the moment, the issues he had with Harry were less important.
"Tart?!" Ginny screeched, "I have absolutely no interest in Harry, you enormous twit!"
Right. And Filch wasn't a prick nor Snape a greasy-haired cur. "Come on, none of us are going to believe that. You've had a crush on Harry for years."
Ginny folded her arms in front of her chest. "I did have, I admit that, but that was a long time ago. I'm over it now. Harry's more like a brother to me, and at times a sight better brother than you are, I might add."
Even by the standards of his crummy day so far, that hurt. "So you want me to buy that you're not hoping Harry will hook up with you from all these little games you're putting on?"
Ginny smiled then, crooked and sagely, almost like Ron was being childishly naïve without the slightest awareness of his naïveté, "Please, he is so Hermione's."
Ron stood speechless, gaping at his impudent little sister. How she could just say it, like that… His face grew hot and his temples pounded in time with his pulse. He could only imagine how many vivid shades of scarlet he'd turned.
And still he couldn't manage to say anything. Nothing to throw back at Ginny's remark, at how she dare to say that so confidently, like it was some bloody law. Harry was Hermione's. Hermione's, so obviously hers. Like he would be daft not to know that.
While he stood there flummoxed and struck dumb, Ginny turned and left. Maybe to flirt more with Harry, but not to try and win him, because apparently he belonged to Hermione. Ron could not imagine anything more unsavory just then as going back into the Great Hall and watching Harry and Hermione. Hermione being possessive of Harry, Harry playing the part ofthe taken all too happily.
Ron turned and headed in the opposite direction of the Great Hall on an empty stomach.
Missing breakfast, usually on the top of the list of Ron's unforgivable misdeeds, did nothing for his mood through the rest of the school day. His classes were a write-off; he couldn't concentrate on the professors to save his life, which was horribly unfortunate in Defense Against the Dark Arts because the things learned in that class might save his life. It didn't help that he had all his classes with Harry and Hermione that day; he couldn't even be lucky enough for it to be one of the days when he and Harry had Divination while Hermione took Arithmancy. No. He had to watch them sit together, whisper during class to one another, leave together. Everything to- bloody-gether.
He thought the end of classes that afternoon would be a reprieve. Harry and Hermione would steal away somewhere together, most likely the library, which made them easy to avoid. Ron wouldn't have to see their togetherness and resent being strung along and not told. It was the only hope of respite Ron had. Harry and Hermione would be tucked away insome dusty old books doing things Ron hated to imagine, and he could hang out with his new best buds Dean and Seamus.
But as cruel fate would have it, even that blew up in his freckled face.
Seamus had picked up a juicy piece of gossip, and as it involved the opposite sex he was on it like a dog with a bone.
"I'm telling you, I have it on good authority."
Ron was walking along behind Dean and Seamus, who were moving side by side a pace ahead of him. Ron seemed to end up in the back, the tag-along. He blamed Harry and Hermione for that too, just for good measure.
The three were heading down the corridor toward the common room after a jaunt to the Quidditch pitch to watch the Ravenclaws practicing for the upcoming game. Ravenclaw had four girls on the team, including Cho Chang, which explained Seamus's avid spectatorship.
Ron was only half-listening to Seamus as he skulked along behind the pair. He might like a pretty bird as much as the next bloke, but Seamus never seemed to think of anything else. At least Ron could enjoy the Quidditch for the practice and not just the bums sitting the brooms.
Dean snorted. "And who exactly is good authority for a rumor like that?"
"Justin told me, and he was told by Oliver Wood, who heard it from Lavender since they're snog-partners now, who got it from Parvati. It's true! I'm telling you. Those girls' showers are common just like the boys'. Another girl would know."
Ron might not be slavering at the mouth like Seamus, but girls' showers… well, nothing wrong with at least paying attention to what they were talking about. It was the polite thing to do, and all.
Dean was still skeptical. "I say it's bollocks. The shape of a snitch?"
Seamus shook his head and laid the back of his hand against Dean's shoulder. "No, no, man, a bird. Though I suppose the two look enough alike that you could call it a snitch. Ha! Wouldn't that be something, what with Harry being a seeker and all."
Ron was immediately alert against his wishes, even as his temper stirred and his stomach soured. It all came back to Harry Potter, didn't it?
The three of them were at the fat lady and Dean turned to Seamus. "I'm not about to believe that Hermione Granger has a birthmark shaped like a bird or a snitch on her hip."
Seamus waved his hand dismissively and gave the portrait the password.
Ron scowled and couldn't help but blurt out as they stepped through the entrance to the common room. "She most certainly does not."
Seamus looked back at Ron. "Oh, and how would you know?" Ron felt his face burning again. "I just would. She's my friend."
"So that means you'd know all her birthmarks? I don't think so." As they came into the common room proper, Ron knew his day was at the pinnacle of crappy when he caught sight of a familiar mop of unruly black hair on the couch.
Seamus spotted him, too. "We can ask Harry! Hey, Harry! Does Hermione have a bird-shaped birthmark on her hip?"
Ron could have choked on his own tongue with rage.
Harry didn't look up from the book in his lap at first, instead answered coolly without bothering to turn in their direction, "No. But if she did, I wouldn't tell you." Harry turned his head to look toward Seamus and Dean… and he noticeably paused when he caught sight of Ron.
Ron was seeing red.
Dean punched Seamus in the arm. "Told you."
"Drat," Seamus moped, the wind taken from his sails, "well, maybe they meant Parvati has a birthmark. Or maybe it was someone that was talking about getting a tattoo." Dean and Seamus headed toward the tower stairs but Ron hung back. He could throttle Harry then and there, the foul git!
Hermione's hip!
"Ron?" Harry asked warily.
"You bloody bastard!" It exploded out of him, the fury that had been festering and burning in him for weeks. It felt good to finally lash out at the rightful target.
Harry's expression slowly hardened. "Excuse me?"
Ron could feel himself shaking. "You heard me! You dirty, bloody, filthy bastard!"
Harry set his book aside and stood.
Angelina, working on her homework at a desk in the common room, hissed, "Shhhh!" at them.
Harry looked first to Angelina, then to Ron, then said, "Why don't we take this outside?"
"Yes, do!" Angelina snapped.
"Yes, let's," Ron returned hotly and turned sharply. He marched out, not even bothering to see if Harry was following him. If not, he'd just come back in and have it out with him in the common room again, because it was past time that Ron gave Harry what he deserved. This was damn welldue.
Ron didn't stop until he was outside, close to one of the castle's great stone walls sporting an elegant row of colorful stained glass windows. There were some other students lounging about outside, Ron caught sight of Neville studying what looked to him like a common weed, but Ron wasn't concerned about anyone else. He was only interested in one Harry Potter, former best friend.
Ron spun around and was gratified to see that Harry was there, had indeed followed Ron to take his licks. Though he didn't look that concerned, which infuriated Ron even further. So he was harmless, full of hot air Ron Weasley, was he? The nerve of Harry.
"All right, now why am I a bastard?" Harry asked evenly.
"A bloody bastard! And you know why!"
Harry shook his head and held up his hands in feigned ignorance.
"How could you? How could you and not tell me?!"
Harry paused and for a moment actually looked uncomfortable. Caught out. Guilty. Ron knew it. "Do what?"
"Hook up with Hermione, of course!"
Harry blinked and went from defensive to puzzled."What?! Ron… I'm not
dating Hermione."
"Stop lying to me, Harry!" Ron screamed, and then it all just flooded out of him, the cracked dam finally blowing apart. "Why her? Damnit, of all the girls you could have chased, why Hermione?! You knew I fancied her, why couldn't you leave her be? You could have picked anyone but her!"
"I'm not with her!" Harry snapped back.
"Everyone knows you are, what do you take me for, an idiot? Poor stupid Ronald Weasley, is that it? You should have told me! Least save me making a complete fool of myself thinking I had half a chance."
"Half a chance to what?" Harry stepped closer to Ron, and Ron cursed himself when he took a reflexive step back. He moved forward again to stand his ground, though he felt the bulk of the damage was done for his momentary retreat. He'd just have to make up for it with volume when he got another word in. But Harry was fanned to fighting form now, and Ron would have to wait. "For the last time," Harry growled, "I'm not dating Hermione, but whether I was or not, it wouldn't make any difference to you. You don't deserve her!"
Ron itched to draw his wand. How he'd love to hex Harry into the hospital wing.
"You're awful to Hermione," Harry said tersely, quickly growing just as heated and incensed as Ron. Clearly a button hadbeenpushed."I've never met anyone who can make Hermione cry like you do, and Hermione isn't the type to cry. You're just that good at hurting her feelings. What makes you think she could ever be happy withyou?"
"That… what… that's not fair! I…" Ron stammered for a retort. So he and Hermione liked to banter about, and so maybe he was just a little better atit, but that didn't mean he didn't like her! Harry knew that, so why try and make Ron feel like he was a heel for a little harmless fun?
"What's not fair is the way you take advantage of her, treat her like rubbish, when you would call yourself her friend."
"Oh, you're one to talk about taking advantage of her, you prick! After all, you're the bloody one shagging her senseless, not me!"
Ron didn't see it coming, felt only the explosion of pain on his lip and his head snap back. He fell to the ground in a startled heap. He tasted the copper of blood in his mouth and brought up a hand to his face. He hissed at the sharp pain in his split lip. His fingers came away streaked with red. It took that long for it to register what had happened. Harry had decked him.
Harry, his once best friend, had punched him.
Ron, enraged and seconds from an all-out duel, looked up at Harry…
… and he froze. Harry was breathing heavily as he stood towering over Ron, hands clenched into fists. It was hard to forget that Harry was stronger now, not the scrawny little unwanted, neglected nephew he once was. Watching Harry quiver with anger, his eyes fiery with rage, his mouth set in a savage line… it made one remember that Harry had survived the killing curse.
Twice. That he'd seen a comrade die right in front of his eyes. That he'd taken up his wand against Voldemort himself. That he was, within his own rights, one of the most powerful wizards for his age the world had ever seen.
Ron realized he was genuinely afraid.
There was a surge, a magical tidal wave front that swept over Ron and sent goose bumps prickling over his skin and set his heart to hammering. The grounds seemed to go deathly silent, all hitched on an inhaled breath.
Harry's eyes were pinned on Ron's sprawled form, holding him immobile with just that piercing stare. The magical force burgeoning around them thrummed dangerously, pulsed and surged. Three of the stained glass windows behind Harry shattered outward in a savage explosion of blue, green, red, and yellow glistening shards.
Somewhere, it seemed a million miles away, someone screamed.
Ron shrank back from Harry. There was an aura about him. Powerful… primal… feral… lethal. It was like being in the sights of a predator, bending to the understanding a heartbeat before death that he was helpless prey.
Ron was terrified.
Then the tension was broken when a third person rushed into the stand-off between Harry and Ron.
"Harry!" Hermione ran right up to Harry, mindless of the treacherous magic that seemed fit to tear apart anything in its path. Namely Ron. She stepped between Ron and Harry, placed her hands on Harry's chest, and pushed him back. "Stop it, don't hurt him, Harry!"
Harry seemed to snap out of it at that. The magical storm thick around them dissipated like a fickle summer wind. Harry blinked and relented with a step backward. Hermione followed, kept her hands on him as though to restrain him from trying to side-step her. Not that he tried. Harry looked content to be stilled by Hermione's mere touch.
Ron could have kissed Hermione for intervening, but he wasn't about to tempt Harry's wrath further. He scrambled to his feet and stood facing his two former friends. His mind was reeling trying to grasp what had just happened, what had nearly happened, how it had come to such a state. He'd just been having a little argument with his friend, but it hadn't ended that way, and in those first seconds after the disaster was averted he couldn't fathom how.
Hermione was not so dumbstruck. She whirled around to face Ron. "Now
what is going on? Neville came and told me you two were having a row, but this is more than a little friendly spat! What did you do?"
Muted dumb moment broken. Ron gaped indignantly. "Me?! Why do you assume this is my fault?"
Hermione was in no mood for the blame game. She'd as well as made up her mind who was responsible, despite the fact only one of them was bleeding and it damn well wasn't Harry. And what more could Ron expect than for her to take her boyfriend's side. "I just wanted the truth, Hermione. From the both of you. I'd think after four years I'd have earned that much."
Hermione was confused, but Harry said from over her shoulder, "I told you the truth! You should believe me. You should have believed me about the Goblet of Fire!"
Tense quiet reigned again. Ron felt abashed. Harry hadn't forgiven him for the stupid Goblet of Fire incident yet. Well, what was he to think whenHarry got picked to be a champion? And he'd come around to accepting Harry's word after the dragons, hadn't he? Apparently that didn't count for much with bloody Harry Potter.
"The truth about what?" Hermione asked cautiously, her voice almost small against the enormous energy, though interpersonal as opposed to magical, that seemed to enclose the three.
Harry just stared hard at Ron.
"You and Harry," Ron said haltingly. Hermione frowned. "About you two being together."
Understanding lit her eyes, she went from confused to weary, and she sighed. "Ron… Harry and I aren't together. We're just friends."
"But—"
Hermione nodded. "I know all about the rumors, but they're just rumors. Honestly, Ron, you're our friend, don't you think we would have told you if Harry and I had decided to start seeing each other?"
Ron was absolutely embarrassed and put in his place with that plainly put question. Yes, precisely that. He would have expected to be told. Exactly as Hermione put it. Apparently, had there been anything to tell he would have heard about it. Ron hesitantly looked past Hermione's shoulder to glance at Harry. The rage was gone from Harry's face, but not the anger that had clearly been so close to the surface.
Ron was only beginning to understand how badly he'd fouled things up.
"What is the meaning of all of this?!"
All three teens turned to see Professor McGonagall hurrying across the yard toward them. When she reached them she looked at Ron's bloody lip, at Hermione standing strategically between Harry and Ron, then at the broken glass littering the ground. "I heard you two were near set to kill one another! I was sure it was an exaggeration, but to see it with my own eyes… to think such disgraceful behavior could come from a Gryffindor! Explain yourselves!"
Hermione chewed on her bottom lip uneasily. Harry looked about at the mess of the windows he'd made, as though only then realizing what his uncontrolled magic had done. Ron had to do something to try and put things right after the botch job he'd made ofeverything.
"It was a misunderstanding, Professor," Ron said slowly. "I… I thought Harry was lying to me. But he wasn't, I was wrong."
"We're really sorry it got so out of hand," Harry added.
McGonagall looked between the three, eyes sharp for any waver in their stance. "Well, I should think so. Which one of you did this?" she gestured at the scattered bits of glass.
Harry ducked his head. "That was me, Professor. I didn't mean to. Ron and I were arguing. I was angry and they just broke."
For a brief moment, McGonagall looked preoccupied with the confession. She plainly glanced at Harry's untouched wand peeking out from the inner front pocket of his Hogwarts robes. Then she turned to Ron and a great measure of the venom was gone from her voice. "You should count yourself lucky that Mister Potter took it out on the windows and not you, MisterWeasley."
She had no idea how lucky he felt for that.
The transfiguration teacher drew her wand and cast a reparo spell that sent the bits of glass flying from the ground and back to their proper windows.
The stained-glass designs clicked back in place like a self-solving puzzle and then, with a racing glow along the crack lines with unflawed glass left in its wake, the windows were good as new. McGonagall turned her attention back to her students. "The lot of you will get detention for this atrocious display, of course," McGonagall stated resolutely.
Harry protested, "But, Professor, Hermione had nothing to do—" but Hermione elbowed him in the ribs and said, "Yes, Professor. Weunderstand."
"And I never want to hear about another fight like this again. Do I make myself clear?"
"Yes, ma'am," all three said in duly chastised tones.
"I'm taking you to the headmaster," McGonagall tucked away her wand, "he'll no doubt want to have it out with the three of you for this foolishness, and serves you right for this dreadful behavior. Come with me."
Ron glanced quickly at Harry and Hermione before taking the lead on the ponderous march toward Dumbledore's office.
All in all, they got off lightly. A week of detention with McGonagall after their classes was a fair price to pay for the debacle that could have become of Ron and Harry's row had Hermione not stepped in the middle. Dumbledore gave them a stern talking to about the honor of Gryffindor house and the moral standard expected of each and every Hogwarts student. His speech about sticking together in the face of the danger of Voldemort was the most uncomfortable part of that session, to be sure, because the only thing that could be more distressing than the row itself would have been Voldemort.
And of course the fight in the courtyard was the talk of the school by the end of dinner, but Ron considered that all a small price to pay. Things had been said that had been needing to be said for a long time, and at least now they had someplace to start. To where it would lead he couldn't begin to guess, but just the prospect of not being stuck in neutral anymore was a relief.
And he knew now that Harry and Hermione hadn't gotten together behind his back and kept him uninformed. In hindsight, he was ashamed he could ever think so little of his friends. Of Hermione who always did the right thing, no matter how difficult, and Harry who was too honorable for his own good.
Ron was sitting on the edge of his bed that night, already dressed in his pajamas and going over what he wanted to say in his head. He was waiting up for Harry. Dean, Seamus, and Neville were conspicuously absent considering the hour. No doubt they were still walking on eggshells around him and Harry after the scare earlier. Harry's wandless exploding window trick was certainly enough to put anyone a bit on edge. Just as well, Ron didn't fancy an audience for what he wanted to say.
Finally, the boys' dorm door opened and Harry entered. He'd been down in the library with Hermione. Ron believed that and didn't dwell on it further.
Harry saw Ron and visibly hesitated."Hey."
Ron gave a weak smile."Hey."
A moment of awkward silence descended.
Harry went to his bed, fished into his chest, and changed into his own pajamas. The silence between them lasted the duration. It took Ron that long to perk up the courage to say, "Hey, Harry?"
Harry, fully clothed for bed, turned carefully to Ron, still leery of where they stood.
Ron swallowed. "I… I'm sorry."
"About?" Harry asked shrewdly, his demeanor still chilly and guarded.
'I deserve that,' Ron thought. Time for him to dig himself out of his own hole. "About everything. About accusing you of hooking up with Hermione and lying to me about it. About not believing you when you said you didn't put your name in the Goblet of Fire. About what I said… about Hermione.
About being a prat."
Harry nodded slowly, moved to his own bed, and sat on the edge opposite Ron and looked across at him. Ron watched him cautiously in return. One could have heard a beetle sneeze. It was an uneasy détente, to be sure, but more face-to-face interaction (barring the row that afternoon) than they'd had in over a week.
Ron soldiered on first. "I just… I really fancy her, Harry, and watching you two together…"
"We are closer, yes, but not a couple."
"I know that. Now. And I should have believed you from the first."
Harry just watched Ron. Maybe Ron only saw what he wanted to see, but it looked like Harry was a little less hostile. He hoped that was the case.
Ron glanced down, picked at a loose stitch on his comforter, and cleared his throat. "Did you… did you mean what you said?"
"Which part?"
Ron winced. And he thought the row was tough to manage. "About what you said about me and Hermione."
Harry was unwavering and to-the-point. "About you not deserving her?" Ronnodded.
"Yes. Idid."
Ron looked up at Harry, stunned and wounded. He'd really thought it would be something Harry had said in the heat of the moment. It was the answer he'd been hoping for, at any rate. Instead, he got this.
Harry was unreadable a moment, then he averted his eyes and frowned in thought. At least it made him look like the Harry Ron used to know, even if he dreaded what he was about to say. "Ron… Hermione is the most incredible girl we know. She's the smartest, kindest, bravest, most loyal person I've ever met and I'd wager that you've ever met, too. Bloody Prince William doesn't deserve her."
Ron smirked thinly, if not a little painfully. When Harry put it that way,it was kind of hard to imagine living up to that kindofstandard."Well, I suppose so. She is really something."
A very faint, soft smile ticked at the corners of Harry's mouth before he composed himself and said soberly, "And it came out a little rougher than I meant for it to, but it's true what I said about how you always manage to hurt her feelings. I know you don't mean to do it, but you do just the same. All the time. Hermione deserves better than that; she deserves to be with someone who would never make her cry."
Ron's shoulders slumped and he dropped his gaze to the floor. Harry was damnably right. "Yeah… I… you're right. I don't mean to make her cry, I really don't. I don't like it when she cries."
"I know. She knows. Doesn't mean you can't go on as friends. Just nothing more than that."
This was not how he'd envisioned this conversation going, but it had a far richer ring of truth than all of Ron's half-baked daydreams about finally owning up to his crush on Hermione. "I've just… I've fancied her for so long, Harry, and this year you and Hermione have been so…" Ron found himself balking at trying to describe the change in Harry and Hermione. It would require putting it into ugly, damning words that he'd been trying his best to ignore the entire term. "Well, expect I don't have to tell you how you two've been. It does look like you're… together."
Harry shook his head. "She's very important to me. As a friend. And I won't see anyone hurt her, even you."
Ron nodded. "I can live with that."
Harry eyed Ron closely. "So no more of this jealousy nonsense?" "No more."
"And what about your intentions toward Hermione?"
Ron paused a little at that. He wondered, fleetingly, where Harry got the right to interrogate him like he was Hermione's father, but figured he'd best answer if he wanted any chance to salvage their friendship. "I can't say I don't still have feelings for her, but I'm not about to cross you to have a try at being with her." Ron said the last with a smile and nervous laugh, attempting a joke, but from the look on Harry's face it was the truth of it.
Ron faltered and coughed. "Look, Harry. I care about Hermione, but… well, you're right. I hate to admit it, but you are. Couples shouldn't fight the way she and I do, and if we were together it wouldn't be any different. Maybe I've had it wrong all this time, thinking all our bickering meant she might fancy me, too." Ron grimaced and practically had to steel himself to continue. "She doesn't fight with you, and she's looked the better forit.
When I wasn't too angry at you both, I saw it same as everyone else has. Didn't want to, but I did."
Ron forced himself to remember the way Hermione had been smiling at Harry lately… smiling a lot. More than Ron could ever remember her smiling. It looked worlds better than when she was in tears, sadly the latter of which Ron knew all about. "You have the right of it, I think, Harry. I wouldn't make her happy." It was hard to admit that, but there was a strange catharsis in it, too. He let go of a hold up he'd clung to for years, and with its absence was a strange new clarity. It was like breaking the water's surface and sucking a great breath of air after struggling underwater for a long time.
It could be different now, different and yet closer to the way it used to be if he'd stop sabotaging them all.
He glanced up at Harry and ventured, "Think Hermione will still be friends with me after the way I've been acting?"
Harry, at last, started to smileatRon."Well, another great thing about Hermione… she's also the most forgiving person."
Ron grinned.
Things already felt like they were on the path to returning to normal for the Hogwarts trio. And it was about time.
Harry turned to crawl into bed. Ron's relieved smile fell and he frowned as another nagging thought tugged at him. "Harry? One last thing."
Harry glanced over his shoulder at Ron..
"When Seamus… when he asked you about Hermione's birthmark…" Harry tensed marginally as Ron hesitantly continued, "well… you just sounded like you knew." He looked long and hard at Harry, almost loathe to ask the next. He breathed it faintly, as though it would soften the asking.
"How?"
Harry didn't answer right away. He got into bed, shimmied under the covers, set about like he was just going to roll over and not answer the question at all, then he said, "The Grangers have a pool. Hermione and I spent a lot of time over the summer swimming. She had a bikini bathing suit."
"Oh." Ron wanted to ask more, wanted to dig and pry and learn a great deal more about Harry and Hermione's friendship-transforming summer, but in a supreme gesture of trust he went to bed himself without breathing a word of doubt to Harry's explanation.
Chapter Thirty One
Original Author Notes -
A/N: In case it hasn't already become painfullyobvious, I hate Ron. Hate him with the fiery passion of a thousand suns.I know some ofyou think I've been harsh with his character, but trust me, notnearly as vicious as I'd like to be. This A/N was just to reach out to those Ron fans in the audience with this: sorry, but really, I can't stand the guy.
For perspective, this chapter begins on page 225 in my writing program.
While Harry dressed in the predawn hour a pair of steady cat eyes followed his every move. So early, the only movement in the boys' dorm room was Harry bustling about in the darkness putting on his exercise clothes and the almost metronome-like back and forth flick of the cat's tail.
Harry was kneeling on the floor tying up his trainers when the cat acting as both alarm clock and watchman grew impatient and let out a meow. In the comparative silence of the room, it may as well have been a raucous roar.
"Shh…" Harry chided, but he wasn't actually upset or annoyed. He was in too good a mood to be grumpy about possibly waking his roommates. The cat's near-black eyes met Harry's. Their pupils were nearly dilated to the same degree, and Harry knew his vision was only a fraction worse than his animal companion's. By now, he was confident of those kinds of things. He knewbecause he could feel the unfettered strength of his animagus form great and stirring in his chest, just behind his sternum.
After his first transformation into the panther he could tell he was changed. Since that day he always felt there was a powerful reserve dormant in him, lying in wait, waiting to be tapped. Ready to be unleashed at his command. It never left him completely, never slipped from his awareness. It was the new normal for Harry Potter. He had no recourse but to adjust to it.
That adjustment was the best Harry had ever felt in his young life. His animagus form was strong. It was decisive. It was unapologetic. It was freedom in a sense Harry had never known before.
Hermione had realized quickly after that first night, after the first change, that they would have to find a time when no one else would be around to be their animal forms. One couldn't learn how to move in a body they never adopted, after all. So they changed their regular running time from evening to morning before classes. No one was awake at that hour and it was well within school rules. There were curfews dictating how late students could stay up, but not how early they could rise. Switching their runs to early morning meant Harry and Hermione could make their usual circle of the grounds… and that they could slip unnoticed into the Forbidden Forest where they would become the cats.
Hermione a lioness and Harry a black jaguar. Hermione had researched both their forms, naturally, and come to the conclusion that Harry was more jaguar than leopard, since both felines could come in the black variety and looked very similar. She decided he favored the jaguar based upon the underlying spot pattern beneath the black of his coat and the body build of his cat form, stouter and stronger than the leopard's. Harry had looked at the picture in the book Hermione was reading, to know what he looked like from Hermione's perspective, but he was more interested in his capabilities than the National Geographic special on his animagus form's source animal.
That was the beauty of their morning runs.
Given what they knew, Harry and Hermione should have been more reticent about traipsing heedlessly into the Forbidden Forest, for both the banned nature as far as Hogwarts's rules were concerned and also for the inherent dangers found therein. However, it turned out Harry and Hermione's cat forms were recklessly unafraid. As lioness and jaguar, they didn't fear the things that would have frightened them as children. Not when they were so fast, so strong, so in touch with the world around them that it seemed they saw, smelled, and heard everything a mile away.
That pure sense of invincibility, of speed and wild alacrity, well made up for the sleep lost when Harry had to rise before the sun.
"Mrowerrr."
Harry, already buzzing about the impending change, smiled at the housecat.
"I'm nearly ready, Crookshanks."
Crookshanks was sitting across from Harry, inches from Ron's bed with his back to the snoozing redhead. He calmly swished his long-haired tail from one side of his body to the other, managing to look rather expectant. Much like he'd waited on Harry for the past several mornings. It was a new routine that the cat was Harry's first sight when he woke. How Hermione had gotten Crookshanks to be their go-between and shared alarm clock Harry didn't know, but he confessed he never minded the kneazle's pig-nosed face in his first thing in the morning. Strangely enough, Harry found he liked Hermione's familiar even more than he used to. Maybe it was from experiencing the world from a cat's perspective; perhaps it created some sense of kinship or common ground.
Ron grumbled and rolled over, unknowingly throwing one of his arms over the side of the bed. It smacked an unsuspecting Crookshanks right on the top of his head and the cat spun indignantly and hissed. He swiped at Ron's dangling hand with unsheathed claws and Ron woke with a curse. "Bloody 'ell!"
"B'quiet! Pity's sake…" one of the other boys slurred. It sounded a bit like Seamus, but at such an ungodly hour it could just as well have been Neville.
Ron sat upright, blinking blearily. He squinted hard at his hand, at Crookshanks looking supremely not sorry, then at Harry standing near his own bed fully dressed for his morning run. Ron was straining to see in the dark, but Harry touched the jaguar, only brushed the slumbering power in him, and for it he saw better in the dark. That ability, when Harry quite accidentally stumbled upon how to use it, had surprised even Hermione. She hadn't known they would be able to do that, utilize their animagus capabilities and gifts without physically becoming their animagus forms. Of course, once she learned what Harry had figured out how to do, she set them both to practicing it. Harry had mastered that feat faster and more effortlessly than Hermione. It took her a good bit of concentration and effort to merely touch the lioness without rushing into her skin, and even when she managed to do it that ability was never as acutely tapped as when Harry did it. It only made Hermione want to practice that aspect of being an animagus all the harder. It was yet another thing they worked on together in the early morning hours.
Ron picked up his pillow and hurled it viciously at Crookshanks when Ron's sleep-addled brain finally put together what had happened. The cat streaked away with a spitting scream and disappeared through the dorm room door.
"Damn cat!" Ron seethed, "why can't Hermione keep her bloody pet under control?" Ron flopped down on his back on the bed, groaning when he noticed the absence of a pillow to lay his head on.
"Sorry about that," Harry said on Crookshanks's behalf, though he really wasn't sorry. Crookshanks wouldn't be, because there was no guilt or shame or embarrassment there. Not as a cat. Harry knew.
Ron grumbled under his breath then flopped over on to his stomach.
"I'll see you at breakfast," Harry said as he stooped, retrieved Ron's pillow turned projectile, and tossed it back to his friend.
Ron grunted when the pillow hit him in the back and he flipped over. "You know, I thought you two were barking for that running business before, but this getting up before dawn! You're both totally mad, you know that."
Harry smirked. "Still don't care to join us?" He could invite Ron all he liked without worry, because Ron would rather take Snape to the Yule Ball than crawl of out bed before sunrise to go running.
Ron snorted, stuffed his pillow back under his head, and promptly rolled over to go back to sleep. Harry suppressed a chuckle and quickly left the boys' dorm.
Hermione was waiting for him in the deserted common room, Crookshanks purring contently in her arms. She was dressed and ready for their run and from the light in her eyes when she caught sight of him, he could tell she was just as eager as he. Her hair was pulled back in a ponytail but a section had fallen loose.
"Took you long enough." Hermione set Crookshanks down on the couch and turned to face Harry. She was practically glowing. She'd been alive and vibrant in a way Harry couldn't rightly describe since the transformation. It was like he could look at her and the untamed elation of the lioness was just behind her eyes. But it was more than that. There was the newfound suppleness to her body movements, the keenness in her eyes, even the way she smiled. It was affected, touched, all of it. The grasslands were in her.
Like the jungle lay in him.
Harry crossed the room, and without even thinking about it he reached up and tangled his fingers in her bit of wild, unbound hair. The way he'd find himself burying his fingers in her mane when he was boy and she cat.
Hermione cocked her head, let her eyes flutter shut, and she rubbed her cheek faintly against the palm of his hand. As though it was completely unsurprising that either should do exactly what they did. She opened her eyes and smiled. "Come on, then, let's go." She moved into him before turning, brushed her shoulder against his, and left for the portrait hole.
Harry was quickly on her heels.
The sky was barely painted maroon and violet when they emerged on to the grounds of the school. Only the most ambitious birds were stirring to song and the crickets had called it a night. It was the hour before daylight that Harry and Hermione were growing to know very well. With no one else at Hogwarts awake yet, it was as though the whole of the world, for that time, belonged solely to them.
Harry and Hermione wordlessly started running. They had a pattern by now, a path they followed every day. They each knew it as well as the other, so talk was unnecessary. They headed away from the castle, passed the north shore of the Black Lake, and skirted the boundary between grounds and forest, step for step, strides matched.
When they'd circled the castle, once they'd reached the point where the most of the massive school they could see was the greenhouses, they veered.
Hermione went first, dodging into the tree line as though trying to feint out a pursuer. Harry jinked and followed suit. They were both quickly swallowed by the Forbidden Forest.
They ran on, weaving between trees and around shrubs and bushes. Vague, indistinct shadows, struggling to exist given the sparse light of early morning, passed softly over them as they passed beneath branches and vaulted ceilings of leaves. They stayed side by side, almost shoulder to shoulder.
They were running right for a fallen tree, its trunk blocking the path.
Neither Harry nor Hermione moved to go around. Neither of them flinched or balked at the quickly approaching obstruction.
When they reached the log they both jumped. They kicked off and dove forward, arms reaching out in front of them, pulling their bodies horizontal like leaping from a diving board, as though they meant to hit the ground on the other side with a drop shoulder-roll.
Instead they came down on the other side as cats. They landed gracefully on sure paws and with barely a bobble continued their run through the trees.
It was flawless. Had anyone been there to see it they might even call it breathtaking. One might even mistake them for animagi of several years' experience. It seemed they had learned so much in a remarkably short time. Scantly a week possessing the ability to change into animal form, and yet they had excelled in leaps and bounds. They'd mastered transforming with their clothes (to their shared relief), as well as managing to switch from cat to human and back again without losing their balance or tipping drunkenly to one side or the other when their center of gravity sudden shifted. They could smoothly transition from one form to another until it was uncertain which was the more natural state.
At times, Harry wasn't sure of the answer.
Hermione gave a playful flick of her tail and she accelerated ahead of Harry, far faster than she could have run as a girl. With a thrill of adrenaline in his veins, Harry gave a guttural sound of merriment and took off after her.
They charged with abandon through the forest. Trees passed by them as gray blurs to their joy. Potential dangers in the notoriously treacherous woods were mere afterthoughts.
Harry closed on Hermione's gracefully racing form. He saw her left ear tick back toward him to better catch the sound of his approach, and he put on a burst of speed. He passed her. When threading and wending between trees at a dead run, Harry was faster. If they hit a clearing with open space, room to go flat-out, Hermione was the quicker. They were discovering slight differences in their abilities such as that. For now, amid bramble and bush, the advantage went to Harry, and he used it.
The wind sang in his ears and slicked along his sides like cool water. Freedom. Absolute freedom.
Then he jumped and gave a short yowl when Hermione lightly nipped his haunches. Harry turned a leaping stride into a spin. He whirled to face Hermione, agile and swift, and opened his black arms to snare her. He caught her around the neck with one forearm, claws safely sheathed, as she barreled into him.
They went down together in a tangle of legs and tails. They rolled and tumbled and when finally they came to a stop Harry was on his back and Hermione's head caught between his forelegs. She was half lying on top of him, panting from the exertion of their chase and tussle. Her dark brown eyes were glittering in feral delight as she looked down at him. Harry's tail was twitching madly with glee.
Hermione lowered her head and rubbed her chin against his chest. Then she brought up a paw and gently swatted at his face. Harry made a mewing sound in the back of his throat and twisted beneath her. He righted himself but still Hermione would not get up off him. She lay atop him, pinned him with her upper body, and lightly took the nape of his neck between her teeth.
Harry made a fake sound of complaint and pulled free of her teeth only to reach back and rub his head against her shoulder, whiskers tingling with the dancing sensation of contact with her.
Then the tawny limbs around his shoulders became slender girl's arms. The weight atop Harry lessened and the smell of her changed to an all-together different but just as familiar scent.
Presently, Hermione the witch was draped over Harry the black jaguar, like a girl might wrap around a beloved family dog, and Harry closed his eyes. He didn't change to match her right away. Just as he sometimes enjoyed touching Hermione the lioness with human hands, so did she find enjoyment in being human while in the company of Harry the panther. It was an affinity to which they'd mutually confessed, so it was not unusual for one to stay human while the other became the large cat. It permitted the curiosity inborn to each form, human and cat, to interact with the other as a species different from its own.
Hermione rested her head against the point of his shoulders. "If I'd known being an animagus would be like this…" she said dreamily.
Harry turned on to his back again, rolled under her arms, and soon he was looking up at Hermione from his back. Hermione smiled down at him, her hair even less contained by the ponytail band than it had been to start. She looked the wilder for it, and in this wild hour it was only fitting. The tip of Harry's tail was in a constant state of motion and he hooked her around the arm gently with one massive, curled paw.
Hermione chuckled and smoothed her hand over his muzzle. "Come on, Harry, I want to talk to you."
Harry changed back just like that, as easy as he might have removed his glasses. Hermione ended up with her upper body lying across his chest, the
both of them spread out on the forest floor like beach-going vacationers. As though neither was even aware of the dreary, ominous Forbidden Forest thick all around them.
Neither of them made a move to get up.
"Okay, so talk," Harry said with a playful smile.
Hermione folded her arms atop his chest and dropped her chin to rest on top of her hands. She gazed down thoughtfully at Harry, his face only inches from hers. He watched her back, waiting patiently. She still had the kiss of the wind pink in her cheeks. Once again, Harry did not fight the compulsion to reach up and tangle his fingers in her thick hair.
"Harry…" Hermione said as he played idly with her hair, "now, don't go playing the modest card when I say this… but you know how you're a remarkably powerful wizard?"
Harry made a face.
"Don't even try and deny it, Harry Potter. You are."
Harry dropped his hand from her hair only to place both behind his head and interlace his fingers into an improvised pillow. He could tell Hermione was on about something, and it usually didn't do any good to try and stand against her. "Okay, let's say for now that I am, what about it?"
Hermione shifted one hand free from supporting her head to pick off an errant bit of leaf that had fallen on Harry's neck. "Well, I was wondering if maybe you might actually be able to perform magic in your animagus form."
Harry's eyebrows rose. "As the cat? Is that even possible?"
"I don't know. There's not a lot of literature on the specific abilities of animagi, truth be told, maybe because it's so individualistic concerning the witch or wizard in question. We didn't even know it would be possible to tap into things like heightened hearing and sight while still holding human shape until you managed it. But I got to wondering about the possibility of you doing magic in animagus form because magic like that would clearly have to be wandless, and you can do a fair bit of wandless magic when you want to.
"You mean when I'm in a right temper. I don't think that really counts. It's not wandless, it's uncontrolled."
"It's both. Maybe you could hone it. You know, learn to control it."
"Hmmm," Harry shifted to get up and Hermione sat up and away from him. Harry rolled up to his feet and looked around the forest thoughtfully. "I don't know that I can do wandless magic the way you're talking about. Like Dumbledore does."
Hermione stood and faced him. "I bet you could if you worked at it. I don't think any of us really know how powerful you can be, Harry. Not even you." Harry turned his eyes down to her and the doubt was in his gaze and stance. Hermione had so much faith in him, but he knew he wasn't as strong or powerful as she believed him to be. Hermione was not one easily deterred, however. "We tackled the challenge of becoming animagi because we thought it might help you against Voldemort, right? Well, mastering wandless magic would, too. Even if you couldn't do it as the cat, being able to do it as a wizard would really be a benefit to you. I'm confident of that."
He was dubious. Wandless magic was a very difficult to perform magical talent, with only the likes of Dumbledore truly mastering it. Harry couldn't honestly hope to rank with Dumbledore for magical ability. But still, Harry had to admit that Hermione's animagus idea had come through brilliantly, and he'd been uncertain of that, too, at the onset. Perhaps here as well he should follow Hermione on blind faith. "Well, if we did decide to try our hand at wandless magic, is that something you can teach us to do from a book as well?"
Hermione's eyes widened at his words. "Oh, I only meant you, Harry. Icouldn't do it."
He canted his head and regarded her querulously. "Why not you, too?"
She glanced away from him. He could read the answer in the frown that creased her brow. She was thinking that she wasn't magically gifted enough to do it. He'd heard it before, in a similar form, when it came time for her to try the change the first time. She was book smart, and it wouldn't avail her in matters of pure magical talent. She was a decent enough witch for the great majority of spells, but nowhere near to Harry's caliber when it came to raw, innate ability. In that, she would insist, she was all too average. It was rubbish, of course, because Harry had threaded his fingers through her mane and he'd raced the wind with her.
"I don't think you can learn it from a book," Hermione said at long delay, completely ignoring Harry's second question. For now, he let her.
"Technically, we didn't really learn the key to becoming animagi from a book, either. We might not have ever figured it out without Kimmy."
"You would have," Harry said with total confidence.
Hermione blushed momentarily. "I thought you might best ask Dumbledore… see if he'll teach you, since he is the only one we know who knows how to do it." She looked up at him and suddenly stepped closer, placing a hand on his chest to emphasize her words. "Really, Harry, I think it would behoove you to at least try to learn how to do wandless magic. You've done it before, albeit inadvertently, it suggests you're capable, just unskilled in how to focus it."
Harry absently covered her hand with his, tucked a strand of her loose hair behind her ear, and said, "I'll ask him. On one condition."
Hermione's face crinkled shrewdly but she waited hesitantly for his terms.
"You come and ask to learn it with me."
"Harry…" Hermione pulled her hand free and stepped back a pace.
"I don't accept that you won't even consider the chance you could be able to do it, too. You had doubts about your being able to become an animagus, and look at you now," Harry pointed out.
"That's different." Hermione turned her back to him and looked out at the forest. Harry took a step closer to her until he stood just behind her right shoulder. It was close enough to feel her body heat in the chilly morning and catch the barest hints of her scent on the breeze. Hermione glanced back at him and sighed. "There were a lot of variables in becoming an animagus that I didn't fully understand. They might have been beyond my power. I didn't know enough to confidently say that they wouldn't prevent me from succeeding.
"But I know exactly what it takes to do wandless magic, Harry," she turned to face him again, head titled back just enough to look up at his insanely close face as he stood scant inches from her. Her expression was dogged. "It requires a degree of magical power that you have to be born with. You can't learn it in a book, no amount of study or practice will give it to you.
And I know I don't have it. You do."
"I don't think I'm as special as you think I am, Hermione. Truthfully, I don't think I'll ever be able to do wandless magic. At least not when it's outside of me blowing a gasket because I'm mad."
"And what do you think the source of that 'gasket blowing' is? It's the sameplace inside you that would allow for wandless magic."
They were arguing themselves in circles. "All right, then here's what I propose. I ask Dumbledore if he'll teach us wandless magic. I don't think I can do it, you don't think you can. Try despite your doubts and I'll try despite mine."
Hermione studied him closely a moment, lips pursed and eyes narrowed, then she gave a nod. "All right." She turned her eyes toward the sky, peered past the leaves to note the hue of the painted clouds, and said, "I think we still have some time to work on the sensing."
It didn't surprise him in the least that she would shift her focus so easily to that particularly vexing task for her. It was part of Hermione's unending charm. So of course he relented to her.
They sat down on the forest floor, facing one another, and Hermione's gaze toward him turned attentive and studious. She was waiting on him. His guidance.
Harry took a deep breath and closed his eyes, put aside whatever conflicted feelings or confusion that might have arisen from his previous discussion with Hermione, and he reached inward for the panther. He imagined it like a representation of the animal that hibernated in his chest, but not so much the full-fledged shape of the cat. Rather he envisioned the blackness of its fur, the hint of those powerful claws, the ice blue eyes against ebony, the sense of lean muscles capable of incredible prowess, far-sensing sight and hearing at the cat's disposal. It was an amalgamation of the aspects of his animagus form that defined it in Harry's mind. He harbored it in his body. At will, he reached down for that brush of black coat. He just touched its sleeping power and the panther stirred. It didn't burst forth and claim his body, it didn't change him. He only nudged it, awoke its abilities and borrowed them while the cat itself was held at bay.
The Forbidden Forest erupted around Harry. Sounds went from muffled and faint to crisp and clear. The air hit his nose sharply and headily, particularly Hermione's smell as she sat so close. He listened to the tapestry of noises until he found one sound to pick among the many.
He opened his eyes and looked at Hermione. "There's a squirrel cracking a nut or acorn or something. My guess is it's two or three trees from where we are. Try to hear it."
Hermione nodded quickly, sat up straight, and closed her eyes. She wasdetermined to master this ability, but so far it had proved difficult for her. Harry had a hard time trying to explain how he did it when she asked for further advice. It seemed to just happen when he wanted it to. He'd had a few unintended changes at first, but since then he hadn't really changed into the panther when he only meant to touch and tap the panther's abilities unless he chose and willed himself to be the cat. To him, being an animagus was a far more fluid experience, human and panther lying on opposite ends of a continuum with varying degrees of intermediary phases in between. For Hermione it seemed a much more demarcated event. She was either human or feline, witch or cat, and for the most part it seemed that never the twain shall meet. She had to struggle to borrow from her animagus form in the same way he was able to borrow hearing or sight from his panther form. And to be honest about it, she never really managed, not nearly as Harry did.
The times that they did credit her with approaching the feat was in all truthfulness more an instance of her being on the cusp of the change and holding it off a few seconds, lingering in a limbo that she could not hold.
The trouble she had doing it did not sway her from attempting to master its use, however. Harry sat quietly and watched her.
At first her expression was calm and placid. Then a crinkle appeared on her brow. Then her lips tightened into a determined line. Her brows drew together. A frustrated flush touched her cheeks. Then she sucked in a breath, leaned forward, placed one hand on the ground, and changed into the lioness.
Hermione snarled in frustration, canines bared and claws digging into the dirt.
"Hey, hey," Harry reached forward and took her head in his hands. Hermione looked at him, an angry rumble still rising from her chest. Harry smiled gently and said, "It's all right. We'll work on it some more later. It'll take some practice, that's all. I know you can do it."
Hermione stared sharply at him as though she felt she was being patronized, but the rumble in her throat died and she huffed out a breath.
Harry dropped his hands from her head, twisted at the waist, and placed his hands on the ground, as though he meant to spin around on his bum.
Instead he rose to all fours and completed the turn to face Hermione once more as the jaguar. Hermione was still standing with legs braced, claws embedded in the ground, still in a sour mood for her failure.
Harry went over to her, bumped her in the shoulder with his own, and rubbed along her body to try and break her out of her disposition. Hermione leanedinto him in reciprocation after a couple of seconds standing stubbornly still.
Together they walked back in the direction they'd come, easily and unrushed, side by side as ever.
When they could see the break in the tree line ahead that would deposit them back on to Hogwarts school grounds they both rose to their back legs, but did so for only a split second before they were straightening from a stoop and standing upright in full human form once more.
They left the Forbidden Forest and cut across the grounds toward the castle, moving casually like nothing more exciting than your average exercise run had happened.
"Harry?"
Harry glanced at Hermione by his side. She was deep in thought, which was hardly a surprise, but whatever was on her mind seemed to be bothering her. She turned her eyes to him. "About asking Dumbledore to teach us wandless magic…"
"Yeah?"
"I think you should ask him to teach Ron, too."
Harry paused. "Ron? You don't think he'll be able to do it."
"No, I don't."
"Then why—"
"Because…" she stopped, as though unsure how to articulate her thoughts, "because it's been you and me a lot this term. At first it was just that we'd gotten used to it being just the two of us after last summer, and then when neither of us were really talking to Ron it was just you and me… but now that things are a bit more back to normal… he'd notice if we excluded him, Harry. I don't want to alienate him when we've only now patched things up with the three of us. No, I don't think he'll be able to do it, but then I don't think I'll be able to, either." She graced Harry with a smile. "So it's no harm to have him join us, but it could end badly if we didn't invite him."
Harry, as usual, could not fault her logic. "Yeah, I suppose. I'll ask him then."
Hermione gave him a grateful, approving smile and sidled closer to him. Hershoulder brushed his and her hand closed lightly around his forearm. She maintained that gentle hold all the way back to the castle.