The Lewis House 12 страница

"I’m sorry," he mumbled into her shoulder. "I’m sorry."

"No," she protested, her voice choked and muffled on his neck. "I know you didn’t want to go. I know. I know."

Her arms were around him now and she rocked him gently. Harry shut his eyes and let her do it, neither moving to hold her, nor moving to fight. He was dimly surprised that she was able to support his weight.

After a long time, Ginny raised her head. "Come on," she said quietly, pulling away from him, and turning him toward his bedroom door. Without a word, she guided him to his bed, pulled back the blankets, and helped him to sit. Hedwig hooted fretfully from her perch in the corner, as if she, too, had missed him and worried about him.

Harry sat, unmoving and exhausted, listening to bureau-drawers open and shut as thoughts raced through his head. His body was warm, where Ginny had been against him. The Dementor was back at Azkaban. Moody would take care of it. He didn’t have to think about it. Ginny had left imprints on his back, where her hands had moved. Maybe Oliver would let him go back to the tryouts, if Sirius explained things. Sirius was getting too damned overprotective. And Ginny...

Ginny. She had just put pajamas at the foot of his bed, and was now leaving the room. Harry turned toward her – he didn’t want her to go – but she dimmed the lights and left him alone, shutting the door behind her with a whispered, "Sleep well."

Harry looked at the closed door, feeling strangely lost. Somehow, he fumbled out of his robes and into the pajamas, then made his way under the covers. He drifted quickly toward another long rest, clinging to the remembered sensation of Ginny, breathing against him. The rise and fall of her.

He kept her at the front of his mind, a talisman against all darker thoughts, until sleep rushed over him in a wave and he passed out completely.

~*~

"Just a butterbeer for me please," Hermione said to Harry, smiling as she settled herself at one of the worn wooden tables at the Snout’s Fair. Harry didn’t smile back. He nodded silently and went up to the bar, where Ron was serving the other patrons, and stood there with his hands in his pockets, looking disinterestedly at the wall.

Hermione felt awful, watching him. It had been two days since he had come back from Azkaban, and they still hadn’t talked to each other at all; he’d either been at Quidditch practice, or sleeping. She had hoped that, tonight, he might tell her a little bit about what was happening in his head, but now that they were here, she doubted that he’d say anything. It was already shaping up to be the kind of night where she’d be the one doing all the talking. Harry had been extremely withdrawn ever since his return; he was so quiet, and looked so drained, that Hermione didn’t know what to do for him. It was like the first day of summer and the end of the war, all over again, and she was actually surprised that Harry had agreed to come to the pub with her at all.

She watched him as he spoke to Ron, and she tried not to look too worried about him when he came back to the table a moment later, two foaming butterbeers in his hands. He clunked them down on the table and slid into the chair across from her, looking idly down at his tankard.

Hermione struggled to find something casual to chat about. "So, Harry, were you surprised by the owls we got this morning?" she asked brightly, hoping that a light topic would steer them in the right direction. Earlier that day, they had all received invitations to the wedding of two of their former Gryffindor classmates: Lavender Brown and Seamus Finnigan. Hermione had found the invitations both beautiful and touching – the wedding was to take place on Hogwarts grounds, on September first, to commemorate the day the couple had met and the spot where they’d fallen in love.

Much to Hermione’s surprise, Harry gave her a bit of a smile. "No more surprised than I was to happen upon you and Ron reading in the sunroom yesterday." He cleared his throat falsely. "Looked like a good book."

Hermione blushed and threw one of the dancing peanuts at him, but she was so relieved to hear him joking that she couldn’t really be upset with him for teasing.

"Well," she said, changing the subject back again deftly, "we’ll have to get them wedding gifts, but I haven’t the faintest idea what they’d like. Lavender and I shared a room for seven years, and all I can really think about getting her is perfume, or lipstick, or a Love Potion kit. Though she wouldn’t need that anymore, I suppose."

Harry laughed, a little. "That’s a hard one," he agreed. "I’m not that close to Seamus, either. Maybe a frying pan in the shape of a shamrock?"

Hermione giggled. "Right. Or a purple tablecloth with brown trim?"

Harry groaned. "Not funny," he complained. "Where’s Ron?"

Hermione pretended to be highly offended by this remark, and immediately challenged Harry to come up with something better. They proceeded to entertain themselves by listing the most outrageous wedding gifts they could think of, and by the time she’d exhausted her ideas, Hermione was laughing so hard that she could barely breathe. Ron joined them at once, on pretense of clearing the table, and demanded to know what was so funny. Harry explained the joke, and asked Ron his opinion on the wedding gifts.

Ron snorted. "Pretty obvious, isn’t it?" He patted Hermione on the head in his maddeningly superior way. She shot him a look, but he merely patted her again. "I mean, all things considered, Hermione, you really owe Lavender a bunny rabbit." He grinned, whisked the dancing peanut shells away with his wand, and sauntered back over to the bar.

Hermione furrowed her brow, trying to figure out what on earth he was talking about, when she was startled by a loud noise. Harry had suddenly shouted with laughter and doubled over with a cry of "Good one!"

Ron laughed with him, lifting up a tankard from the bar and shouting, "Cheers!"

Hermione continued to feel puzzled. She looked from Ron to Harry, both curious and annoyed. "Well, what?" she demanded. "I don’t get it."

"You – " he explained, through his continued sniggering " – Lavender – Divination – rabbit – dead."

Hermione opened her mouth in amazement. She had entirely forgotten about that incident. "Yes, that’s right!" she laughed, putting her fingers to her mouth. "Poor Binky – I should have been nicer to Lavender about that, but honestly..." She trailed off and looked at Ron, who was standing behind the bar, laughing uncontrollably. She stuck out her tongue at him. He looked at it, then raised his eyebrows suggestively. She looked away in a hurry, feeling her heart flutter up into her throat.

"You know," she said to Harry, fanning her face with her hand and trying to keep her voice normal, "I can’t believe the things Ron remembers."

Harry snorted. "Versus the things he can’t remember to save his life?"

"Exactly!" She lifted her tankard.

Harry clinked his against it, exchanging with her the kind of smile earned only by many years of friendship. They sat sipping their butterbeers in silence for a few minutes, and Hermione felt very content. It had been good to bring Harry here. He was still smiling a bit, seemingly entertained by two wizards playing a game of Exploding Snap in the corner.

"So," he said mildly, keeping his eyes trained on the precarious card-deck, "I guess Ginny was busy tonight?" He took a swallow from his tankard.

Hermione’s eyes widened at his transparent question, but she willed herself not to act strange, or sound surprised. "I don’t know," she replied, as evenly as she could. "I asked her if she wanted to come along, but she said she didn’t feel like it. I think she’s working on something, actually. She’s been digging around in my books all week."

"Oh." Harry shrugged neutrally.

To anyone else he would have seemed disinterested, but years of watching Ron’s ears turn pink had trained Hermione’s eye. And Harry’s cheeks, she was thrilled to note, were unnaturally flushed. She could hardly restrain herself from teasing him, but she knew Harry far too well to try it. She’d never get anything out of him, if she made him uncomfortable. Instead, she gripped her hands together under the table and waited impatiently for him to say something else.

"What’s she working on?" he asked, after a moment, still watching the Snap game with incredible attention.

It was all Hermione could do not to giggle, but she bit back the urge. "She won’t tell me," she answered honestly. "Apparently it’s some sort of secret." She grinned inwardly as she delivered this tantalizing information, watching Harry struggle to maintain his expression of careful unconcern.

"Huh," he answered. He didn’t say anything else for awhile, and when he did, it had nothing to do with Ginny. "Oh, that’s going to explode, right there," he muttered, pointing to one wizard’s hand of cards. "He has to get rid of that one."

Hermione rolled her eyes, sipped her butterbeer, and thought about telling Harry that he was easier to read than a first year textbook. It was rather fun, though, just to watch him squirm. She had endured a few years of raised eyebrows and pointed smirking from him, regarding her relationship with Ron, and if Harry thought he was going to escape without taking a bit of his own medicine, he was dead wrong. She sat back again, waiting, feeling sure he’d ask something else if she stayed quiet.

Sure enough, after a very loud SNAP! from the corner, and a groan of disappointment from the wizard who had lost, Harry took another swig of butterbeer and tried again. "Can’t believe you let her throw your books around like that," he said casually, "if you don’t even know what she’s doing with them."

Hermione couldn’t resist. "Throw my books around?" she asked, feigning puzzlement. "Did she really? Where?"

Harry turned crimson, pressed his mouth shut, and concentrated very hard on his butterbeer.

Hermione permitted herself a wicked grin. She knew very well that Ginny had been throwing her books around in a chaos. She also knew that, if Harry had seen the mess, then he must have been in the girls’ room. She wondered just when that had happened, and just what had happened, and though it was normally the sort of thing she scoffed at Lavender for caring about, she still resolved to find out everything, later on, from Ginny.

She also decided not to torture Harry further.

"I asked her what she’s doing with all my things," she informed him simply. "And she told me. It’s just that I don’t believe her answer. She says she’s ‘gearing up for the school year’."

Harry looked up at her sharply, abandoning all earlier pretenses. "What school year?" he demanded. "What are you talking about?"

"Well, I don’t mean a regular school year, of course," Hermione explained quickly. "But she’s going to have to study, isn’t she? Whether or not there’s a Hogwarts to study in, she still needs to finish her education. I still have all my books and notes, and I told her she could have them if she wanted, so she’s really going to be fine in terms of..."

She trailed off. Harry was glaring at her as if she had somehow caused Hogwarts’ collapse. "It’s not nearly the same and you know it," he leveled. "It’s not fair she doesn’t get to finish."

Hermione put her chin in her hand. "I know that," she said quietly, feeling suddenly depressed. It was very hard to believe that Hogwarts could close for a year. Hard to believe that her school, which had almost always felt like a fortress, could suffer such serious collapse and destruction. It just didn’t seem real. She’d been there, and seen it, and still couldn’t quite convince herself of what had happened. It was going to be strange, she reflected, to attend a wedding by the lake, and have to face the crumbling castle again.

Harry had gone back to watching the Snap game, and was clearly finished commenting on both Hogwarts, and Ginny. Hermione continued to sink into her own serious thoughts. She didn’t have to worry about missing out on a year of school, but she worried, very much, about her future. About her parents. About her decision to go to Cortona, where the Thinker lived, whether or not she received an invitation. She still hadn’t broken that news to Ron. And when she did, he was going to be so unhappy....

Hermione sighed deeply and Harry looked over at her. Recovering herself, she gave him what she hoped was a winning smile and said pleasantly, "By the way, how are Quidditch trials working out? Since you’ve been back, I mean."

Harry groaned loudly, "Oliver is a slave driver. I shouldn’t even drink this butterbeer – he’ll be able to tell, tomorrow."

"It isn’t strong at all! It’s not as if it can give you a hangover."

"Well, according to him, it’s all taking precious milliseconds off my speed and agility." Harry shrugged. "I’m working out harder than anybody, but... I guess I should take it more seriously."

Hermione shook her head at once. "No. You should enjoy yourself, you know how Oliver is. And anyway, Viktor used to drink butterbeer."

"Oh, did he?" Harry grinned. "Viktor Krum?"

"Oh, shut up."

Harry laughed. "Yeah, well. I think I’ve got a good chance to be Seeker, and I’ll find out in another couple weeks. But the witch who’s my competition is few years older than I am, and to be honest, she's good."

Hermione leaned forward happily. When Harry talked about Quidditch, he could ramble on almost like a normal person. "The witch who told us what happened with the Dementor, you mean? Is she the other Seeker?"

"Yeah, Maureen Knight. She’s getting worse hell from Oliver than I am, and she gives him back more lip than the twins ever did in school. Anyway, there're only two of us, so we'll both end up on the team. It's just a matter of who's the reserve player."

"I’m sure you’ll be Seeker," assured Hermione. "And won’t Ron be ecstatic, to be best friends with someone on the Chudley Cannons!" She clapped her hands together, excited and pleased for Harry’s sake. "Oh, and when you’re a star, could you persuade Oliver to change the team colors? I never cared for that particular shade of orange, especially when Ron insists on wearing that hat all the time – it blends with his hair and makes his head look like a big pumpkin."

Harry laughed at that, and then motioned to Ron to send over two more butterbeers. They landed on the table a moment later, with a soft thud. Attached was a small note that read: Two’s your limit, Potter!

Harry made a face. "Honestly. I get drunk once and he thinks he has to stand guard. D’you have a quill?"

Hermione did. She handed it to Harry, who scribbled something hastily on the back of the note and sent it zooming back in Ron’s direction. Hermione watched as Ron opened the note, guffawed, and threw it in the waste bin.

"Language, Potter," he shouted. "Ladies present, and all that." He winked at Hermione.

"He’s a prat," Harry muttered.

"Yes," said Hermione slowly, sensing a possible opening. "Ron is very – protective of you."

Harry gave her a funny look. "I guess," he answered noncommittally.

Hermione bit her lip. She didn’t know how to bring up what she really wanted to talk about with Harry – she wasn’t even sure if it would somehow violate some sort of code between him and Ron. But she had to run the Thinker idea past someone. She felt guilty for not confiding her plans in Ron, first and foremost, but she didn’t want to ruin the summer by making him miserable. And now that she’d really made up her mind, she wanted to tell someone who knew her well, and somehow validate her choice.

Carefully, she began. "It’s strange to be finished with school, don’t you think?"

"Yeah," Harry replied, a bit gloomily.

Hermione pressed on. "Everyone will be moving on. You’ll be playing Quidditch, Ron will be working here, and I’ll be..."

Harry looked at her with interest. "Yeah?"

She shifted uncomfortably in her seat and nervously glanced toward the bar, where Ron was practicing mixing drinks in the air. "We-ell," she began, sounding Harry out, "I sort of wanted to ask you..."

Harry waited for her to continue. When she didn’t, he leaned forward curiously. "Go on," he prompted.

Hermione scratched the splintering wood of the table with her fingernail. After a moment, she asked slowly, "Has Ron – said anything to you about... about the possibility of my apprenticing a Thinker?"

"Hmph," was all Harry said. He sat back and glanced toward the bar.

"He has mentioned it, then?" Hermione pressed. "What did he say?"

Harry gave a short laugh. "Only that he’s glad you haven’t heard back from that one."

Hermione pursed her lips. "Oh really," she snapped. "How generous."

"Yeah," said Harry, looking very uncomfortable. "Look – I thought you knew that much already."

She put up a hand. "I did. Don’t worry, you didn’t give away any secrets. And I’m sorry, Harry, I don’t want to drag you into the middle of this."

"Too late," Harry sighed, and nearly drained his butterbeer with one long gulp. He clapped the tankard onto the table and exhaled. "So, are you going to be a Thinker, or what?"

Hermione wanted to say yes. But another look in Ron’s direction made her heart twist guiltily. "Well... just hypothetically... what would you think if I went to Cortona?"

"Cortona?"

"Where the Thinker lives. Off of Greece."

Harry shrugged. "Do you think you should go?" he asked. "Will they even let you in? You don’t have a letter or anything."

"True – but I think that not hearing back from Cortona is a test of sorts," Hermione replied in a rush, "and I have to try and see what happens, or else I won’t forgive myself. I could Think of something to help my parents, if I had the right training. I know I could."

"So you’re going."

Hermione shook her head rapidly. "No, no. I’m just saying, if I went. And, from the reading I’ve done, Thinker apprenticeships generally only last for half a year!"

"Which means you could do it in about two weeks."

"Well, I’d try to do it in four months. If Ron understands that I’m coming back at Christmas, then he might be less upset with the idea, don’t you think?"

"Sure," said Harry, taking a swig of butterbeer. "You’ll have a blazing row, tears will be shed, Ron will punch a tree, but in the end, you’ll persuade him. I’ve seen it before."

Hermione blinked. "Are we really as bad as that?"

"No," said Harry, nodding his head vigorously.

"Oh, Harry." Hermione sighed and looked over at Ron, who was clearly telling some sort of joke. The wizard listening to him was chortling loudly, and slapping his hand on the bar. "It’s not as if I’m leaving him. You have to help me pound that into his thick head."

Harry laughed. "Gladly." And then, more seriously, he added, "And I think you should go to Cortona."

"You do?" Hermione asked, hopefully.

"Yeah."

Feeling much better about the situation, and much more ready to break the news to Ron, Hermione slowly finished her second butterbeer. She was weighing the idea of staying until the bar closed and telling Ron everything on the walk home, when bells jingled, signalling that the door to the Snout's Fair had opened behind her.

Harry sat up straight and stared over her shoulder at the door, putting his hand to the pocket where he kept his wand. "Damn," he muttered under his breath.

"Who is it?" she started to ask, turning around in her chair.

She never finished speaking. Instead, she found herself looking into the cold, grey eyes of Draco Malfoy, who held her stare without blinking. He wore sweeping Quidditch robes that looked identical to the standard issue practice robes that Harry came home in every day, except that Harry’s practice uniform was garish orange, and Draco’s attire was dark gray, with white finishes. He stood there haughtily.

Behind him there stood a hulking man with ruddy cheeks and brush-like hair, who would have been athletically handsome if he hadn’t looked quite so menacing. He was carrying two brooms, one of them probably Draco’s. Hermione was struck by how closely his presence resembled Goyle’s, and she felt her stomach sink at the too-familiar sight. This was going to lead to a confrontation, she just knew it – she moved to the edge of her seat and saw Harry do the same.

Malfoy, however, looked entirely relaxed. His eyes flitted over her shoulder toward Harry; then he looked away, and stared in the direction of the bar. "Thirsty?" he said, over his shoulder, to the man behind him.

Hermione cast a worried glance at Ron, who was staring at Malfoy, his bar towel clutched in his hand, his face a mask.

"Go on and get whatever you want," Malfoy instructed his companion, who stepped toward the bar immediately. Malfoy, however, did not go near Ron. Instead, he headed toward Hermione’s table, slowly, looking arrogantly amused. She reflected that it was interesting that Malfoy had not approached her when they had been alone, but seemed to have no problem doing so when he had a massive friend alongside him. It was just like school – as if nothing significant had happened, as if no war had been fought. And, though she didn’t fear Draco Malfoy, she felt sick that he could be so unchanged.

"Well, well," Malfoy said softly, stopping a few feet from Hermione’s chair. She glanced around him at Ron, who filled two tankards without taking his eyes off of Malfoy for a second.

"Hello, Draco," Hermione said wearily. She wasn’t going to rise to it. The time for acting like children had passed.

Malfoy shot her a look that very clearly said he wanted nothing to do with her kind, then directed his stare toward Harry. "Does Weasley realize that you're cozying up to his girlfriend Potter?" he asked, still more softly. "Or do the two of you just share everything?"

Hermione blanched, praying that Ron hadn’t heard him.

Harry was on his feet. "Out," he said flatly, drawing his wand and holding it at his side. "Get out. You’re a disgrace."

Malfoy laughed, and Hermione shivered inwardly. At the same time, she felt a bit like laughing, herself. He obviously hadn’t grown up at all.

"It’s all right, Harry..." she began, then stopped when she saw that Ron was now on the customer side of the bar.

"Anything to say, Malfoy, you can say it loud enough for all of us," he called.

People around them in the pub began to watch, and whisper. Goldie came around the bar, Hermione noted gratefully, close enough to make a grab for Ron, should something happen.

Malfoy didn't bat an eye. Instead, he smirked and said tauntingly, still keeping his voice very low, "I hear you’re trying out for the Cannons, Potter. I suppose you just can't give up the limelight – you’d rather be a shining star on a terrible team than challenge yourself by trying out for one that actually wins occasionally." He smirked, and fingered the double F emblazoned near the clasps of his Quidditch robes. "What's the Chudley motto again?" He turned to his companion, who had rejoined him carrying two tankards. Malfoy took one and raised his voice, almost as if he knew that insulting the Cannons was almost as good as insulting Hermione. "Oh, that’s right – let's all keep our fingers crossed and hope for the best.'" He smiled coolly, and his friend erupted into rather unpleasant sounding chuckles.

Anger and frustration coursed through Hermione as she sat there watching them. She had been shocked and startled when she'd discovered that Draco Malfoy was spending the summer across the street from Lupin Lodge. Although she would never admit it to Ron, or to anyone, she blamed Draco almost entirely for her parents’ current condition. Ron was right. Draco had urged his father to go after the Grangers, and that was exactly what Lucius had done. In her mind, Draco deserved to be put away for life with the other Death Eaters, and she couldn't quite understand why he wasn't in prison.

On the other hand, a part of her felt that it wasn't worth giving someone like Draco Malfoy the time of day anymore. Without Voldemort to lead them, Malfoy and his cronies were really just a bunch of silly cowards, and she felt that her energy would be much better spent finding ways to help cure her parents, rather than hurling insults at old enemies.

"I didn't know that you and old Mulrod McNeirney knew each other." Ron's voice was now dangerously close and Hermione felt a surge of panic, as he advanced on their table. "Trying to buy your way onto the Falcons, Malfoy? What, are you going to get them all new broomsticks?" He laughed harshly. "I guess you learned more than just curses from your father."

Hermione winced, and shot a furious look at Ron – words like that were only going to make things worse – but Ron wasn’t paying attention to her. Hermione followed his eyes to their target, and she sucked in a breath. She hadn't thought it possible for Draco Malfoy's face to be any paler than it already was, but he had turned sheet white at the mention of his father. He handed his tankard off to McNeirney and wheeled slowly to face Ron, breathing unevenly.

"Mention him again," he challenged in a whisper, his fingertips touching the end of his wand.

Ron said nothing, but his blue eyes smoldered. The two young men stood facing each other, seething with anger, making no secret of their mutual hatred. Harry moved to Ron’s side with two quick steps, holding his wand up slightly. People around them edged their chairs backward, away from the possible duel.

After a rather tense moment, Malfoy turned to his blocky friend and said, "Obviously I was mistaken in thinking that this village –" he spat out the word as though it were the worst insult he could come up with " –had a reputable pub. My uncle informed me that this one was satisfactory, but it’s clear..." he glanced at Ron and continued "... that it’s gone downhill, this summer."

Дата добавления: 2015-11-04