Disclaimer: All JKR's characters - i just like to play with them!
[A/N: I have written many chapters so far, just need to post them all - I'll do my best! Also, I've been on holiday so please bear with me! And please review! I love reviews!]
Bond Across Time
Chapter 2 �“ Train Ride Questions
Harry, Ron and Hermione settled comfortably into their compartment, the latter two happy for the lack of students, so they didn’t have to fulfill their Prefect duties. Neville and Luna were searching various compartments for Trevor the toad, who had left on one of his escapes for freedom, and Ginny was with her friends, claiming she had a lot of gossip to catch up on. Harry knew in his gut, though, that she really just wanted to avoid him as much as possible.
She was actually plotting with her best friend, Faye Walters, how to antagonise Harry as much as possible at the wedding.
Harry leaned forward on his elbows. He and his best friends were alone in the compartment, and he intended on getting their help in his plan. But first things first, he was setting the record straight.
“Ron, Hermione. You know we’re going on an extremely dangerous trip, right?”
“Of course we do!” They spoke as one and had the conversation not been so important, he would have laughed and yelled “Jinx!”
Hermione looked at Ron, then at Harry in the seat across from her. She, too, leaned her elbows against her knees to get closer.
“Why did you think we’re so insistent? Honestly!”
“But Harry,” said Ron, “Hermione and I won’t be able to come to the Dursley’s with you anymore. Hermione’s staying at the Burrow with her parents. We have to help set up the wedding. Fleur and Mum are mental! They still can’t decide on a date! At the moment, it’s in three weeks.”
“Er…right. That’s fine. Well, I think before we go, we need to organise the trip. Things like what we need to take, where we can search, how we can destroy the Horcruxes, et cetera, et cetera.”
Hermione took out some parchment and a Self-Inking-Quill Ron had given to her for Christmas, and started jotting down notes.
“We’ll need to travel light so we can’t bring too much clothing. We won’t have free access to laundry so we’ll probably have to use the Muggle Laundromats...”
“Laundy-whats??”
Hermione took over, organization and lists, being her forte. “It’s a place where you can clean your clothes, Ron. We will need lots of parchment, quills and some ink, unless we get some Self-Inking Quills. We’ll need a place to stay. Maybe, Mr Weasley can tell us where to buy some magical tents. We also need a way to travel. You two are taking your Apparition tests this summer, aren’t you? Well Apparition can be traced and we don’t really want the Ministry knowing. We can ask some of the Order members if they know how to mask Apparition. We also need to have a more extensive knowledge of hexes and jinxes. I know Harry, you have loads of books and have been practicing them in the Room of Requirement when you have free time but Ron and I don’t know them, so we need you to teach us and help look for the counter-jinxes and other unknown curses. I think the Bat-Bogey Hex is worth learning �“ I read that it doesn’t have a counter-jinx...”
She broke off to take a break, but from the awkward stillness around her, she understood the implications of her words. The Bat Bogey Hex was Ginny’s specialty.
“Oh Harry, I’m so sorry! But really! You shouldn’t have broken up with her anyway. You said yourself she was really special. And she’s not exactly...”
“...going to be safe, whether she’s going out with me or not.” Harry completed the sentence for her and grinned at a perturbed Hermione, who was shocked that a tactless, naive boy had actually finished off her sentence, about relationships no less, perfectly. Sometimes, the words that came out of Harry and Ron’s mouths stunned her into silence, then she’d grin about it, realizing that she had rubbed off on them at least a little.
“Harry, mate. How...how, exactly, do you feel about my baby sister? Because if you play around with her feelings, like Corner, then Voldemort won’t need to worry about you any more. Best friend or no, I will hurt you and you’d still have everyone else to worry about. Weasleys can do all sorts of wonders. Ginny doesn’t have six brothers for nothing. We’d all have a ball, ‘specially since Bill knows curses and hexes you couldn’t even fathom. Charlie can pull strings at the dragon enclosure. Dad and Percy have leverage at the Ministry and Auror Department. The twins are terrorists and they’re the ones who gave yours truly some pummeling practice; they’d love to use you as a lab rat for their newest inventions, and I won’t even go into what Mum will do to you. Pity Ginny likes you...the last boy who tried to fool around with her emotions was Charlie’s best mate last summer. I tell you, his fiancé isn’t too pleased that he can’t have kids anymore.”
Harry gulped visibly to Ron’s satisfaction, but went on to reassure Ron about his intentions. “Erm...Ron? Let me tell you what happened from the beginning. After Dumbledore’s service, I thought that Ginny was in danger of getting seriously hurt because of me, that everyone I was close to was in danger of getting hurt because they knew me. Look what happened to Dumbledore, Bill, and even you two got hurt.” He gestured lazily over his two best friends, then went back to ticking off the people hurt because Voldemort was after his head. “Then there was Katie, your dad, Tonks, Sirius, I could go on. So, I thought that to keep Ginny safe, I should break up with her, distance myself so that Voldemort wouldn’t find out through our mind link. I couldn’t bear the thought of him hurting her.”
Hermione opened her mouth to start an argument against his logic, but Harry stopped her by holding up his hand and continuing. Now that he had started, he had to finish this confession, “But I realise now that everyone is in danger, that I might as well be happy with Ginny rather than be completely miserable without her. I realised that I could never do anything to hurt her and that this,” he gestured wildly with his hands, “this is hurting her. D’you get what I mean, Ron?”
Silence filled the compartment. Harry was breathless from his thorough revelation and Ron was staring listlessly at the mound of Chocolate Frog wrappers. Hermione, however, was bouncing eagerly on the chair.
“Harry, how are you going to tell her?”
“Tell her what?”
“That you don’t actually want to break up with her and that you want to go out with her to Hogsmeade. We can meet up there for Halloween.”
“Hermione! The Hogsmeade trip is in October and it’s only MAY!” burst Ron incredulously.
“Well, then you can ask her to go to Diagon Alley with you as a couple when we go and buy our supplies. Take her to Madam Patty Piddlypaw’s for a lunch date.”
Harry and Ron stared at her aghast at such a suggestion. They didn’t even know such a café even existed.
“Yeah, that’d be romantic. You, Ginny and a dozen or so guards, one being Moody. And you can stare into her eyes over the table and be looking right at Mad-Eye under his invisibility cloak,” Ron snorted in a mocking tone. “Besides, when did you become such a girl?”
Hermione looked at them exasperatedly. “You two always ruin all the romanticism in everything!” She sat back with her arms across her chest. She had expected them to be relieved and to thank her for her brilliance, but instead, she wound up with Ron’s dumb comment.
~*~
Ginny Weasley was sitting despondently with her friends in a compartment near Harry, Ron and Hermione’s. She knew they were talking about her; she heard them with the Extendable Ears when she was waiting for her friend, Faye to come back from the food trolley. She had heard them discussing whether Harry ought to get back with her or not. On a brighter note, Harry had finally realised that he didn’t want to break up with her after all. She wondered what made him change his mind. A smile couldn’t help but creep it’s way across her face at the potential of them getting back together. She felt herself grow a little worm inside at the prospect.
~*~
As they were reaching King’s Cross, the train almost at the Platform when Harry suddenly remembered what he had been meaning to ask Hermione.
“‘Mione, what do you know about Legilimency? Do you know how it works?”
“It’s reading minds, basically, but with a wand. Some people have the ability to do that anyway though. Without a wand. Like Muggles who think that they’re psychic. And I have a hunch the Professor Snape had the ability as well. He always seemed to know what was going on. Why?”
“Because...I was trying to see things from Ginny’s point of view yesterday, but I kinda didn’t get what I was looking for.”
“What are you talking about?”
Harry leaned forward. He was taking this opportunity when Ron was in the toilet to share his anxieties with Hermione. She always knew what to do, like a young, female Dumbledore.
“I think, I read Ginny’s mind. She’s planning on looking ‘drop-dead-gorgeous’ at Bill’s wedding to try and coax me back.” He thought about that with a smirk. “Not really much more she can do, is there? She already looks beautiful.”
“Harry! This is it!Maybe this is your powers that ‘the Dark Lord knows not’ . You really would need to learn how to focus it though. Ginny wouldn’t appreciate you butting into her thoughts, but you can learn. I wonder if this is the true extent of your powers or if there is more. You can read minds naturally. You’re a natural Legilimens.” She finished softly, her mind spinning with the possibilities of how to defeat Voldemort at the end. Harry felt grateful that his best friend didn’t doubt what he had confided in her. She actually believed that he had some new, unfounded gift. That made him feel just a bit more confident.
“Well, I think a little trip to Remus’ flat is in order. I wonder if he and Tonks have sorted things out yet?” he said cheerfully.
“Why Remus? Why not Dumbl...”
To her amazement, Harry didn’t stiffen when she mentioned Dumbledore. Whenever anybody mentioned Sirius, he withdrew into himself, become like a sitting statue, and sulked until the topic was changed. She had assumed it would be the same with Dumbledore’s death, that Harry would believe it was his fault Dumbledore had died. Instead, he beamed.
“Hermione, Dumbledore’s still watching over us. Those who love us don’t really leave us. And Dumbledore will never be truly gone unless none remain who are loyal to him.”
“Whoa, Harry, when did you get so deep?” Ron smirked, returning to the compartment, just as the train pulled to a stop into the platform.
“Since I fell in love with Ginny.”
Hermione sat gaping in front of him. A low growl emitted from the open compartment. Whirling around to face the doorway, he was presented with the terrifying image of two irate, elder Weasley brothers. It appeared as though Fred and George had come looking for them and heard him confessing his love for their baby sister.
“WHAT?!”
“FINALLY!!”
Fred and George stared at Ron.
“About time, Harry, she’s been nagging me for ages, trying to find out how you felt about her!” He nonchalantly pulled his trunk down from above their heads, ignoring the looks he was receiving from his older brothers.
Fred and George glared daggers at Harry, and then turned around to admonish their youngest brother. “You knew they were going out...” started Fred.
“...and you didn’t tell us?” George chimed in.
“Erm...well...you never really took an interest after she broke up with Dean, did you?”
While the brothers argued and Hermione made sure they didn’t kill each other, Harry took the opportunity to sidle out of the compartment and onto Platform 9 ¾. He was hoping to get back to the Dursleys without any more confrontations.
Unfortunately, he was spotted by Mr and Mrs Weasley who, to his mortification, were accompanied by Bill and Charlie. At least Percy wasn’t there. And Ginny was still chatting with Faye’s parents.
“Harry!”
Mrs Weasley fussed around him and gave him a massive, bone-crushing Weasley hug as she said, “Don’t you fret about the Dursleys, my dear; we’ll get you out of there in no time, hopefully for your coming-of-age birthday party and you can get you Apparition License with Ron. The wedding is on the 6th August, just between your and Ginny’s birthdays. You’ll have to come for that, but Minerva can’t keep you with those awful Muggles for that long...”
“Mum, let him breathe,” chuckled Bill, “Harry, can I have a quick word with you?”
He took him aside onto the Muggle Platform and spoke in quiet whispers. Harry couldn’t help but glance at his wounds, hoping that by the time the wedding came around, he would be nearly as good as new. He felt awful for the things that had happened over the past week.
“Harry...I want...will you...” he broke off, frustrated that such a simple question was taking so much effort.
“What?”
“Would you mind being my Best Man for the wedding?”
Harry was stunned. He couldn’t understand why Bill wasn’t asking one of his own brothers or friends. Maybe Ron would be a better choice. Bill saw his dilemma.
“Fleur wanted to have people as part of the wedding who meant something to us all. We made a list of important names and did a random pick of who was what. So Ginny’s Maid of Honour - she made up with Fleur during the year; Gabrielle is the flower girl; hopefully Hermione and Faye will be bridesmaids �“ Hermione’s basically part of the family now, all Ron needs to do is make it final; Fleur’s brother, Christophe, and Charlie are groomsmen; Gabrielle’s twin, Alain is the Page Boy. We need someone who has the respect and love of both of us. Naturally, we thought of you. You took down Greyback when he had hurt me, you saved Dad, Ron and Ginny, and you helped Fleur and Gabrielle during the second task. And the hat that the names were in threw yours out. It’s like fate now.” His words were spurting out of his mouth so quickly that Harry was struggling for his mind to keep up. He knew how difficult conversations like these were for guys. Heck, he always froze up when admitting the kinds of things Bill was as well, so he felt sympathetic to his older brother.
“But...I’m not...I don’t think...”
Bill grinned at him, a large, feral smile that reminded him forcefully of Remus, who he still hadn’t had that heart-to-heart with. “Will you be my Best Man?”
Harry looked down at his feet. Ginny was Maid of Honour, he would have to dance with her during the opening dance, at least, that’s what they did on the tele. He looked up at Bill’s expectant face and smiled hesitantly.
“I’d be honoured to be your Best Man. Thanks Bill.”
“Excel-”
“BOY! We’ve been waiting for you for over half an hour! Get your trunk and that ruddy pigeon here!”
“Oh well,” sighed Harry, “I’d better go back to a few more weeks at the Dursleys. See you, Bill. Tell Ginny, Ron and Hermione ‘Bye’ for me.”
He walked backwards towards the Dursleys and towards his last summer of boredom.
Bill, feeling it his Orderly duty to see that Harry was safe, followed them outside and watched silently as Harry climbed into the backseat of Vernon’s three-door Peogeot. He thought about how Harry had told him to say his goodbyes to Ginny before Ron and Hermione. Maybe there was something to what Ginny had asked in her letter. She wanted Harry to “notice her again” as she put in her letter. Were they going out? Had they been going out? He dismissed it as unimportant temporarily and went back to his family.
[A/N: Please review �“ much appreciated! Lots of credit goes to Roxy who betaed this chapter �“ and the following ones so brilliantly]