Sing for Me, Cry for Me

7. The New Beginning.

Early the next morning Harry and Hermione met in the Common Room and went to breakfast. To their mutual surprise and deep down relief (though they didn’t share this part between themselves) Ron refused to join them saying that he would wait for Dean and Seamus. In Harry’s opinion it was rather stupid to wake up so early and then to sit alone waiting for someone who still enjoyed Sunday morning sleep instead of going to breakfast with your best friends.

But Ron was getting weirder and weirder with each passing day and Harry didn’t have enough energy or desire to deal with the issue. He fully intended to provide himself with positive emotions and Ron wasn’t the person who could make you feel positive as far as he always seemed to be on the negative side of things. Though Harry assumed that he himself was at least partly at fault with Ron’s current state of mind.

Somewhere during their sixth year they started drifting apart. They still spent all their time together. But one could definitely feel the breach in their friendship. It’s just that time and time again Harry understood that Ron wasn’t exactly what he needed where a best friend was concerned. He seemed too shallow, too bigoted, too unforgiving not to mention envious and jealous and inevitably Harry started appreciating Hermione’s company more.

That must have showed somewhere and somehow for they often held hands or hugged or cuddled leaving Ron out of it. Not that he ever ventured to join them or to provide comfort or ask for one himself. He seemed to be beyond that. But Hermione was affectionate and intelligent, compassionate and comforting and she almost always could feel when you needed her comfort. Well, almost always.

But she wasn’t perfect and had her faults and that was just fine with Harry. Because he knew that she would always accept him with his own faults and imperfections while Ron as everybody else assumed that he must be something perfect, something faultless as if he wasn’t just a human being, just a student like everybody else. He was always condemned for the smallest transgressions by public opinion and he hardly needed it from his best friend. But Ron was too shortsighted to understand and rather accepted things as he saw them on the surface while Hermione always looked deeper, to the core analyzing everything and making her own conclusions regardless of what everybody else thought.

Of course there were things Harry would never impart upon her. He had no doubts about her understanding and compassion even in this matter and he was more than sure that she would stay by his side but he just couldn’t bring himself to tell her the truth and he couldn’t understand the reason why. He knew that he wanted to forget but sometimes he doubted what exactly he tried to forget: the fact that it happened, the fact that it was Lucius Malfoy, the fact that he wasn’t able to protect himself or the fact that in the darkest corners of his irrational mind the voice was telling him that he liked every bit of it, willingly or not.

And he was sure that Hermione wouldn’t understand that. He himself couldn’t understand and couldn’t forgive it. He couldn’t forgive himself, he couldn’t forgive Lucius and he still blamed and hated Snape for leaving him there wandless and unprotected and finally he blamed Draco Malfoy for being the reason of it all. But out of all these people he still felt that he was the guiltiest one because he simply couldn’t forget.

But amidst all the confusion in his mind there was one thing he was sure about. He was sure that Ron would never understand and forgive but instead would blame Harry for being weak and not as perfect as he always thought he was.

He could still remember the touch of those fingers, the touch of those lips. The kiss and so much more that Lucius did. Skin on skin. Tongue to tongue. Twisting and shivering between the cold bare wall and strong hot body. Somewhere in between where he lost himself, where he couldn’t understand what was he and what was Lucius, where he stopped thinking at all, where he only felt. Agony and pain, fire and cold, desire and disgust, hate and…

Whatever he might ever forget he couldn’t get away from the fact that amidst all these wrongs it felt terribly terrifyingly unexplainably and unbelievably right. Like something that meant to happen. “I’m sorry, love, but it had to be done.” It had to be done. Had it?

Out of all the things that happened that night he remembered the feeling of completion, a total merging of two beings into one inseparable unity. For an eternal moment Lucius and he were one and only and there was nothing that would make him forget. Surrender followed by Completion forming a Unity.

He choked on the pumpkin juice. Pumpkin juice?

Harry turned around and found himself in the Great Hall sitting by Hermione who looked like she just fell off the moon.

Since when are we in the Great Hall? I can’t believe it! I’m forgetting everything but what I should! And this time Harry lost it starting banging his head on the table.

Hermione who was in her own world was brought back by Harry’s choking sounds and now she was looking at him quite alarmed as well as the rest of the Great Hall. But there was one pair of eyes that was more than just intrigued.

“Harry?” Hermione asked putting a hand on his shoulder, which made him jerk back as if he was hit by an electrical wave.

“Harry? Are you all right?”

“No.”

“What’s wrong?” asked Hermione her voice shaking afraid that Harry would start yelling at her again.

“Hermione, do you recall us reaching the Great Hall?”

“Honestly? No.”

“Neither do I.”

“Well, that’s hardly the reason to bang your head on the table.

“Sorry for the juice.”

“Excuse me?” asked confused Hermione.

Harry pointed at the splashed juice all around the place.

“Oh, that. Scourgify. So what was that all about?” she restrained herself from touching Harry any further.

“You tell me.”

For the first time in all the years Harry has known her Hermione didn’t know what to say and started stuttering instead.

“I…well…I don’t know… It’s just that I…”

Harry suddenly laughed making Hermione sigh in exasperation.

“Mione, dear. Either you have something to hide or you shouldn’t spend so much time with Neville.”

Hermione scowled.

“Well, that’s not true. It was only once” she started miffed,” Besides he’s not that bad if you give him a chance and then when he…”

Harry closed his ears and started shaking his head:

“I don’t wanna hear that!” he yelled exasperating Hermione still more.

“Oh, all right than, you’re quite intolerable, you know that. Well, if you want to know the truth…”

“Yes, please.” interrupted Harry.

“Well, than stop interrupting me!” yelled Hermione.

Harry pouted but kept silent.

“OK, I’m sorry. Well, what happened is that I was thinking…”

“Big news here…”

“Harry…” she gave him a warning glance. Harry looked at her innocently. She narrowed her eyes.

“I was thinking about you and what you told me yesterday. I was thinking about what we are going to do and that now I won’t be the only one to study and that it would be great…” there she started blushing furiously,” Well, you see…and I don’t know I just dozed off. Completely. It never happened before. I swear.”

She looked at him and a strange twinkle appeared in her eyes. She shook her index finger at Harry:

“Harry James Potter, you are such a naughty boy making me forget about everything in this world while thinking about you.”

Harry snorted.

“My thoughts exactly. You see I’ve been thinking about myself as well.” (Mostly. But if you want a joke, let it be so. The less I am serious the better. But damn it I should be more attentive and careful. And forget. Forget.)

“But aren’t we the conceited one here?”

“I don’t know but why don’t you ask Snape. He seems to know all my faults. Maybe he’s even got the list of all them piled up by his bedside table or maybe he wears it everywhere in his pocket. He seems to know me sooo well.”

“Right, wait a second, I’ll just finish my breakfast and then go bombarding our least favorite professor about his least favorite student.”

“Don’t forget to write your will before you go. Please Hermione will you leave me all your notes? With you gone I don’t know how I will pass my exams! You did write the notes? I mean it’s only half a year before we will be taking our N.E.W.T.s” he asked pleadingly clutching his hands in a prayer like manner.

“Ha-ha. How funny. But you won’t get rid of me that quickly. Your trick didn’t work.” She stuck out her tongue.

“Oops, you got me there” he raised his hands in mock surrender and they both started laughing hard while continuing their strange breakfast in silence oblivious to different eyes watching them with curiosity.


“What’s wrong with those Gryffindors” thought Draco Malfoy from his point at the Slytherin table, “and where’s the Weasel or are they taking turns at weekends. What the hell is going on. Everyone’s acting very strange. Or maybe I’m just paranoid. But really they enter the hall as if they fell from another planet neither seeing nor hearing anything. Granger almost ran over Longbottom. I still can’t get over the fact that he managed to get out of her way in time. Then Potter starts suddenly choking and banging his head on the table. I mean has he gone mad? Then they start laughing. Mental. And I have to report it to my father? “he scowled and dug into his bacon.

Though after thinking more and more about the task he found that it had its own benefits. For quite some time he was overly obsessed with Potter but he had no one to talk to about him. But now he would write every small detail concerning Potter to his father thus driving Potter and everything about him out of his system. Father will get his information for whatever reason he needs it and I will get over Potter. Well, isn’t it perfect arrangement. Well, after all my dear father always knows what’s best for me. Draco sneered and kept his vigilant watch on the Gryffindors.

“Are you finished?” asked Hermione at the long last. “We really should be going. We have so many things to do and I think we’ll start with Potions.”

“The worst for the first. Now I think I shouldn’t have eaten so much for breakfast.”

“Oh, don’t whine, you big baby. Let’s go.”

Hermione took Harry’s hand in her own not noticing Harry’s shiver or his rather loud theatrical protests and dragged him out of the Hall.

By the end of the day the rumor had it that they were head over hills in love with each other and spend the whole day in their secret love nest.

Somewhere in the Malfoy Manor a very angry veela was pacing back and forth clutching a letter in his hands.

Dear father,
The latest news is that Potter and Granger are an item. You know Granger the mudblood witch? Frankly I don’t believe it. The rumor has it that they spent the whole day in their secret love nest but I can hardly consider a library as such. Besides, from what I could see they were just studying the whole day. And that fact is very strange indeed. But apart from it I don’t think that they are romantically involved. Not with each other anyway or at least not so far. Maybe Potter tries to woo Granger with his newfound passion for books. It would explain things. I’ve never seen him so obsessed before. Determined yes, obsessed no. He seems changed. And Weasley wasn’t there nor was he at breakfast with them. And Potter and Granger were acting odd. It feels as though they are up to something. I’ll keep watching them both.
Love,
Draco

A secret love nest indeed. I don’t really give a damn about what they were doing in there all day long but I simply don’t like the fact that she spends so much time alone with Harry. He is mine. Who does she think she is. Some filthy mudblood spending the whole time with my mate (your possible mate counteracted the voice from within). Putting her hands all over him. No matter. I will put an end to it.
Lucius threw the letter or what was left of it into the fire and reached for another sheet of paper. I’m not going to wait for a month to see my mate again. What does he think he’s doing? Well, no matter. Tomorrow I intend to teach him who he belongs to. Forever. Granted, it’s too early for the results, but he will remember me. I won’t give him time to forget.