Why Do You Love Me?

School was going to start in one day. Harry was really itching to go back to a life of normalcy, but he really doubted that going back to school would help much. Already, it took so much effort to keep himself together; every day he was getting closer and closer to a nervous breakdown.

Harry felt as though he had died inside. There was nothing left for him to prove, no one left to prove it to, nothing left to live for. Harry sighed.

Hermione glanced at him, eyebrow raised. Harry shook his head and Hermione nodded softly. Harry watched her whisper something to Ginny and she stood, making her way towards him. “You all right?”

After Harry and Hermione had had a short talk, she had sort of let up on her watch over him, and told everyone else to do the same. Now only the portraits watched him constantly. They couldn’t follow him into the bathroom though, and that was where he spent a majority of his time.

Harry took a deep breath. “Yeah,” he said, averting his eyes. “Just a bit nervous about school.”

Hermione nodded and sat down next to him on the couch. “Me too. So many things have changed. Did you know that Parvati’s house was raided by Death Eaters at the beginning of this summer?”

Harry looked at her suspiciously. Parvati had been his date to the Yule Ball in fourth year. “Is she okay?”

“I just found out this morning. We really should start getting the Daily Prophet more often. I’m not quite sure about her, but I heard her mother managed to escape, and her younger sister, who’s supposed to start attending Hogwarts this year. I haven’t heard anything about her,”

“Wow…”

Hermione’s lips pressed together and her eyes shone with sadness. “Neville’s house was raided, too, but they’ve been here all summer, so nothing bad’s happened there. And I’ve heard that most of Slytherin is going to be gone because of their Death Eaters relations.”

Harry stared at Hermione. Hermione smiled. “Well, I guess you already knew that. But I’ll bet you didn’t know that nearly half of Ravenclaw is going to be gone as well, did you? Dumbledore and I were talking yesterday. He says he has a sneaking suspicion that Voldemort approached them last year with a proposition. Of course, the people in Ravenclaw are smart, but if they were threatened in any way, I’m sure they would do whatever is in their best interest. And that would be to stay alive, which would mean joining ranks with Voldemort.”

Harry’s brow furrowed. “Yeah, I never thought of that. It’s a good thing we’ve got you.”

Hermione blushed slightly. “Harry, I’m a…a Mudblood. You know that Voldemort would never want me on his side. He’s trying to get rid of my kind, not become friends with us!”

“Hermione! You’re smart; Voldemort would jump at the chance to have you on his side! He’s seen how many times we’ve escaped from him, just because of you! He may be evil, Hermione, but Voldemort isn’t stupid.” Harry scolded, glaring at her.

Draco and Ron looked up from their chess game suspiciously. Hermione smiled at Harry sheepishly. “I guess,” looking for another subject to go off on, she grinned suddenly. “You know, the Sorting Hat nearly put me in Ravenclaw,”

Ron gulped and Draco raised an eyebrow. “You’re kidding, ‘Mione! And you never told us?” Ron stood up from his game with Draco and walked over to slump into the chair next to Harry and Hermione’s couch.

Hermione blinked. She had completely forgotten that she and Harry weren’t alone. “Um, well, I never thought it important.”

“Of course it’s bloody important! Boy, we’re lucky that it didn’t, huh, Harry?”

Harry’s brow furrowed deeply and he looked between Hermione and Ron searchingly. “Yeah, Ron. I guess we are.”

“Well, didn’t the Sorting Hat mention putting you in any other houses, Ron?” Hermione asked. Her eyes were gleaming with curiosity.

Ron looked at her as if she were crazy. “No,” he said, sounding a bit grumpy. “It didn’t say anything to me. Was it supposed to?”

Hermione smiled, intrigued. “Well, I don’t know. Did it mention putting you anywhere else, Harry?”

Harry stared at Hermione. “Um, well…”

Ron looked at Harry suspiciously. “It didn’t, did it Harry?”

“Well, yeah, actually. It kinda…well, it really wanted to put me in Slytherin.”

Draco’s head shot up, and he stared at Harry wide eyed. “You’re kidding.” he and Ron shouted at the same time.

“Wow!” Hermione shouted. Ginny looked curiously between the teens and pulled her chair up beside them.

“What?”

“The Sorting Hat wanted to put Harry in Slytherin!” Hermione cried out with a grin.

“Well, of course it wanted to!” Ginny said with a smile.

“Are you kidding me?” Ron shouted. “You’ve all gone nutters! The darkest wizards are always from Slytherin.”

Draco stared at Ron, eyebrow raised. “Not all of us are dark, Weasel.”

Ron crossed his arms and snorted, but didn’t say anything else. Draco glared at Ron. He then turned on Harry. “Why weren’t you put in Slytherin, then, Potter? I mean, if the Sorting Hat wanted it so badly…”

Harry rubbed the back of his neck. “Well, um…I kinda didn’t want to be put in Slytherin with you. I mean, we had gotten off on the wrong foot, and all. I just didn’t want you to give me such a hard time. Not that it helped, after all,” Harry gave Draco a pointed glance. “But I’m sure it probably would have been worse than Gryffindor.

“Besides, nearly everyone in Slytherin is involved with Voldemort in some way. I wouldn‘t have been able to deal with that, the nightmares, and everything else that went on, especially in those first few years.

“Add to that the fact that I‘m not a pure wizard and that I‘m the bloody ‘Boy Who Lived’, and we’ve got a huge reason for me to be murdered on the spot.”

Draco glared but didn’t say anything.

Hermione looked between the two curiously, a devilish smirk lighting in her eyes, but she diverted the conversation to Ginny. “So, Ginny, how about you?”

“Well, it thought about Hufflepuff, but I told it right off that I wouldn’t, so it put me in Gryffindor instead.”

Harry and Draco continued to glare at one another, and Ron crossed his arms, glaring at everyone. Hermione and Ginny went off on their own conversation, ignoring the boys completely.

“Really? I would have thought that Hufflepuff would be a great house to be sorted into,” Hermione said, turning towards Ginny excitedly.

“Well, yeah, but my family has never been to keen on being sorted into Hufflepuff. Everyone in our family has been sorted into Gryffindor, ever since the school opened. I don’t really want to ruin that tradition, you know?”

“That’s true…”

The boys eventually tuned out the girl’s conversation, Harry and Draco still glaring at each other heatedly, and Ron quietly leaving the group to find something to eat, though he was still simmering. Hermione got the feeling that he was jealous because he was the only one who the Hat automatically gave a house without even bothering to ask him about it.

Eventually, the girls’ conversation lulled. Hermione turned to Harry and Draco curiously.

“If you’ll excuse me,” Draco said rather coldly. He walked out of the room without finishing his sentence.

Hermione and Ginny looked at Harry curiously. Harry shrugged, and they continued with their conversation about houses.

…
…
…

Dinnertime rolled around similarly to the way it had the week before. Harry was in his room. Alicia had visited earlier that week to check up on him, and had suggested that he adopt poetry to release some of his feelings. He was currently scratching his quill along a short piece of parchment, locked in his room as he had been the day before.

“Silently screaming,
‘Shh, you're just dreaming,’
Invading,
Violating,
And no one believing.
‘No one will ever believe you,’
He says over and over,
Like a demented mantra,
A litany of lies,
Until my mind fills with self-doubt,
And my soul with sadness.
Darkness and pain,
He's in me again,
And nowhere is sacred;
My bitter tears streaming,
‘Shh, you're just dreaming.’
I silently scream;
This is not a dream.”

Harry stared down at the poem with his brow furrowed. Alicia had said that she wished to read what poetry he had written at the end of the week, and that he should have at least five poems written, but Harry wasn’t sure if he wanted to share this one with her. It was quite personal.

Shuffling came from the portrait above his bed, and Harry hid the poem under his pillow quickly.

“Hello, Harry!” greeted the sweet-looking girl in the picture.

“Um, hi Helga,” Harry greeted in return. He and the young-looking girl had become better acquainted over the days that Harry had spent in his room. It seemed that the girl was developing a crush of sorts on Harry. Harry ignored it.

It wasn’t that she wasn’t beautiful, because she was…but she was a girl in a portrait! Harry couldn’t see how it would ever work.

“It is dinnertime,” the girl said, peering down at Harry. “What are you writing about?”

Harry looked down at the quill dangling between his fingers. “Um, nothing,”

“Oh, come on, Harry. You can tell me.” Helga batted her eyelashes at Harry and smiled widely. Her blue eyes twinkled similarly to Dumbledore’s, and Harry shuddered.

“Um, maybe later. I’m pretty hungry.” Harry stood quickly, tossing the quill and parchment into his trunk.

Helga looked at him, pouting incredibly, and Harry pulled at his collar and swallowed. To anyone else, it would have seemed as though he was nervous, but in reality, Harry was really just disturbed and more than ready to get away from the flirtatious portrait. Helga smiled delightedly. “You promise, Harry?”

Harry flushed and turned from the doorknob, just about to turn it. “Um, yeah, sure. Okay,” he agreed, before hurriedly rushing out of the room.

Hermione greeted him at the table with a smile, along with a disgruntled, angry looking Draco. Ginny was a bit late, but not curiously so, with a suspiciously red-cheeked Neville in tow. Ron, on the other hand, was surprisingly missing from the table.

They ate in relative silence. They had done so for the past few weeks. Lately they hardly had anything to talk about, so of course they didn’t talk about anything. Part of the reason was because of nerves; they were all anxious to get back to school. The summer had been longer than they would have liked, and the long, hard days were really beginning to take their toll on the tired teens.

When they were done eating, they all gathered in Harry’s room to spend their final night at Grimmauld’s Place. They chattered and played even after the lights went out.

Just when Harry was sure that everyone was finally asleep (at nearly three o’clock in the morning, thank you very much), Ginny snuck into Neville’s bed (which had been transfigured from one of Harry’s shirts, along with Hermione’s, Ron’s, and her own bed. Draco slept on the bed that was already there). Harry sighed in frustration. He was tired and bloated, and yearned to go to the restroom to relieve himself.

With a grunt, Harry lifted himself from his bed and rushed from the room, ignoring the indignant cries of surprise when he bumped painfully into Ginny and Neville’s now shared bed.

When he returned to the room, it was silent. Ginny had returned to her own bed, and Harry supposed that it was probably because of him, but at the moment, he didn’t really care.

…
…
…

Voldemort chuckled to himself as he watched Harry once more make himself sick through the small orb. Yes, his plan was succeeding nicely. By the time Harry Potter’s last year at school was over, he would hardly have enough energy to stand, let alone defeat him. Voldemort was sure to win now.

The whole room shook with the high-pitched laughter that left Voldemort’s mouth like water from a fountain, spilling into the room and pooling into the rest of the house. The maniacal laughter could be heard through the entire mansion.

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A/N: This chapter was sort of a filler until they go to school, which will be happening in the next chapter. Sorry ‘bout that, guys, but sometimes it just has to be done.