Disclaimer: Just like I said for the last nineteen chapters...I don’t own Harry Potter.
Two months is all it has taken to turn the wizarding world into a place of fear. No witch or wizard will leave their homes alone or after dark. No person will walk with their head up. Nobody takes their time to get anywhere. Everyone thinks one wrong move could be their last.
That is what You Know Who does to people. The thought of He Who Must Not Be Named has most wizards shaking in fear and the rest dead on the spot. What can we do to overcome this time of tragedy? How can we keep our loved ones safe? Who will lead us in this war when our own Minister of Magic cannot? The Ministry is no longer ignoring the fact of You Know Who’s resurrection, but why can it do no more than give us safety tips in little pamphlets? While the Ministry is safely hiding behind its protective enchantments, other witches and wizards are suffering and making sacrifices in efforts to restore our world to the way it was.
The Dark Lord has already gained so much from his quest for power, so who will stop him from continuing on his path of destruction if the Ministry refuses? We need a hero. We need someone who will take action to keep us from forever losing the world as we knew it. We need someone like Harry Potter.
He may only be seventeen, but his past efforts of vanquishing He Who Must Not......
Hermione’s reading was interrupted by a snort of laughter over her shoulder. She turned around to see none other than Harry Potter standing behind her with a look of amusement on his face. “I can’t believe you are still reading the Prophet, Hermione. It’s just a load of rubbish that keeps people occupied every morning while they drink their cup of tea before going to work.”
“And it keeps me occupied for the same reason.” She laughed as she rolled up the paper and finished the last of her toast.
Hermione cleaned her dishes and put them away before taking a quick look around the kitchen of Number 12 Grimmauld Place and heading upstairs to get dressed. On her way to her room she passed Ginny, who seemed to be in an unusually chipper mood for this time of the morning.
A half grumbled, “Good morning,” came from the top of the stairs where Ron was standing with a look that said all too well that he was not happy to be awake this early.
“Up before your Mum, hmm?” Hermione asked with only a small hint of surprise and a kiss on his cheek.
Ron yawned and answered, “Ginny decided to try a new hex she learned on my bed this morning. It worked.”
Hermione let a small laugh escape her lips before saying, “It’s your own fault. You’re the one who said you’d help her with her wand-work.”
Ron grumbled and continued down the stairs to breakfast with a quick squeeze of Hermione’s hand. She went on her way up to her bedroom to change into her work clothes and collect the books she had borrowed from Bill.
As she picked up Breaking the Curse: A Guide to Ancient Curses and The Curse Breaker Handbook Hermione thought of the day Bill had come home from work and told her that he had gotten her a summer job at Gringotts:
“Hermione, can I steal you from your book for a moment?” Bill asked politely after dinner one night.
“Sure. What do you need?”
“Do you remember a few days ago when you were talking about becoming a curse breaker? And how you’d give anything to work with the best of the best?” he asked cautiously.
Hermione nodded her head. “Yes. Why?”
A smile slowly formed on Bill’s face as he said, “Because I pulled some strings and got you a summer job at Gringotts.”
Hermione’s face went blank for a moment before she flew out of her chair and threw her arms around Bill’s neck. “Merlin! I don’t believe it! Who am I working for? What am I doing? When do I start?”
“In reverse order, you start on Monday, and you have the prized position of secretary, personally I’d consider it a note-taker, and you will be working for a man named Gerard Fischer. He is my superior and a lazy bum who has everyone else do his job for him, which basically means you’ll be working for me.”
Working for Bill was a lot easier than Hermione had expected. The job was nowhere near strenuous and Bill even let her do some of the spell casting involved in the twice daily vault checks. Bill told her she might as well be his boss because she did more work than he did most days. Bill got to sit at his desk and look through papers; Hermione wrote down things he deemed important and then ran them to Gerard who would write up a response that she would take back to Bill.
“Hermione? You ready to leave?” Bill asked, tapping on her bedroom door.
“Just a minute,” she replied quickly, throwing on her work robes.
“I’m timing you,” Hermione heard him joke as he walked away.
Just under sixty seconds later Hermione met Bill in the kitchen where she stole another quick kiss from Ron, as Bill activated the portkey that would take them to Gringotts.
Ron felt cold. He wasn’t actually cold, but everything around him was cold. His pillows and blankets were cold, his pajamas were cold, even his hair felt cold. He felt as though he was laying in snow. He opened his eyes to find that he was, in fact, laying in snow.
He flew out of bed simultaneously yelling “Ginny!” at the top of his lungs.
The snow vanished along with a giggled “Morning Ron!” He followed the giggle down the stairs with every intention to tickle his sister senseless until he saw Hermione coming up the stairs from the kitchen.
“Good morning,” Ron said before Hermione made it to the top of the steps.
With a kiss and a look that said she was slightly surprised, Hermione asked, “Up before your Mum, hmm?”
Ron yawned and answered, “Gin decided to try a new hex on my bed this morning. It worked.”
Ron heard her laugh before saying, “It’s your own fault. You’re the one who said you’d help her with her wand-work.”
He squeezed her hand before grumbling to himself and continuing down the stairs to breakfast.
Once he reached the bottom of the stairs, he stopped short. Ginny was sitting in Harry’s lap at the kitchen table kissing him a little bit too passionately for Ron’s taste. He was still slightly disturbed by the fact that his best friend frequently snogged his little sister.
“Honestly, who wouldn’t be?” Ron argued with Hermione one morning after breakfast. “I come down the stairs preparing to pour myself a cup of tea and they’re just standing there in front of the teacup cupboard kissing! Why can’t I feel uncomfortable about that?!”
“Because you already told them that you weren’t,” Hermione reasoned.
“Now wait just a minute! I never said that they could snog each other wherever they felt like it.”
Hermione shook her head and smiled. “I’d give it a rest if I were you, Ron. Ginny almost died and then she spent two months in the hospital. They’re just happy to be together again.”
Ron cleared his throat a little louder than necessary and noticed that Harry at least had the decency to look embarrassed as he and Ginny broke apart. Ginny poured herself a mug of coffee as Ron made his tea and they all discussed the absurdity of the front page article of the paper: Serious Spread of Spattergroit.
Molly Weasley came bustling down a few moments later to make breakfast. Ten minutes after, she was followed by Bill, and shortly after that Hermione joined them, all ready and dressed for work. Ron gave her a quick kiss as he brought the bacon to the table, then she and Bill left.
After breakfast Ron flooed to Fred and George’s shop in Diagon Alley. After losing a bet to Charlie at Harry’s Birthday, Ron became the new stock-boy at Weasleys’ Wizard Wheezes. Charlie had bet that Professor Flitwick would down a bottle of firewhiskey in an hour or less. Ron bet that he wouldn’t be able to finish it before the party was over. Unfortunately, Ron had never been to a Hogwarts’ faculty party, and now had to restock the shelves and tidy the shop before the twins arrived each morning, for the rest of the summer.
Why does Hermione never wake up to her alarm? Merlin that thing is loud. Maybe I can sleep through it...damn. Doesn’t work. I wonder if going into her room and throwing a pillow at her would do anything. Although I’d probably miss this early in the morn- Ginny’s thoughts were interrupted by Harry’s.
Uh, Gin? Sweetheart? Harry said with only the slightest bit of annoyance. Would you mind either containing your thoughts or going to Hermione’s room to wake her up, please?
I’m sorry, Harry. I’m getting better at it though...aren’t I?
Ginny could hear the laugh in his response, If you say so Gin.
Hermione’s alarm was ringing as loudly as it could now, and Ginny could no longer stand it. She got up and crossed the hallway to her best friend’s bedroom. Hermione was fast asleep with a book open in her lap from the night before. Ginny shut off the alarm and shook her friend until she was sure Hermione was awake.
She hopped in the shower and continued to get ready for another day of doing nothing but spending time with Harry in the library reading and practicing spells...among other things. That is all she had been doing since coming home from St. Mungo’s. Not that she minded. She rather enjoyed it as a matter of fact. For a while, Ron and Hermione were with them, going through every book possible finding any new hex or curse that wasn’t dark magic. Shortly after starting this task, Ron had lost his bet with Charlie, landing him in the twins’ shop every day from just after breakfast until closing-time. Following that by less than a week, Hermione started working with Bill at Gringotts from before breakfast until just before dinner. This left Harry and Ginny with a lot of alone time in the library.
Ginny? Are you planning on coming down for breakfast today? Harry asked her.
She giggled slightly, thankful she had relearned how to choose which thoughts Harry could see. Shortly, yes.
Ginny brushed through her hair before going down a flight of stairs to Ron’s room. The hex she learned the day before still fresh in her mind, she cast a spell on Ron’s bed and watched as he moved uncomfortably from one side to the other. He then opened his eyes to see the cold white blanket of snow lying all around him. Flying out of his bed he yelled “Ginny!” at the top of his lungs.
With a smirk and a laugh she said, “Morning Ron!” and ran from the room.
After passing Hermione on the stairs to the kitchen, Ginny tripped down the last three steps and fell right into Harry who happened to be on his way from the sink at the time. He caught her around the middle as he fell into a chair, pulling her into his lap at the same time.
“Great entrance, Gin,” Harry laughed as he kissed her on the cheek. “Good morning.”
Ginny kissed him on the lips before saying, “Good morning, yourself.” She kissed him again and they remained that way until a funny noise came from the staircase a few feet away.
Aw, he caught us again. Harry thought with only the slightest hint of embarrassment.
Well, we’ll just have to wait until he leaves. We do have the library all to ourselves after all. Ginny grinned into her freshly poured coffee mug as Ron tried to make conversation about the main article in the Daily Prophet. Just another story about nonsense problems written to make the real problems seem a lot bigger.
Mrs. Weasley came down and made breakfast a short while later. Bill and Hermione both made a short visit before leaving for the bank, and just after them, Ron finished his breakfast and left for Weasleys’ Wizard Wheezes. Harry and Ginny then proceeded to the library, and they both took a respectable amount of books off of the shelves to search through for the day.
They had done this so many times that summer that it was becoming routine to go to the next shelf up the ladder, Ginny on the left, Harry on the right, work to the middle, take a break for a bit of kissing, practice any spells they had found, take another break for kissing, then get back on the ladder to the next shelf up. They had been doing this for so long, that they only had two and a half book cases left to go. Doing the math in her head, Ginny figured that it would take two more days to finish going through the rest of the books. This gave plenty of time to get ready for school, which would be starting up in just less than two weeks.
She was planning on spending every minute of the following week with Harry, knowing full well that there wouldn’t be much time for the two of them to spend together in the coming school year.
Ginny climbed down the final rung of the ladder and set her pile of books next to her spot on the sofa. Quill and parchment in hand she started to page through a book that looked to hold a few promises.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Harry’s favorite room in Grimmauld Place had to be the library. It was, of course, nowhere near as grand as the Hogwarts library and it definitely had a smaller selection of books. But it was the room in which he felt the most comfortable; the room he’d spent most of the summer in. It was a place that gave him so many memories, his own and others’. Harry had found innumerable amounts of letters and pictures of the Marauders and his mother from their Hogwarts years tucked on the shelves. These along with other odds and ends once belonging to Sirius were found in the drawers of the desk, used as bookmarks or hidden in the very backs of the cupboards.
It was during one of these many escapades that Harry discovered an incriminating photograph of Sirius and Lupin dancing at the Potters’ wedding. Harry was under the impression that there had been an excessive amount of firewhiskey present. This picture was now the bookmark used for Harry’s evening readings of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, a suggestion from Professor Dumbledore.
For nearly four hours Harry and Ginny paged through the library’s contents as usual. There was a knock on the door to the library around noon, and Mrs. Weasley brought in a glass of milk, a bowl of soup, and a plate of crackers each for Harry and Ginny. They ate and chatted with Mrs. Weasley about a few of the spells they had found that day and the night before while she listened with a pleasant interest before she took the dishes back down to the kitchen with her.
Ginny and Harry spent the next few hours going over their usual routine. Just as Harry had shut the last book in his pile, he heard Ginny let out a few choice words followed by a thud of a book heavier than Hogwarts: A History. As it hit the ground behind him, he turned to see Ginny on the fifth rung of her ladder with one foot off and the other barely hanging onto the step. Harry jumped up just in time to catch her fall and as he caught her Harry tripped over the fallen book landing him and Ginny on the floor. They sat there laughing together for a few moments before seeing the book. It had fallen open to a page with a picture of a silver stag and a pressed lily between the pages.