There were several good reasons that Harry Potter didn’t want to let Hermione Granger out of his arms at this very moment, or at least so Harry assured himself. There was the problem with the Grangers that made Harry doubt whether he would even see Hermione for the rest of the summer (or anytime ever again other than at Hogwarts). There was the vaguely threatening poem he had just discovered had been delivered to the Dursleys, which seemed to name Hermione and him as part of something called ‘Auburn Summer’. Plus, Hermione was clutching him really tightly, so it might actually put him in physical danger if he were to try and remove her. And then there was the not unimportant fact that it felt really, really good.
Unfortunately, Aunt Petunia and Dudley Dursley had at this point come to investigate the simple mystery of who had rung the door bell, only to find Harry (who was not popular with either of them at the moment) hugging his faux girlfriend (who they had to placate in order to make sure an important business deal didn’t fall through) for dear life. Dudley openly mocked the duo and Petunia only hesitantly made him stop. Eventually the two of them tired of having Harry’s obnoxious relatives for an audience and they quickly made their way upstairs to his room.
They both sat down on Harry’s bed and spent about a minute assuring each other that they were alright before they got down to business. “I’m sorry it took so long for me to get over here,” Hermione explained, her face slightly pink. “Dad was still pretty furious about last night and even getting out of the house took Mum covering for me. And this note,” she handed Harry a piece of paper with the same rhyme that had found its way to the Dursleys’ doorstep, “didn’t help matters much. When Dad saw this, he got steamed all over again. He’s ordered me to stay away from you.”
Harry found he could no longer look at her, so he conveniently cast his eyes upon the sheet of paper she had handed him. “I got one of these notes, too. I’ve never seen the Dursleys act as afraid as they did when Aunt Petunia read this.” Harry paused, gulped and made his eyes find something interesting to gaze at on the floor. “Listen, Hermione, I…I understand if you don’t want to see me any more this summer. Your parents…”
“…aren’t important right now. You are.” Hermione took his hand in hers and Harry made his eyes look at their joined hands, although he still couldn’t look her in the eye. “I’m…we’re still all so sorry about what happened last summer. I just can’t leave you alone again. Especially now, when this stupid poem was sent to both of us.” She made an emphatic gesture at her own pristine piece of paper with the ‘Potter and the Mudblood’ verse written on it.
“Yeah, I can’t believe someone wrote this about us,” Harry replied, some of the anger that he had felt only moments ago upon first reading it coming back to his face.
“Are you certain that…whoever it was… wrote it about us?” Hermione asked, as she raised one eyebrow poignantly.
“Of course,” Harry answered her, his brow furrowing in slight confusion. “Who else could it be about?”
“I’m not sure of anything right now, mind you,” Hermione told him in a somewhat apologetic tone. “But it could be talking about your parents.”
The idea struck Harry like a thunderbolt. ‘My parents were James Potter and Lily Evans, a Muggleborn.’ Hermione must think he had the collective IQ of Crabbe and Goyle not to think of this earlier. The Dursleys’ reaction certainly seemed to make a lot more sense in light of this revelation and the anger that Harry felt turned into a deep burning sensation in his stomach. “Of course,” Harry said again, this time in a completely different, wondrous tone of voice. His eyes scanned the poem again quickly, looking for further clues. “‘The keeper of the garden’,” Harry read aloud, wheels finally turning in his head. “My grandfather Evans was a gardener. It’s why he named his daughters after flowers. Or so my Aunt Petunia always said. I never knew him.”
“Do the Dursleys have anything of your grandfather’s?” Hermione asked pointedly. When Harry gave her a mildly questioning look, she added, “Or of your mother’s? We could look through them and see if we find anything about an ‘Auburn Summer’.”
“Aunt Petunia wouldn’t have anything that belonged to her sister Lily,” Harry replied as he let a little note of sadness slip into his voice. “There was too much bitterness between them. But I think she does have some of my grandfather’s belongings out in the garage.” He rose somewhat reluctantly from his bed and pulled Hermione up. “Come on.”
Explaining halfheartedly to his Aunt Petunia that he wanted to show Hermione something in the garage, he ignored her completely perplexed and disdainful look and led the way to the dusty side garage. It was mostly packed with things Dudley had gotten tired of playing with over the years, but which Harry either didn’t want or couldn’t use. Rummaging through boxes of rubbish which included exhaustive tax records kept by Uncle Vernon and a ridiculous number of baby pictures (all of Dudley, of course), he finally came to a box labeled ‘Mum and Dad’ in barely legible scrawl. “This is it,” Harry announced and the two of them unceremoniously dug through the pile of unorganized paperwork and photos, hoping to find some clue as to what the poem they had both received meant.
Much to their dismay, Harry and Hermione learned little useful information as they dove through the pile. Harry did discover, however, that his grandfather apparently had managed to clip every article the London Times had ever written on growing turnips and then arrange them in chronological order. After nearly an hour of searching, Hermione finally found something that mentioned the words ‘Auburn Summer’. Disconcertingly, it was in a front page news story from the late 1970s…about the Evans’ murder.
“Harry!” Hermione exclaimed in shock upon finding it. “You never told me your grandparents were murdered.”
Moving so quickly to look over Hermione’s shoulder that he nearly smashed their two heads together, Harry looked just as astonished as she did. “That’s because I didn’t know! Aunt Petunia never told me. Why would she…” He stopped speaking and started reading, his amazement growing at nearly every moment.
Hermione read the important tidbits aloud. “…authorities believe the murder may be in connection to a series of unusual events involving their daughter Lily and her boyfriend, James Potter…” “…only clues at the murder scene were a solitary thumbprint which has yet to be identified and a key which is of similar unknown origin…” “the words ‘Auburn Summer’ were written on the walls in blood. According to their daughter Petunia, the phrase meant nothing to relatives of Reginald and Agatha Evans…” After a few moments of stunned silence, Hermione and Harry shared a worried glance.
“Harry,” Hermione mouthed almost breathlessly. “If this ‘Auburn Summer’ is here again, and everything happens the same way…”
“Your parents could be in terrible danger,” Harry finished, a slight chill running up his spine. “Which means we have to stop it from happening again. And to do that, we have to find out exactly what happened twenty years ago.”
***
Hermione had insisted on writing Dumbledore straight away, detailing everything that they had discovered. Harry felt very much like protesting. ‘We hardly need Dumbledore’s permission to investigate my grandparents’ murder,’ he thought to himself. However, Hermione pointed out that he could know something about the case or at the very least arrange a meeting between them and the Auror who looked into the case originally.
“An Auror?” Harry questioned. “But my grandparents were muggles. Shouldn’t we be looking through police reports or something?”
Hermione shook her head. “Their daughter was a witch and the story said something your parents did might have been related to the murders. Trust me, an Auror would have been put on the case. Besides, who do we know who could get us access to old police records?”
Harry agreed without further comment and the two of them spent the rest of the day going through some more of Reginald and Agatha Evans’ personal belongings, speculating what else they could do to find out more about ‘Auburn Summer’ (suffice it to say there was nothing in Hogwarts, a History or any of the other books Hermione had brought along for light reading about the phrase), and eventually fending off Vernon Dursley, as Hermione insisted that Harry not be severely punished or her parents would be very displeased. Harry inwardly winced as he realized that this was now a bluff. His Uncle Vernon seemed to fall for it, however, promising that Harry would indeed be well fed, allowing him to stay in Dudley’s second bedroom and giving Hedwig a reluctant pat on the head just to be safe.
Although all three Dursleys gave Harry dirty looks throughout, Hermione stayed for dinner (thus ensuring Harry got normal portions of food) and then the two of them made their way back to Harry’s room. “I don’t know how long I can stay here, Harry,” Hermione announced warily as she took her place next to him on his bed. “Mum told Dad I’d be spending the day at the library, doing research for Muggle Studies. He’ll probably be expecting me home soon.” She then gave him a look that defiantly declared that she would much rather stay.
Harry nodded knowingly. “You should probably go then. If you can’t make it back anytime soon, I’ll send Hedwig…”
Hermione interrupted him forcefully. “I’ll be here tomorrow, bright and early.” She let out a wide grin that relaxed Harry instantly. “It’s taken care of, Harry. You don’t have to worry about my father…or me.”
“I can’t help that,” Harry declared without thinking. He was getting that strange buzz of confusion around his head, like when they were by the lake. “When I thought that that poem was about you, was about us… I…”
“I know,” Hermione stopped him, her eyes filled with understanding in the face of what seemed like an overwhelming sense of uncertainty on Harry’s part. “I’m kind of surprised you didn’t think of your parents immediately, really. I mean, why would you think of us as a pair? It’s not like we….well, you know…”
“I don’t know,” Harry answered, his fingers suddenly feeling restless, as though he should be doing something important with them. His eyes looked away from her and he suddenly found his dresser absolutely fascinating. “It just seemed…right. Somehow. Does that make sense?” He turned back to face her and found that her face was much closer to his own than he had realized.
This must have shaken her somehow, because she suddenly stood up. “I should go. Dad will be livid if he thinks that I’ve been out with you. If Mum gets worried about me and tells him it could ruin everything.”
Harry felt a sense of disappointment that turned itself into mild anger. “Right. Wouldn’t want your Dad to think you’ve been out with me. Off you go then.” Hermione didn’t seem to pick up on his feelings as she quickly said goodbye. Harry listened for her moped speeding off and then kicked his shoes across the room in frustration. What was wrong with him? Why was some part of him trying to ruin everything between him and Hermione? Maybe it was Voldemort, playing tricks with Harry’s mind. Except Hermione seemed to be helping things along, and he didn’t really think the ‘Dark Lord’ would stoop to trying to make things difficult between two teenagers, even if one of them was the Boy Who Lived.
Harry was thinking idle thoughts about Voldemort making a plan with his Death Eaters to lure Harry into having a row with Ron over Quidditch practice scheduling when he suddenly drifted off to sleep. In one of his dreams, Cho Chang was kissing him again and he seemed to have even less choice in the matter this time. As he tried to break away, she began crying all over him and her tears seemed to paralyze him, holding him in place. Before he knew it, water began pouring all over him, no longer from Cho Chang’s tear ducts, but from a waterfall above him.
Harry found the strength in his legs to move away from the waterfall, leaving Cho on the other side so that he could no longer see her face, only her Ravenclaw Quidditch robes. As he attempted to make his way out of the water he was confronted by a suspiciously dry (and inexplicably alive) Cedric Diggory in his own Hufflepuff Quidditch robes, pointing accusingly at Harry and Cho. Harry attempted to defend himself, saying that he hadn’t meant to kiss Cho, who he of course knew belonged to Cedric, but she had just been so insistent and he hadn’t been able to pull away. This did little to satisfy the former Hufflepuff Seeker, and in truth Harry was finding that his story was somehow unbelievable even to him. As he looked back towards Cho, she no longer looked like herself. Her robes were still the color and style of Ravenclaw but her face was changing and her hair was getting lighter…
At that point, his dream seemed to shift gears, and he instantly knew he was the snake again, crawling on the floor of what looked like a very old and very posh wizard’s house. What he was doing there, he wasn’t sure, but… Suddenly he saw a man with a mid-length black beard with streaks of gray in it sipping tea. Harry knew that this was a man who had been marked for death by Lord Voldemort. He felt the killing strike more than witnessed it and then awoke with an ear-splitting scream.
The Dursleys ignored the interruption of their nightly routine but continued to give him funny looks over breakfast the next morning. Harry contemptuously ignored them back, waiting anxiously for Hermione to show up so that he could tell her about his dream. Eventually he heard the sound of the doorbell ringing and rushed to greet her with a crooked, tentative smile on his face. However, from the bounce in her step and the poignant way she looked at him, he knew she had big news as well. Not even paying attention to Dudley’s snide remarks, the two of them snuck back up to Harry’s room and before Harry had even closed it, Hermione burst out “Do you want the good news or the kind of strange news first?”
After Harry’s dream last night, the choice was clear. “The good news.”
Hermione practically beamed. “My owl came back from Dumbledore with a note addressed to my Dad that said he was asking me to help you with a special summer project for school. He’s still not happy with you, so I wouldn’t recommend coming to visit any more, but he’ll more or less have to let me see you whenever I want.”
Harry let a relieved look cross his face. “That’s great, Hermione.” She had a slightly nervous smile on her face that let him know there was more. “Er, so what’s the strange news?”
Hermione shot him a slightly bewildered look. “Well, Dumbledore apparently was familiar with what happened to your grandparents, and he has given us the name of one of the Aurors who was investigating at the time. He, erm, also says that there were two main suspects in the case, neither of whom were ever brought up on charges. Two people we've recently become familiar with.”
Harry’s eyebrows shot up in interest. “Out with it, Hermione. Who were the suspects?”
“Frank Nichten-Teach,” Hermione replied softly. “And Atlas Filch.”