It was into the New Year before Hermione was allowed to bury her parents. Hogmanay had passed without much notice in Potter Hall. The house had been very subdued as the last minute of nineteen ninety-seven ticked away and the first minute of nineteen ninety-eight ticked to life. There was no vibrant party, no fireworks, and no toasts to the year to come, just quiet prayers that this year would see the end of the wretched war that was stealing life up and down the country. On the third of January Hermione held a Muggle funeral service for her parents in the little church that resided within the grounds of the Hall. The Weasleys, Harry and a few members of the Order, including Professors Dumbledore and McGonagall, were the only ones to attend it. Ellie had kindly offered up some spare burial space in the graveyard that accompanied the church so that Hermione’s parents could be kept somewhere safe, somewhere that they would be guaranteed to rest in peace.
The day before they were due to go back to school there was a very muted knock at Harry’s bedroom door, this surprised him because normally people just strolled right in. “Come in,” he called as he threw another pair of socks on to the large pile of assorted school things that were gathering on his bed.
“Um…all right, Harry?” Ron’s slightly shaky voice asked.
“I suppose I am,” he answered.
“I…um…well…I wanted to talk to you, is that okay?”
“I thought we already were talking,” Harry replied bluntly.
“You call this talking? Because I call it banging my head against a brick wall?” Ron snapped.
“Funny you should mention that, I was thinking about doing that exact same thing just the other day.” Harry angrily snatched a set of black school robes out of his wardrobe.
“I just want us to get back to normal,” the ginger boy pleaded.
“We’ll get back to normal when you remove your head from your own backside.” There was a hint in Harry’s tone that suggested he didn’t think this was going to happen any time soon.
“That’s what I’m trying to say! Harry, I’ve made a mistake!” Ron yelled.
“Actually, I think you’ll find you’ve made several. You were a pig to Hermione, you dumped her, you’re snogging the face off anything in a skirt and you expect us all to feel bad for you! Well, I’m sorry, Ron, but there is no way that I’m going to feel bad for you after the way you’ve treated Hermione and while we’re on the subject of treatment, I think you’ll find that I’ve been quite fair with you.” Ron began to protest but halted at the infuriated look that sparked out of Harry’s green eyes.
“If the shoe had been on the other foot and I had treated Ginny the way you did, you and those brothers of yours would have taken me out to a quiet, secluded corner of the castle grounds and hexed the living daylights out of me! I wouldn’t have been able to walk right for months. I think that considering what you would have done to me, I have been very lenient with you. I should have reduced you to wood shavings but because you’re Ginny’s brother, and she happens to like you, I’ve restrained myself! And now you saunter in here to tell me that you’ve made a mistake, well excuse me if I don’t double your dose of sympathy, but I’m a little bit busy trying to take care of the best friend who’s just lost her parents!” Harry raged. He was startled to see tears forming in Ron’s eyes.
“You’re right, Harry, I don’t deserve your sympathy, and I certainly don’t deserve Hermione,” he said dejectedly.
“Sometimes, I really don’t think you do,” Harry continued his scolding; he wasn’t going to let Ron off lightly.
“It was the look on Malfoy’s face, he’s always trying to get one over on me and Hermione’s always been the one thing that he could never have, yet there he was, gloating away. I couldn’t take it, I was just so angry,” Ron finally admitted.
“You may have got that point across.”
“I know now that I was a prat, I over reacted…”
“You don’t say.”
“I do. I want to make it right, but I don’t know how to,” Ron watched his friend expectantly.
“So you expect me to help you after everything that’s happened?” Harry asked sceptically.
“I love her, Harry. I just didn’t think that I could after what happened, but I do. I love her more than ever,” Ron said so quietly that Harry barely heard him.
“I’ll help you, but only on one condition,” Harry bargained.
“Name it,” Ron replied instantly.
“You swear on your life that you’ll never do anything like this to her again.” He made sure to look Ron right in the eyes when he gave his answer.
“I swear on my life, your life, anybody’s life, I’ll never hurt her again,” Ron pledged unflinchingly.
“Good, because I promise you, Ronald Weasley, if you do I’ll stick your broomstick so far up your rear end it’ll take the best healers in St. Mungo’s a week to retrieve it,” Harry growled.
“Thanks for the pleasant imagery there, mate,” Ron smiled. Finally things were back to normal between the pair of them.
Their return trip to school was uneventful; Hermione sat in the prefect’s carriage with Ellie the whole way back while Ron sat in with Harry and Ginny trying to brainstorm some ideas for winning Hermione over. It was difficult, but in the end they came up with something. After their first day of classes Harry, Ron and Ginny returned to the tower to dump their bags before dinner. Just before they entered the tower Ron slipped Harry’s invisibility cloak over his head, once inside the portrait they passed Hermione who was half hidden behind a stack of books in one corner. When they were up in the boy’s dormitory Ron removed the cloak and passed it to Harry who put it on and followed Ginny back down the stairs. “How are you, Hermione?” Ginny asked the older girl as she approached the table she was working at.
“I’m fine, thank you, Ginny,” Hermione replied without looking up from her book.
“Harry wants to have a word in private,” she pointed to the staircase.
“Is Ron up there?” the older girl asked nervously.
“No, he went straight down to dinner, you know Ron, he never could resist the lure of food,” Ginny smiled. “Will I see you down at dinner later?”
“I’m not sure. I’ve got a lot to do,” she pointed to the large pile of books on her table.
“Would you like me to bring you something up?”
“No thank you, I’m not hungry,” Hermione said firmly.
“You have to eat at some point.” Ginny was so worried about Hermione, she hardly ate any more and all she seemed to do was study.
“I will, but I have to go and see Harry just now,” she changed the subject and started the climb to the boy’s dormitory.
“So now we wait,” Harry announced as he whipped the invisibility cloak off.
“Yep, let’s go and eat before we visit the Room of Requirement,” Ginny flashed him one of her devilish smiles before whisking him off to the Great Hall.
Apparently, Hermione was not impressed at being tricked into speaking to Ron and promptly stopped talking to Harry and Ginny for their collusion in the matter. They tried to explain to her that they had her best interests at heart, but for some reason Hermione didn’t see things that way. When they asked Ron what exactly had happened between the pair of them Ron just shook his head and mumbled incoherently, it hadn’t gone well at all and instead of being a step closer to getting back together, they were three steps back.
When they awoke on the morning of January the fifteenth panic was zooming around the Great Hall, the morning edition of the Daily Prophet had already been delivered and those who didn’t have copies were leaning over the shoulders of their neighbours to get a glance at the front page. The headline was not a pleasant sight.
“YOU-KNOW-WHO’S SICK BIRTHDAY MESSAGE
Multiple attacks as the Dark Lord leaves a Birthday Surprise.
Twenty witches and wizards died last night in ten coordinated attacks up and down the country; each site had the Dark Mark hovering in the air over the victims. In a shocking new twist a green mist, identical to the kind that forms the mark, was shot in to the air right next to it, but strangely it took the shape of a birthday cake. Ministry officials are at this minute looking through birth records to create a list of witches and wizards born on this day. We’ll give you more information as soon as it is available to us. The Ministry are encouraging everyone to stay inside and not to answer doors to anyone.
Ministry Statement pg. 2
Eye-Witness Accounts pg. 3
Tips for securing your home pg.7”
Next to the article there was a photo of the haunting green birthday cake next to a skull with a snake protruding from the mouth. Harry shivered, as he always did when he saw that sign of death. He had started wracking his brain for people he knew with birthday’s today when his eyes fell upon Ellie at the staff table, she looked positively ill. The little cogs in Harry’s brain all slid into place, who did Voldemort hate more than most? Ellie. Who had a birthday today? Ellie. Who was twenty years old today? Ellie. He felt the sudden need to comfort his cousin and rushed up to the top table. “Are you okay? Sorry, stupid question,” Harry blabbered.
“Not having the best day,” she said. She glanced down at the paper in front of her and gave an odd lurch; he could have sworn that she was nearly sick.
“Well…um…Happy Birthday!” he offered.
“Thanks, Harry, lets just say that I’ve had better birthdays. That’s me officially old now, I’m not a teenager any more, and I have to be grown up, mature and responsible. No more messing about for me, nope, just a pipe and slippers from now on,” she muttered humourlessly.
“It’ll be all right, Ellie,” Harry attempted to comfort her as her eyes once again fell on the newspaper.
“Twenty people are dead this morning because of me; I really don’t see that things can be right at all.” She was again overcome by her need to vomit and she rushed from the hall with her hand clamped firmly over her mouth. In his head Harry was calling Voldemort every foul name under the sun; he had ruined what should have been a wonderful day for Ellie. A day, that should have been celebrated with twenty candles on a cake, was now being celebrated by twenty candles of mourning that were burning their way through Ellie’s heart.
A/N: Please accept my apologies for the very short chapter (the shortest one of this fic in fact), it was one of those horrid transitional chapters that is necessary to get you from A to B. The next chapter for your perusal is... Caught In The Lion's Den.