“Do you think we should wake them?”
“No, they look so cute together. Vomit.”
“I really think that you should try to get used to them being together. I mean, let’s face it, neither of them are going anywhere in a hurry.”
“Not if I have anything to do with it,” muttered Harry, opening his eyes to see Ron and Hermione sitting beside the bed.
Hermione smiled. “Good morning, if it is a good morning, which I doubt…” Her smile faded.
“How’re you feeling?” asked Ron, obviously trying to avoid the negativity.
Harry, who didn’t seem to be able to sum up the immense load weighing down on his mind at the present moment, answered with a simple: “I’m alright.”
Hermione’s expression was difficult to read. She looked as if she was struggling somewhere between worried and disappointed, but all she said was: “Dumbledore wants to see you.”
Harry nodded; he had been waiting for that. He sat up carefully, so as not to wake Ginny, got out of the bed, then lay her back down on it. She didn’t stir one bit. “I may as well get it over and done with. You coming?”
“I’ll come,” said Hermione, standing up.
Harry looked to Ron. “Oh, I might just…” He gestured towards Ginny.
“Sure,” said Harry, “although I doubt she’ll be awake any time soon; she hardly slept last night… we’ll be back soon.” He and Hermione left the Hospital Wing and proceeded to walk to Dumbledore’s office in silence.
“Fizzing Whizzbee,” said Hermione to the gargoyle, and they ascended the revolving staircase.
“I have something for you,” said Dumbledore, looking up at Harry as they went in. He reached into a drawer of his desk and pulled out “
“My wand! But “ how “ ?”
“You have it back, that’s all that matters,” said Dumbledore, waving his hand as though to say that it was nothing. “Now, we have a few matters to attend to. Please, sit down.” Two comfortable-looking red armchairs appeared in front of the desk, and Harry and Hermione each took a seat. Harry had an uncomfortable lump in his throat, filled with guilt and dread, and, not wanting to look his headmaster in the eye, he gazed down glumly at his feet.
“Firstly, as hard as it may seem, I would like you to tell me exactly what happened from that night, up to when I saw you yesterday.”
Harry remained silent. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Hermione reach out and put her hand on his arm.
“Come on, Harry,” she said kindly. “You’re going to have to do it some time, and it will be better once you have it out of the way.”
And so he told them; told them of how he didn’t remember anything between Ginny falling and coming-to in that dark cell; of how he had survived on next to nothing for days on end, and of how he had tried to contact Ginny. So as to skip the sympathy and worry he knew it would induce, he left out the pain of the Cruciatus Curse, and went straight on to the end of the story.
“And then, one day, I heard a voice telling me to ‘get out’, and the next thing I remember is when I saw you.”
“You know nothing else of where you were?” asked Dumbledore.
“I’ve told you all I can,” said Harry through gritted teeth. If he had known where he was, he would have said so.
“In that case,” continued Dumbledore, “on to our second call of business. Do you remember the DA, Harry?”
“Of course I do,” said Harry, now starting to get frustrated with all this pointless chitchat.
“The work that you and your other members achieved there is nothing short of astounding,” Dumbledore told him. “What you and your friends managed to accomplish, was not only to teach highly advanced defence, but also to bring unity between three out of our four houses, something that Hogwarts school has always struggled for, and something that we need now more than ever. Harry, I would like you to seriously consider restarting the DA.”
This made Harry look up. He had broken numerous school rules, including several laws, in his running of the DA, not to mention the amount of trouble he had caused Dumbledore.
“But “ it was different then,” said Harry. “We weren’t getting any practical defence lessons. It was all we could do.”
“Oh Harry, don’t you see!” said Hermione. “This is just what we need! We need to pull the houses together, and extra defence training isn’t exactly going to hurt!”
“This isn’t just lessons, Harry,” said Dumbledore gravely. “This is preparation for war.”
Harry considered this for a moment. The DA had been fun, and it had helped to take his mind off things. “You’ll help me?” he asked, turning to Hermione. She smiled.
“Of course we’ll help you,” she replied. “We can all do it together.”
“Well… I suppose it can’t make anything any worse.”
“Excellent!” said Hermione, and Dumbledore’s eyes brightened.
“You can run it in the Great Hall,” said Dumbledore. “Say… Tuesdays and Thursdays? After dinner?”
“What about the summer holidays though?” asked Harry. “We’ll hardly be able to have any meetings before they start.”
“Well, actually Harry, that’s something else that I wanted to ask you,” said Dumbledore. “In our current situation, I really think that people would be willing to go to meetings during the holidays.”
Harry scoffed. “I have a feeling that my aunt and uncle wouldn’t be too impressed.”
“Not if they weren’t to know,” said Dumbledore. Harry’s stomach flipped; would this finally be the summer when he wouldn’t have to spend any time with the Dursleys?
“What do you mean exactly?” Harry asked.
“Well, I would like you to spend some time of your holiday with your aunt and uncle.” Harry scowled; so much for a Dursley-free summer. “However,” continued Dumbledore, “as you know, you have a neighbour who is well aware of the wizarding world, having had magical parents herself, and who can therefore help us while you are with the Muggles. I am talking, of course, of Arabella Figg.”
“And “ what were you thinking we could do?”
“Well, the Order’s headquarters at Grimmauld Place seem like a suitable place for the DA to meet. You see, I am proposing that the DA will be the Order of the Phoenix’s youth movement. Harry, I want you to be the head of Dumbledore’s Army, and to train anyone who is underage, and who wants to help the war effort, to be prepared for anything. You can reach our headquarters by Floo Powder some time at the beginning of the holidays, then stay at Grimmauld Place for the rest of the summer, training others and taking an active part in the Order. All I need to know now is whether you wish to do all of this.”
“Are you kidding me?” said Harry. “It sounds brilliant!”
“Very well,” said Dumbledore, looking content, “I will send you a letter explaining exactly how we will carry out the plan soon after you arrive back at Privet Drive. Any questions, either of you?” Harry and Hermione shook their heads. “Well then, be off with you. I’m sure you wish to discuss this conversation with your Weasley friends straight away.”
Harry and Hermione left the head’s office and started to make their way back to the Hospital Wing.
“We should start planning what we’re going to do immediately,” said Hermione on the way. “It’s really going to have to be a lot more serious this time.”
“Hermione,” said Harry, “we can still have fun at the DA, you know.”
“Oh, I know!” she replied. “But with all this about the war and the Order, we’ll have to take it a bit more seriously than before.”
“I suppose,” said Harry. “But then I guess I’m going to have plenty of time at the Dursleys to plan what we’re going to do. Where are you this summer?”
“Grimmauld Place with you, of course!” said Hermione brightly. “You’re not going to be there on your own, Harry.”
When they entered through the doors of the Hospital Wing, Harry saw that Ginny was awake and sitting up in bed. “Oh good, you’re awake,” he said as they approached.
“Let’s get out of here,” said Ron, and, quietly so as not to alert Madame Pomfrey to the fact that they were leaving, they left. As they made their way out to the grounds, Harry and Hermione told Ron and Ginny everything that Dumbledore had said.
“Oh, Harry, that’s excellent!” said Ginny once they had finished.
“We’re going to run part of the Order?” asked Ron, looking impressed.
“Dumbledore’s Actual Army,” said Hermione. “And with our combined knowledge of defence and Harry’s experience of Voldemort and the Death Eaters, they’re not going to know what’s hit them.”
“Hey, it’s not just me with the experience of Death Eaters,” said Harry, as they strode out into the sunshine. “Or Voldemort, in fact.”
“We’re trying to forget,” mumbled Ginny.
“I know,” said Harry, “but the more we know what it’s really like to fight them, the higher an advantage we have. In fact, with the number of people we had in the DA, we could certainly give them a run for their money.”
“Well we’ve done it once and we can do it again,” said Ron cheerily.
Hermione frowned. “It’s not all fun and games, Ron,” she said seriously. “This is the real thing, and we’re going to have to work hard to achieve the high standards that we’ll need.”
Ron cheery smile disappeared, and he looked down grumpily.
“Give him a break, Hermione,” said Ginny. “If we take it too seriously the novelty will completely wear off and no one will want to work at all. We’ve got to try to keep our spirits up these days.”
Hermione sighed deeply. “I know,” she said glumly, “I’m just “ well “ you know…”
The four of them continued to wander round the lake, none of them speaking, all lost in their own thoughts. When they had done a complete circuit, they parted, and Harry and Ginny went up to Gryffindor Common Room. As they clambered through the portrait hole, an overwhelming sense of comfort swept over Harry; now he really was home.
He collapsed onto the sofa, and Ginny snuggled up beside him.
“I’m so glad you’re back,” she said, slipping an arm around his back and laying her head on his shoulder.
“Believe it or not, so am I,” said Harry, and Ginny chuckled.
“I’ve missed this so much,” Harry heard her say.
“Tell me about it; I was going crazy!” Harry replied.
Ginny sat up suddenly.
“Sorry?” she asked.
“What? Why are you looking at me like that?”
“Why did you just say ‘tell me about it; I was going crazy’?” asked Ginny, looking bewildered.
“Because you said you had missed these times!” replied Harry in exasperation. “I was just agreeing with you!”
“I never said that!” said Ginny.
Harry couldn’t understand why she was lying to him about something so trivial.
“Yes you did!” he told her. “Just now!”
“No I didn’t, Harry,” she said seriously. “But I did think it.”
“You “ what?”
“I was just thinking that,” she said anxiously.
“Are you trying to tell me that I heard what you were thinking?”
“How else could you have heard me say that exact thing?” asked Ginny. Then, seeing Harry’s raised eyebrows, she continued. “Harry, something happened when you were away; something… slightly weird. It was probably just a random dream or something, but I was sitting beside you in the dark, and you were telling me how much you missed me, and “ “her voice faltered slightly “ “ and how much you loved me and “ oh, I don’t know, it was probably just a meaningless vision.”
“Not necessarily,” said Harry slowly. “When was this?”
“A few days ago.”
“Because I was just thinking those things a few days ago.”
Ginny gaped at him.
“That’s creepy,” she whispered.
“And it means I can find out when you’re really lying to me “ “
“Hey, you’re not just going to casually stroll into my mind whenever you feel like it!”
“Why?” asked Harry. “What’s so private that you don’t want me to see?”
“Private things, Harry,” said Ginny with a smirk.
“Do I really want to know?”
Ginny giggled, then got up.
“Freedom of thought, Harry,” she called over her shoulder. “We should always have freedom of thought, no matter what happens. Now, let’s go and get some lunch “ I’m starving.”
That evening, Harry, Ron, Hermione and Ginny stayed up late into the night. The Common Room fire’s embers were burning a low, pulsing orange, and Harry’s eyelids were as heavy as lead, but he had missed these times so much over the past week that he tried with all his might to stay awake.
A sort of mutual understanding of feelings had grown between the four of them, dismissing the need to ask each other how they were feeling or how well they were coping, and as Harry sat there with Ginny’s head in his lap, he could feel that understanding present in the air around them. So far, the impending doom of the wizarding world went almost completely unspoken of, which Harry was glad for. He didn’t want to have to do a post-mortem on recent events, or to imagine what could be coming; the future looked bleak and empty, and, having blocked out all thoughts of it and forbidden his mind from wandering to it, Harry was trying to focus on the present moment.
He habitually twirled a strand of Ginny’s long hair around his fingers, its mesmerising colour and touch causing him to think back to the first time she had kissed him all those months ago, and the adrenaline he had felt as their lips locked, setting a precedent for every time she had kissed him since. As he remembered, Ginny turned onto her other side to face him and smiled softly “ a smile that ignited her eyes and made Harry’s heart shiver. Had she remembered too? Ginny nodded slowly, her expression forming surprise. Eager to explore this new revelation, Harry asked another question:
“Can you really hear me?” he thought.
“As much as you can hear me,” said Ginny’s voice inside his head.
Harry stared at her unbelievingly, and she laughed nervously.
“What’s so funny?” asked Ron, mid-yawn.
“Don’t worry,” murmured Ginny, then: “Idiot,” said her voice.
Harry grinned.
The next week passed with almost no news of current affairs outside of Hogwarts. The Daily Prophet no longer came, and teachers were very reluctant to tell the students anything about anything. However, word of multiple deaths in the Ministry had reached them, and those who hadn’t been captured or killed were struggling to keep any sort of government running. Dark wizards had nothing to hide any longer, what with the majority of Aurors having been killed in the showdown at the Ministry, and surely that was Harry’s fault? Had he not have gone and got himself captured and locked up, they would never have had to rescue him in the first place, and maybe the Ministry would have been spared. Harry resolved that he would just have to train the DA so that they really were ready for anything, so that they could eventually replace the missing Aurors.
He woke early on Tuesday morning and, seeing that no one else in his dormitory was awake, dressed silently and crept down the stairs, taking his Firebolt with him. The sun’s early morning rays were shining brightly through the Common Room windows, and when Harry got outside, he found that it was already fairly warm. He mounted his broom and kicked off hard from the ground, soaring lightly into the air and somersaulting over and over until his head spun.
As he flew, a weight lifted from his mind, and he almost forgot the troubles that he had left behind on solid earth. By the time he was descending to the ground, the sun had risen above the forest, and a few eager first years were already heading to their Care of Magical Creatures lesson. Harry went up to Gryffindor Tower to put his Firebolt back, and, not feeling much like breakfast, went straight to his lesson.
“Where were you this morning?” asked Hermione, as they left the classroom and headed for lunch.
“Oh, I woke up early so I went to have breakfast,” Harry lied in reply. “Look, I don’t really feel like lunch. I might just go outside for bit.”
“Okay,” said Hermione slowly. “Have you worked out what we’re going to do tonight yet?”
Harry’s heart sank; he had no idea what he was going to teach the DA that evening.
“Er, yeah, I think so,” he muttered. “See you later.”
He strode away before she could bother him further, and did not stop walking until he was under his favourite silver-birch tree. Trying to forget everything that was on his mind, he lay back and shut his eyes, letting the sun creep round until there was almost no shade left, and he had to undo the top buttons of his shirt.
“Harry!”
He heard her distant cry and tried to pretend that he hadn’t, hoping that he wouldn’t have to move from his comfortable spot in the sun.
“Harry?”
She was closer this time, and inquiring in her tone.
“What are you “ oh my “ what the bloody hell’s that?”
She sounded shocked, and there was a hint of fear in her voice, so Harry opened her eyes. Ginny was standing over him, an anxious expression on her face, her eyes wide and staring at the opening in his shirt where his chest was showing.
“Harry,” she gasped, “what happened?”
Harry sat up and looked down, only to see, to his annoyance, that he had exposed the large, purpley-red bruising across his chest where he had been hit repeatedly with the Cruciatus Curse.
“Um, well, it’s nothing,” he muttered distractedly, trying to cover it up with his shirt.
But Ginny had already bent down and was kneeling beside him, reaching out to have a closer look.
“No,” he said, and he batted her hand away. As soon as he had done it, he knew he was in for it. Her eyes snapped up to his, full of surprise, and they stared at each other.
“What’s got into you?” she asked, her voice almost a whisper. She sounded more confused than angry. “You’re not there at breakfast, you’re not there at lunch, then you spend a whole hour lying outside on your own, and now you won’t even let me touch you?” Harry stared at her, as confused as she was. “Please don’t lie to me, Harry “ I have a right to know “ what’s going on?”
“I don’t know “ I’m just…”
“You really don’t know?” asked Ginny disbelievingly. “You’re not just too embarrassed or too proud to tell me?”
“No!” cried Harry. “Ginny, please, I “ “
“ “ oh save it, Harry,” interrupted Ginny. “When you really want to confide in me, let me know.” She got up and started to walk away, then stopped. “Lunch is over, by the way,” she mumbled. “You might want to get to your lesson.”
Harry waited until she was back inside the castle before picking up his things and going to Transfiguration.
A/N: Finally. Sorry it took so long - I've been away. Anyone get the OC or Winnie the Pooh references?! If you did, let me know! This one's for Olivia, who has just discovered the wonderful world of fanfiction, and has been waiting for this chapter for a while. (although I let her read some of it the other day...) Please R/R so I know what you think!