“The following week was uneventful. Harry and Dudley rose early each morning to go running,
and Harry spent each day after that working in the garden, often wearing Sandy and talking to
her. In the evenings, he read his new books or did summer homework. He had taken to bringing
Sandy in with him at night; he even slept with her on his arm now. At the times she wasn’t on
his arm, it felt strangely light.
The first time he brought her up to his room, she was rather alarmed at the sight of Hedwig.
“Did you bring me here to kill me?” she asked. Harry looked down at her.
“No, that’s my pet owl, Hedwig. She delivers mail. She can find someone anywhere in the
world and deliver a letter to them, even if I don’t know where they are. All post owls can.”
“Impressive,” Sandy hissed, sounding unconvinced. “So. You already have a pet.” She
sounded a little hurt.
“Well, Hedwig performs a service for me, and I take care of her and feed her. So, I guess she’s
more of a servant than a pet.” It suddenly occurred to him that it wasn’t a very different
arrangement than house elves, who Hermione insisted were unjustly enslaved. “I thought you
didn’t want to be my pet.”
“That is true. Nor do I fancy being a servant. So what am I?”
Harry looked at her thoughtfully. “How about my roommate?”
“What is roommate?”
“It’s just a term for people who share living quarters. They’re usually friends.”
What about friend?”
“What about it?”
“Why did you suggest roommate first, instead of friend?”
“II don’t know. Are you my friend Sandy? I’d like that.”
“Yes. I am your friend, Harry Potter.”
* * * *
About a week-and-a-half after his birthday, Harry was preparing to go upstairs after dinner
when the doorbell rang. Not thinking twice about it, Harry called, “I’ll get it!” and went to turn
the knob.
It was Snape.
Harry immediately screamed and recoiled; Snape was the last person he had expected to see
on Privet Drive. He was attempting to dress in Muggle clothes, something Harry had never seen
him do. But the clothes were somewhat out of place in Surrey (except for the eccentric retired
colonel two streets over); he was clad as someone on safari in Africa, from his bush boots to his
pith helmet with mosquito netting. He even had a machete hanging on his belt, although Harry
noticed his wand in a holster on the other side. Where his knees showed between his khaki
shorts and his knee socks, he was deathly pale, betraying the fact that he had never been on a
safari in his life. His lank black hair was pulled back into a pony tail under the helmet. Harry
stood staring at him in disbelief.
“Nice to see you too, Potter,” he growled. Harry stepped back abruptly as Snape moved
forward, looking around suspiciously, as though expecting an ambush from the light fixture on
the ceiling or the flower arrangement on the hall table. Then a large black dog followed him in,
and Harry sighed with relief.
“Sirius! Thank goodness!” But his godfather did not transform into his human self; he also
sniffed about the hall suspiciously, then seemed to nod at Snape, who went back outside and
summoned some other people who had been standing just outside the circle of light spilling out
into the night from the hall.
The people stepped into the house. It was Hermione and her parents. Harry was as shocked as
he’d been when he’d seen Snape. “Hermione!” was all he could say. The entire Granger family
looked like they’d been through the ringer. They all staggered under the weight of their luggage,
which they’d presumably been lugging from England to the Greek Islands to Bulgaria. He
thought Hermione looked especially exhausted, although he couldn’t see her eyes; she had on
dark glasses. She wore denim shorts that were just above her knees. A large white T-shirt with
a blue and white Greek flag on it was tucked into her shorts and on her feet she wore ruggedlooking
hiking sandals. They all looked a bit dusty, as though they had walked there from
Bulgaria.
Harry ushered them into the living room and shut the front door. Dudley and his parents were
now standing in the hall, staring incredulously at the odd party that had invaded their house.
“See here, now” Harry’s uncle began as he came into the living room with Aunt Petunia and
Dudley close behind. Suddenly, Sirius changed from a large black dog into a human, and Aunt
Petunia crouched behind her husband and screamed. Sirius brushed some dust from his black
robes and smoothed his dark hair back.
“Allow me to introduce myself,” he said, extending his hand to Vernon Dursley. “I am Sirius
Black, Harry’s godfather. We meet at last.”
Vernon Dursley cowered back against his wife, refusing to touch Sirius’ extended hand.
Suddenly, Dudley stepped up and grasped his hand, saying in an authoritative voice, “Dudley
Dursley,” and shaking Sirius’ hand firmly. Sirius smiled at Dudley and Harry gave Dudley an
appreciative nod. Then he noticed Dudley looking at Hermione.
“We are sorry to arrive unannounced like this, but this is an emergency. While the Grangers
were in Bulgaria, there was an attempted abduction. Dark wizards tried to kidnap Hermione.”
Harry looked in shock at Hermione, who was sitting, stony faced, still wearing her dark glasses.
“Viktor Krum managed to thwart the abduction, but not before Hermione heard them talking
about receiving their instructions from someone named Lucius.” He paused, to let this sink in. “I
think we all know who that is.”
The Dursleys shook their heads dumbly, having no idea what Sirius was going on about, just
looking like they wished he and the rest of them would go away. Hermione’s mother sat next to
her and put her arm around her, tried to get her to put her head on her shoulder. Hermione
would have none of it, sitting up again pointedly, refusing to be coddled.
“I was traveling with the Grangers from Greece to Bulgaria, but I had gone to meet with
Professor Snape here when the abduction occurred. We talked to the headmaster of Hogwarts,
who felt that this would be the safest place for Hermione until school starts. Her parents will go
into hiding for their protection; arrangements are being made.” The Grangers looked grim about
this.
“Wewe have a check we can give you. For Hermione’s room and board for the rest of the
summer,” Hermione’s mother told the Dursleys. Harry saw his aunt’s eyes light up. Aunt
Petunia rarely turned down money, and the Grangers looked pretty normal, except for traveling
in the company of Sirius and Snape.
“Can she stay?” Sirius asked the Dursleys. They seemed afraid to refuse him. Vernon Dursley
gave a very small nod, and Mr. Granger took out a checkbook and started writing a check. He
handed it to Harry’s uncle, who opened his eyes wide and suddenly seemed to wake up.
“Harry!” he barked. “Take your friend’s luggage up to the guest room!” He practically grabbed
the check from Mr. Granger, who looked taken aback. Harry picked up Hermione’s bags and
said, “Your room’s upstairs.” She nodded and followed him out into the hall. Sirius changed
back into a dog, prompting another scream from Aunt Petunia. Snape and the Grangers moved
into the hall with the large black dog.
“Thank you, Mr. and Mrs. Dursley,” Snape said in an oily voice, as though speaking to
Muggles were extremely distasteful to him. “We will leave now.”
After the front door shut, Harry and Hermione continued up the stairs. She was still holding her
head up stoically. Harry put down the bags to open the door, then reached in and turned on the
light, letting her go first. He followed her in, placing her luggage on the bed and then standing,
watching her carefully. The room seemed very quiet.
Suddenly Hermione whispered, “Close the door.”
Harry closed it, and immediately, Hermione took off her dark glasses, revealing eyes red from
crying. “Oh, Harry!” She went to Harry and flung her arms about his waist, sobbing into his
chest. Harry slowly put his arms around her, his cheek on the top of her head (he was surprised
to find that he was now several inches taller than her; they used to be the same height) and he
brought up one hand to smooth her hair, surprised at the soft texture of the curls. She had last
hugged him on the train platform at King’s Cross at the end of June, and given him a kiss on the
cheek that surprised him; she had never done that before. But this wasn’t like a brief goodbye
hug; they had never held each other like this while she cried into his chest. They stood that way for what seemed a long time, then, when she had been simply sagging against his chest for a
while and had stopped crying, he lifted her face to look at her and kissed her gently on the
forehead.
“You’re tired. Get some sleep.”
He went to the door and opened it. She looked at him like a deer caught in the headlights.
“Good night, Hermione.”
“Good night, Harry.”
Harry closed the door gently, finding Dudley in the hall with a questioning look on his face.
Harry shook his head firmly. “She needs to rest.” Dudley nodded and went to his room. Harry
went into his own room and shut the door. He undressed for bed, but paused before getting in
and went to the shelf above his desk and took down the picture of Hermione on Corfu, carrying
it to the bed and sitting on the edge. Then he propped it against the lamp on his bedside table
and looked at it for a long minute. Finally, he took off his glasses and turned out the light.
* * * *
Harry felt his bed bounce. Startled, he opened his eyes. The sun had come up, but only just.
There was a pale, grey light outdoors and a slight apricot tinge at the edges of the sky. He
squinted down at the foot of his bed, finding Hermione sitting there. She was wearing what he
supposed were summer pajamas, some light blue cotton shorts and a matching button-down
shirt with a pointed collar and a pocket. She sat with her arms around her legs, her knees pulled
up to her chin, staring into space. He rubbed his eyes and fumbled for his glasses. When he had
put them on, he pulled himself into a sitting position, the sheet falling to his waist. She was
looking at him strangely, he thought.
“Hermione?” he ventured, hoping to bring her out of her catatonia. She looked him in the eye
now.
“You look different,” she said simply.
“I’ve been doing manual labor all summer,” he told her, holding up his hands. “My calluses have
calluses.” But he felt her eyes on his torso, not his hands.
“Your voice is lower, too.”
“Yeah, but my singing voice hasn’t improved any. Right now I’d say I’m a tenor, but I may
wind up a baritone.”
She didn’t say anything for a few minutes. Harry wasn’t used to her being so quiet; she was
usually talking unless her nose was in a book. She had positively gabbled at him and Ron on
their first train ride to Hogwarts. Her eyes moved around the room. He saw her look at the
photo of herself on the bedside table; he wished now that he’d put it in a drawer or something.
Then she seemed to be looking at Sandy on his arm, and the basilisk amulet that rested on his
sternum.
“You haven’t met Sandy,” he decided to say, to break the silence. He leaned down to speak to
the snake. “Sandy? Are you awake?”
Sandy raised her head. “I am now.”
He looked at Hermione, who now had her mouth open. “You know,” she now said, “I’ve only
heard you speak Parseltongue one other time: in the Dueling Club second year when you were
telling the snake Malfoy had conjured to leave Justin alone, and everyone thought you were
egging it on.”
“Until I heard Sandy talking in the garden, I forgot I could do it. She’s with me a lot now. It’s
nice to have her to talk to.” “It is nice to talk to you, too,” Sandy told him. “I have learned much about humans.”
“What did she say?” Hermione wanted to know. Talking about Sandy seemed easier for her
than what Harry really wanted to talk about: the attempted abduction.
He smiled. “She said that she likes talking to me, too, and she’s learned a lot about humans.”
For a moment, he considered telling her about snakes having the Sight. But then he remembered
that he had thought about what it could do for him to have Sandy with him in school for his fifth
year, especially in Divination, telling him what was going to happen in a few minutes...Hermione
would probably consider this cheating, and not worthy of a prefect, or more importantly, not
worthy of him, and he decided not to mention it. He still hadn’t decided whether he would go
through with it. It did smack of cheating, he supposed.
“What’s that?” she said after a prolonged silence, pointing to the amulet. Harry reached down
and fingered it. “It’s a birthday present. From Ginny.”
“Ah,” Hermione said, understanding the connection. Harry thought Hermione probably
wouldn’t have chosen to give him a basilisk amulet if she had been the one down in the
Chamber of Secrets, like Ginny. As it was, Hermione had figured out first that the denizen of the
Chamber was a basilisk, and had looked at it using a mirror. But that didn’t offer her enough
protection, and she had been petrified. She was in a near-death, open-eyed coma, broken only
by a potion made from mandrake root. Hermione didn’t have any romantic ideas about
basilisks.
Suddenly, she looked shrewdly at him. “Are you hiding under those covers for some reason?
Sleeping in the buff?”
Harry was shocked. “No! Butwell, close. Just my drawers. Could youexcuse me while I get
dressed? Dudley and I go running every morning.”
She smirked. “Boxers or briefs?”
“Boxers.”
“Color?”
“Black.”
“How wizard-like. Come on, it sounds about the same as swim trunks.”
“Hermione, please...”
“All right, all right, I’m going.” She got up and went to the door, looking pointedly again at the
photo of herself on the bedside table, but not saying anything. When he had gone, he swung his
legs out of bed and went to his wardrobe to get some running clothes; he had been able to do
some shopping with the money he was making from working in the garden, and for simplicity’s
sake as much as anything else, he had bought virtually all black clothes: black shorts and singlets
for running, along with black socks and running shoes, plus black jeans and turtlenecks and
button-down shirts for wearing with his school robes in the fall, plus a few black sweaters and
T-shirts. He’d even, as he’d already told Hermione, bought black boxers.
After he’d gone to the wardrobe, his bedroom door opened again. It was Hermione. She stood
with her hand on the knob for a moment, smiling at having caught him in just his drawers.
“Can I go running with you two? I’ve got some appropriate clothes. And after what happened
in Bulgarialet’s just say that I’d like to be in better physical shape, for times when I can’t use
magic, you know?”
Harry stood his ground, refusing to hide or blush. “Sure. Meet us at the front door in five
minutes.” She nodded, not moving, and he felt her eyes on him again. They looked at each other
for a long minute before she left. Harry looked at the photo on his bedside table, thinking, Oh, well. Fair’s fair. I’ve seen her in that....
The three of them met in the front hall, Harry in his black running clothes with Sandy around his
arm still (Dudley had gotten used to it, but Harry had avoided letting his aunt and uncle see the
snake), Dudley in his running clothes and Hermione in a grey running bra and very tight royal
blue bicycle shorts. Dudley goggled and Harry tried not to; she didn’t look like she was out of
shape to him, but if she wanted to come along, he was fine with that.
They all had some water and Harry led them in doing stretching exercises on the front lawn after
he’d taken Sandy off his arm and put her under a bush to await his return. Hermione wasn’t
used to the warm-up routine, but she caught on fairly quickly. Harry tried not to look at her any
more than was absolutely necessary.
Dudley was making no such effort to avert his eyes, however, and once they started running, he
seemed to purposely position himself behind Hermione for the view. They went back and forth
to the park three times, and Hermione never fell back or seemed to be straining.
After breakfast, Hermione came out to the garden with him to watch him work. She was
dressed in a simple green checked sleeveless blouse and white cotton shorts and sneakers. Her
brown curls were still slightly damp from her shower, and her tan made the whites of her eyes
look very bright. Harry was in his usual black clothes, a sleeveless T-shirt and shorts and black
work boots he’d gotten because the steel toes would protect him if he dropped any stones on
his feet (which he’d done several times). She sat against the wall of the house in the position
she’d taken that morning in his bedroom; arms around her legs, knees drawn up to her chin. It
occurred to Harry that she was trying to be invulnerable to attack; she was a fortress under
siege. He wondered exactly how traumatic the attempted abduction had been, and what
Lucius’ thugs had done to her...
She watched him all morning, silently. He had been wearing his tape player from Dudley to
while away the time while working, or sometimes talking to Sandy, but he had left the gift inside
today, and when Sandy lifted her head and spoke to him, he hissed back softly, “Sorry, Sandy.
We’ll talk later. This isn’t a good time.” The snake accepted this without comment, resting her
head on her tail again and going to sleep.
They ate their lunch in the garden, and as had been his wont, Harry removed his shirt afterward
and leaned back on the grass to get some sun. As the sun beat orangely against his eyelids, he
was vaguely aware that Hermione had moved, then he felt her recline beside him, mere inches
away, and after a few minutes, eyes still closed, he said her name. He got no response at first,
so he said it again. Before he’d gotten the second syllable out, however, she said slightly
impatiently, “I heard you.”
He was silent again for a half-minute, then said, “Sorry. I wasn’t sure. I just wondered whether
you felt like talking yet. About Bulgaria.” He stayed on his back, eyes closed, hoping that if they
didn’t have to look at each other it would be easier for her to talk. She sighed, as though she
were going to tell him again that it was too soon, but instead, she plunged right in.
“We were in the marketplace. Viktor’s mother and my mum were looking at bread at the
bakery, Viktor and my dad were buying some chicken, and I was supposed to be getting the
vegetables. It seemed pretty safe; the vegetable stall was just two away from the chicken
vendor, and I was just going to get some onions and peppers...But then I suddenly felt all
lightheaded and floaty, like I was under the Imperious Curse. I tried fighting it, but there was
nothing to fight, I wasn’t being told to do anything I didn’t want to do. I decided that I had an
incredible urge to buy vegetables, but that’s what I was already there for. I remember being very confused, like I was waiting for instructions, but they didn’t come.
“I remember reaching for a red pepper like I was in a trance, and I tried to ask how much it
was, using a phrase Viktor’s mum had taught me. But when it came out, it didn’t sound like my
voice. The woman who was running the stall said I didn’t look wellshe sounded very far
awayand I thought, maybe I’m not under the Imperious Curse, maybe I’m just ill. I’m in a
foreign country, I’ve gotten ill on unfamiliar food and water before, I had some Muggle
medicines in my purse, I could just take something to feel better. She brought me round to the
inside of the stall where she sat, and she was so nice, she was just patting me and talking to me
in Englishand now that I think about it, she shouldn’t have been speaking to me in English,
should she? She didn’t even have a Bulgarian accent.
“Then I juststopped. I absolutely stopped. It was like I was a light that had been switched off.
I don’t remember hearing any incantation. I don’t remember being given a potionnothing.
When Istarted again, it was dark out, and on either side of me were two men in grey wizards’
robes, both with their wands pointing at me. My head felt all right again, but I forced myself to
look kind of spacy, as though I weren’t really with it, because they were talking and I wanted to
hear what they were saying. The woman who had been running the vegetable stall had
disappeared. The marketplace was empty.
“One of them said, ‘Lucius will be very pleased.’ They spoke English. The other one said that
the four others were taken care of, three other girls from Hogwarts and a Muggle boy who had
still been at his Muggle school in June when they’d done itwhatever ‘it’ was. Then they talked
about me, about the way I looked, and about whether they should do anythingextra”
That’s what he was afraid of. It was an effort for Harry to remain where he was with his eyes
closed. After another beat, he said, “Go on.”
She took a deep breath and said, “Well, as far as I know, they didn’t do anythingextra. Then
they both pointed their wands at me at the same timeI felt like I couldn’t moveand they both
said an incantation which I can’t remember. It’s possible that they put a memory charm on me
after that, which might be why I can’t remember. You know I only need to hear an incantation
once, and I can usually remember it...”
“I know,” Harry said softly.
“ThenI stopped again. And when I started once more, it was daylight, and I opened my eyes,
and I was lying on the couch in Viktor’s house, and he was lifting me up and calling to my
parents, telling them that I was back, that it was all right...”
“But you’re not convinced of that.”
“Well, it’s not that; it’s just that I don’t know. I’ve gotall this lost time. Who knows?”
Harry reached out his hand blindly, found Hermione’s and laced his fingers through hers. He felt
her grasp his hand almost spasmodically and he squeezed back. They didn’t talk anymore, and
when the alarm on his watch went off, he opened his eyes and got up to work as though nothing
had happened. He let go of Hermione’s hand and put on his shirt. He looked down at her, still
lying on her back, her eyes closed against the sun, tears running out from under her eyelids. He
ached so for her; if there was one thing she needed, it was certainty.
Suddenly she sat up and shook her head impatiently. She wiped her eyes quickly, as though the
tears were merely an irritation, and then got to her feet briskly and said, “Right, then. No point
to me just sitting about and watching you do all the work, is there? What do you want me to
do?”
Harry looked at her, amazed. Was she just going to pretend that she hadn’t been discussing what happened in Bulgariaand what could have happened, that she just didn’t know about?
Apparently she was. “Well,” he started, hesitating, “we have to plant these rose bushes near the
wall here; they’re climbers, and eventually they’ll cover the trellis. It’s all just like Herbology, but
without the bubotuber pus making your hands swell up.”
Hermione laughed; it was such a relief to hear it. “Oh, that howler! And the other letters! All
those people who believed Rita Skeeter when she said that I was toying with you and Viktor!”
Harry had to smile too. “By the way,” he said. “Whatever happened to Rita Skeeter?”
Hermione looked like she had just forgotten to tell him that she’d won the lottery. “Oh! Harry!
Rita Skeeter! Wait till you hear!”
“I am waiting!” Harry replied in falsetto, imitating her. She threw a clod of dirt at him.
“Don’t mock me. When we got to London, I took Rita home with me, but I didn’t let her out
yet. I wrote to Professor McGonagall and explained to her about Rita. Since she’s a
registered animagus, she doesn’t hold much with those who want to skirt the law. Anyway, she
talked to Dumbledore, and they both Apparated to my house. Mum and Dad didn’t know what
to think; McGonagall made like that was always how they told students that they were going to
be prefects, in person. Anyway, when mum and dad had left the room, I took the Unbreakable
Charm off the jar I’d been keeping Rita in, and I let her out of it. She was reluctant to become
her human self. I think maybe she hoped that if she stayed a beetle, McGonagall and
Dumbledore would think I was daft and making it all up. Finally, they threatened to force her to
reveal herselfyou know, like Sirius and Lupin did to Wormtailso she decided to give in, and
the next thing we knew, there was Rita, sitting in my living room, looking at me. And boy, if
looks could kill...”
“You did keep her in a jar eating leaves for about two weeks.”
“And she maligned my and your and Viktor’s good names, not to mention Hagrid. No more
than she deserved; quite a lot less, I think.”
Harry tried not to laugh; funny, he could laugh about Rita Skeeter now. During the Triwizard
Tournament he never would have believed it. “Anyway” he prompted her.
“Anyway,” Hermione continued, as though he hadn’t just said the same word, “McGonagall
immediately started in on her about the reasons for all Animagi to be registered, but
Dumbledore stopped her and said that in covert work, having an unregistered animagus on your
side could be very advantageous.”
“Well, he was referring to Sirius, obviously.”
“Yes. But he was also making a proposal to her; he said, ‘If you don’t mind taking orders from
an obsolete dingbat, I’ve got a job for you.’ She didn’t want to get fined or even jailed for the
unregistered Animagus business, so she listened to what he had to say, and”
“And what? What’s he having her do?”
Her face fell. “That’s just it. I don’t know. He made me leave the room with McGonagall, so
she could keep an eye on me and make sure I didn’t find some way to eavesdrop. When we
went back to the living room they were already gone, and then McGonagall said congratulations
on being a prefect, I’d get an official letter, and she’d see me in the fall.”
“Then what?”
“Then nothing. She was gone. Poof.”
Harry frowned. “And how does Dumbledore know that Rita Skeeter will do the right thing?
That she’s not an unregistered Animagus so that she can work for Voldemort?”
“Well, I think she just did it because it makes it possible for her to get all those scoops. It’s a great way to be a fly on the wallor beetle, rather. And I don’t know how Dumbledore knows
what her loyalties are. We keep wondering why he trusts Snape, but that hasn’t blown up in his
face.”
“Yet.”
“Oh, Harry. You have no idea. Snape was actually verynice when he came to Bulgaria. He
seemed very concerned about me. I half expected him to take points from Gryffindor for me
being stupid enough to get myself kidnapped. But he didn’t ream me out at all. He really let
Viktor have it for not keeping an eye on me, though...”
“And why did Sirius say Viktor thwarted the kidnapping? It sounds like you were returned.
Like they kidnapped you and then changed their minds.”
“Oh, Viktor said that he was in the marketplace waiting outside the vegetable stall just when
those two wizards aimed their wands at me. He did a very fast stunning spell on both of them,
and then put a full-body bind on them both and left them there. He took me back to his
parents’ house, but it took until morning before whatever they’d done to me wore off. When
Sirius got to the vegetable stall, they were gone, though.”
“Or at least, that’s Viktor’s story.”
She nodded grimly. “Or at least that’s his story. Don’t think I haven’t thought about that, Harry.
I mean, I was having a good time with Viktor in Sofia, he was...” she looked down and
colored, “...sort of...you know, my first boyfriend...” she avoided looking at him. “But I
suppose I don’t...I don’t really feel about him the way he feels about me. It’s just a” but she
turned even redder and didn’t finish.
“Just a what?” Harry suddenly very much wanted to know. Hermione looked up at him.
“It doesn’t matter. What does matter is that I’ve got a real problem now.”
“More of a problem than almost being abducted by dark wizards working for Lucius Malfoy?”
“It could be all the same problem. Like you said, Viktor’s version of how things wentthat’s his
story, and no one can corroborate it. Maybe they meant all along for me to be returned. Maybe
even now I’m under some kind of spell and don’t know it. I don’t feel like I am, but you never
know...The problem I’m talking about is how to get rid of Viktor.”
“You want to kill Viktor?” Harry said, shocked.
She threw another clod of dirt at him. “No, you stupidI mean, he thinks of us as girlfriend and
boyfriend now. He’s going to come to Hogsmeade when we have weekend visits. And I can’t
break up with him and I can’t stay with him!”
“What?” Harry sputtered, confused.
“See, if I break up with him, he might be angry. I’ve seen him angry. And he was trained in the
Dark Arts, don’t forget. I’d hate to think what he’d do if I broke up with him and he became
agitated. But I can’t just stay with him because I’m afraid of how he’ll respond if I break up
with him. That’d be daft. But if I broke up with him and someone like Lucius Malfoy wanted
him to work for him, he might be angry enough that he wouldn’t need to be coerced. Plus, as
we’ve already seen, he’s not at all able to fight the Imperious Curse. You told me how
MoodyI mean Crouchput the Imperious Curse on him in the maze, and he turned right
around and put the Cruciatus Curse on Cedric. He was very easily manipulated. And although I
don’t have any proof, that could have been what happened in Bulgaria, as well. At least, I’d
rather believe that he did that while cursed than voluntarily, if he did cooperate with Lucius’
underlings. Let’s just say that being with Viktor doesn’t exactly make me feel safe and wellprotected.
Here I feel safe.” “Here?” Harry was mystified.
She looked at him with her eyes narrowed. “You don’t know, do you? Ever since you were a
baby, there have been charms protecting your house for several blocks around. It’s impossible
to Apparate in and out, or even to use a PortkeySnape had one we used to come back to
your village, but we had to land about a mile away. I’m not convinced the protection reaches
that far, but he wanted to play it safe. That’s why we were knackered when we got here last
nightit was late, I was hauling my trunk, and Snape wouldn’t let Sirius put a spell on it to make
it lighter.”
Harry was puzzled. “Once, the Weasleys came by Floo Powder. They got the living room
fireplace temporarily added to the Floo Network, got special permission from the Ministry of
Magic. Of course, it didn’t work too well, since the fireplace is boarded up...”
“But, see? They had to get special permission to do that. There are also Dark Magic detectors
all over the place here. Why do you think Voldemort or his Death Eaters haven’t just come here
to get you?”
Harry pulled a face. “I guess I always thought they were repulsed by the prospect of meeting
the Dursleys.” They both laughed then, and decided to finally get to work.
* * * * *
It was nice to have someone to work with again, after Dick, and Hermione wasn’t afraid to get
dirty or do heavy lifting, although he tried to spare her the worst of it. For the rest of the week,
Hermione went running with them in the mornings and worked with Harry in the garden the rest
of the day. After the second day, Dudley noticed Hermione on her hands and knees in the
garden, and volunteered to come help them. Harry understood why, but he didn’t mind. He
couldn’t blame Dudley, really. Although it was more than a little disturbing when Hermione got
ratherflirty with him. He’d never seen her do that. She’d gotten rather silly at times when she
was around Gilderoy Lockhart, during second year, but she’d only been twelve then.
With all three of them working, the garden was soon done, and Harry collected his last five
pounds from his aunt. Now, after morning runs, he went into the garden to do some basic
watering and weeding, but otherwise had the rest of the day free. He and Hermione worked on
some summer homework, sitting on benches under the new arbor, while Dudley sat nearby,
playing video games on a small hand-held unit. Sometimes he let Harry or Hermione use it when
they were tired of working; he seemed to feel it was quite necessary to hang over Hermione’s
shoulder when it was her turn.
At the end of the third week of August, Aunt Petunia was being quite petulant at dinner. She
started muttering under her breath about cooking for an extra person, pointedly looking at
Hermione. Figuring that he’d made all the money he was going to from the garden (and having
spent most of it) Harry felt compelled to defend Hermione.
“She cleans her own room and does her own laundry. Plus, her parents gave you a pretty hefty
check...”
But suddenly, Dudley was shouting hotly at his mother, “You leave Hermione alone! She’s the
mostthe most”
“Dudley!” his mother exclaimed reproachfully. His father glowered at him.
“Don’t forget, boy!” he growled. “She may look normal, but she’s aaone of those!” his
father sputtered.
“Say it, Dad! Just say it! She’s a witch! A witch! Why won’t you just talk about it normally?
Harry’s a wizard and Hermione’s a witch, and they call us Muggles! They fly around on broomsticks andandat least she’s not something beginning with a B that rhymes with
witch!” he finished, looked pointedly at his mother before storming out of the room.
“Dudley!” both of his parents exclaimed.
After Dudley left the room, it was very quiet. Harry and Hermione glanced furtively at each
other, continuing to eat their food quietly. The silence was deafening. Harry was reminded
uncomfortably of his birthday. What had gotten into Dudley lately? he wondered. It wasn’t just
Hermione’s arrival, either; this had been going on all summer. Oh, well, Harry thought. I
suppose most fifteen-year-old boys rebel against their parents in some way. He tried to imagine
what he would have been like if he’d been raised by his own parents, how he would relate to
them now that he was in his mid-teens. Try as he might, he couldn’t imagine being anything but
relieved to have parents. Perhaps that was the problem, he thought. Most teenagers just didn’t
know what it was like to not have parents at all. Although in Dudley’s case, in Harry’s opinion,
he’d have been lucky to know what that was like. He tried then to imagine the scenario that
Dudley had raised before, Harry’s parents living and taking in Dudley in the event that
something happened to Petunia and Vernon. He couldn’t imagine that any better than he could
imagine rebelling against the parents he had never had a chance to know.
Perhaps because they had a guesteven though his aunt was already being rude to herHarry’s
aunt and uncle didn’t say another word. Before they had a chance to rise from the table,
however, Hermione spoke.
“Don’t worry about the clearing up, Mrs. Dursley. Harry and I will do it. And I would also like
to make a special dinner on my last night here, as a thank you for letting me stay. I took a
course with this amazing chef in Athens while we were in Greece in July...please say yes,” she
said sweetly, looking at them both placatingly. Harry’s uncle squirmed uncomfortably and
looked at his wife.
“All right,” he said, rising from the table. Petunia Dursley followed him out of the room, looking
rather hurt still about Dudley’s outburst. Harry and Hermione cleared the table and stood
together at the sink to wash and dry the dishes. Harry heard the television come on in the living
room.
“Cooking class while on vacation? Are you never not going to school?” he asked her. She
laughed and splashed him with some suds. He splashed her back, and it threatened to become a
free-for-all, but Sandy (under his shirt sleeve, where his aunt and uncle had been unaware of
her) said that his aunt was coming into the room, so Harry stopped abruptly and whispered to
Hermione, “Aunt Petunia’s coming.”
She looked at him quizzically, then turned and looked at the doorway. Nothing happened. “Are
you sure?” she asked.
“Give it a minute,” Harry whispered, wiping dishes. Hermione counted to sixty under her
breath, and when she reached sixty-one, Aunt Petunia came into the kitchen. She looked at
Harry again, almost scared.
“How did you know” she started to whisper, but Aunt Petunia had other ideas.
“The two of you had better not break anything!” she exclaimed shrilly, her hands on her hips.
They looked at her, wide eyed, assured her that they would be careful, and she turned and left
again.
Hermione looked at Harry. He avoided her eyes, wiping dishes and glasses, thinking, I’ve got to
keep her from knowing that Sandy has the Sight...that was a little close...
The next day, after their morning run and showers, Hermione and Harry sat under the arbor in the garden while Dudley sat nearby, playing his portable computer game. Hermione had brought
her notebook from the Greek cooking class and was paging through it, looking for the right
recipes for the meal she was planning to serve before they left for the Burrow. She made notes
on a piece of lined paper with a ball-point pen; it struck Harry that this was the first time he’d
ever seen her not writing on parchment using a quill and a bottle of ink. Sometimes he forgot
that she’d had a Muggle upbringing, like him.
At one point, Dudley got up to go in and get a different game, and Harry leaned back
contentedly, considering the summer. “You know,” he said to her, “With you here, and with
Dudley being friendly to me now, it’s almost like having a brother and a sister. It’s nice.”
He was perplexed to see the expression of appalled dismay on Hermione’s face. “Sister?” she
said softly. “Sister?” she repeated. Harry didn’t know what to think. When Dudley returned,
Hermione closed her cooking notebook and rose, saying she was going inside to read.
Harry watched her go, wondering what he’d said wrong...
After lunch, Dudley had to go shopping for his school things with his parents. As they were
leaving, however, Harry’s uncle suddenly looked at Harry and Hermione shrewdly,
suspiciously. “I don’t know whether we can trust you two here alone together...” he started
say. Hermione looked up at him brightly.
“Oh, don’t worry, Mr. Dursley. We’re both prefects. And we know how serious it would be
break the law against underageyou know”
He looked at her through narrowed eyes. “That wasn’t what I was talking about,” he said
through his teeth. Harry noticed that Hermione was flushed under her tan before she abruptly
left the room. “You!” his uncle suddenly barked. “What are you going to do?”
“I was going to weed in the garden. Should take a while; dandelions are all over the place,
trying to take over,” Harry told him.
His uncle looked somehow unconvinced. “All right,” he grumbled, and soon the Dursleys were
off to buy Dudley his new Smeltings books and uniforms (the old ones would be far too large
after the running he’d been doing).
Harry changed into his work clothes and went to the garden shed for a trowel and a kneeling
pad. Hermione came to the back door. “Do you mind if I get some sun while you’re working?
haven’t been able to for a while, and I may not again since the summer’s almost over.”
Harry shrugged. “Sure. I don’t need help with the weeding.” She went back inside and Harry
picked a spot to start, kneeling on the pad, pulling on gardening gloves and starting to dig out
dandelion roots. (He didn’t like the idea of using weed killer.) A short while later, he heard the
kitchen door open again and Hermione came back out. He wasn’t facing the door, he was bent
over a particularly annoying dandelion root which seemed to be the source for all of the weeds
in the garden. Then he looked up and goggled at the sight of Hermione.
She was wearing the bikini. She spread a towel on a patch of grass and sat on it, then picked
up a bottle of sunscreen to protect her skin. He tried to look away, but he always seemed to
see her out of the corner of his eye. He couldn’t tell where she was looking; she had her dark
glasses on again. If he thought the picture in his room was amazing, it was nothing compared
live-and-in-person.
When she was done, she lay down on her back and seemed to have her eyes closed. Her arms
were by her sides, her whole body seemed to glisten in the sun, and Harry felt his mouth go
He dragged his eyes away, looking down at the dandelion root again.
He tried to concentrate on his work, but it wasn’t easy. Several times he pulled out small flowers instead of weeds, and tried to unobtrusively replace them, in case she was watching
him. After a while, she sat up and then put her sunglasses up on top of her head. “Harry? Do
you suppose you could help me put some sunscreen on my back?”
Harry looked at her, terrified. “On your back?”
She nodded. “I can’t reach.” And with that, she rolled over onto her stomach and pillowed her
head on her arms. Harry took off his gardening gloves and walked over to her cautiously. He
knelt by her side and picked up the bottle of sunscreen, put some on his hand, and began to rub
it into the skin of her back. He sucked in his breath as he worked, trying to keep his breathing
even and measured, trying not to think about how her skin felt. It was an effort not to give a sigh
of relief when he was done, although he in fact felt tremendous relief. He rose to go, but she
said, “I need help with the back of my legs, too.”
Harry looked down at her legs, starting to feel like his head was swimming. Maybe I could fake
my scar hurting right about now, he thought. That might get me out of it. But he obligingly knelt
down next to her again, putting sunscreen on the backs of her legs. When he touched his fingers
to the back of her left knee, she flinched and sighed. Harry drew back in alarm.
“Go on,” she whispered.
“Are you okay?” he ventured.
“The backs of my knees are justsensitive.”
He tried to quickly apply sunscreen to the rest of her legs, trying to cloud his mind and ignore
the sounds she made when he touched the back of her other knee, trying not to look at her at
all, or linger over her skin...
He was glad to finally be done, and went back to his weeding, but it went slowly; the hot sun
made him feel lightheaded and stupid, and so did the sight of Hermione, lying on the towel in her
small bikini. He avoided looking at her, he thought, and yet it seemed that he spent quite a lot of
time looking at her.
Finally, he was able to put away his weeding supplies, having rid the garden of dandelions once
more. “I’m going in,” he said when he’d locked the potting shed. He opened the kitchen door,
to escape into the house, but when he looked behind him, she had already risen and wrapped
the towel around her waist, carrying the bottle of sunscreen and padding after him. Her short
curls looked like they’d been touched by the sun too, golden highlights glistening here and there
amidst the brown. In the kitchen, they both tried to get a cold drink out of the refrigerator at the
same time, and Hermione wound up standing very close to him when they’d closed the door.
Her face mere inches from his, Harry looked down, then jerked his eyes back up to her face
guiltily. Her eyes seemed very close to his, the whites so white they looked tinged with blue at
the edges.
“Still thinking of me as your sister?” she said almost in a whisper. She turned to go then, not
seeing Harry’s jaw drop, as he stood there, frozen in place, trying to figure her out.
He sat down at the kitchen table, hearing the shower turn on upstairs, and then trying not to
think about that. He drank several glasses of water, to avoid dehydration, trying not to think
about anything at all, and succeeding in thinking of nothing but her. When she came back
downstairs, she was wearing some jeans and a simple blue blouse, looking very much like the
school-year Hermione except for the new haircut and the deep tan. Her skin glowed, her hair
shone, and Harry thought, why did I ever think Cho Chang was pretty? But then he was
disturbed again by something: why had she flirted with Dudley?
She sat down next to him at the kitchen table, and almost before she was settled, he found himself blurting it out: “Why have you been flirting with Dudley?”
She smiled and looked down at her hands. “Only to make sure that he’s another ally. When
Snape told me that Dumbledore wanted us to come here, I figured it would be a good idea to
cultivate him.”
Harry nodded, then couldn’t stop himself as another question came bursting forth. “You do
realize that Ron is very jealous of Krum, don’t you?” Not that I am, he said in his head. Not
that I am, not that I am...
She smiled ruefully. “Ron is an immature git. Don’t get me wrong; I love him like”and she
looked pointedly at Harry “a brother. But if he’s jealous of Viktor, well...I just cannot believe
the way he acted about the Yule Ball, even now. The way he finally asked meif that could be
called asking me. Hermione, you’re a girl... How flattering for him to notice! At least you
actually walked up to the girl you liked and asked her, and then you managed to get Parvati to
go with you and fixed up Ron with Padma...He didn’t even get his own date! I don’t think he’s
going to have a girlfriend for a long time....He’s still such a big baby, and won’t say how he
feels...” she trailed off, as though this were upsetting to her, but she was trying not to think about
it.
Suddenly she looked up at him. “Do you think you’ll ever try asking Cho Chang out again?”
Harry grimaced. “Are you kidding? When I’ve thought about her this summer, all I can see is
the way she was crying during the feast at the end of term, when we were toasting Diggory. Just
buckets of it, streaming down her face. And I even had a dream that I was on a date with her;
and she was saying things like, ‘Oh, Harry, isn’t it a good thing you got Cedric killed so we can
be here like this?’ So, no, I don’t think I’ll be asking her out again until this massive wave of
guilt over Diggory passeswhich will probably be never.”
Hermione nodded. “I wondered whether you were convincing yourself you were responsible.
Believe me, Harry, no one thinks you’re to blame, not even his parents”
He put his hand on her arm. “Save your breath, Hermione. I’m going to feel guilty about him for
the rest of my life, and that’s that. End of story.”
She swallowed and put her hand over his. “You’re still letting that eat you up, then?” He
nodded, looking at the table. “Well, we need to find a way for you to think about other things,
like helping me get rid of Viktoror at least making sure we’re not alone together. I know! You
could go out with us in Hogsmeade!”
“You want me to go on your dates with Viktor?” He was appalled.
“Well, that might seem odd. Ron could come too. And Ginny. Maybe Parvati and Lavender,
and George and Fred. We could make it a big group thing. He has a very hard time saying no to
me; if I tell him that’s how it’s going to be, that’s how it’s going to be.”
Harry promised to come along, and she leaned over suddenly and kissed him on the cheek,
thanking him. Their faces were very close together. Suddenly, Harry stood, nearly knocking his
chair over. “Iumneed to take a shower. Gardeningsweat and grimeyou know” He
practically ran from the room, while he tried to convince himself he wasn’t an immature git like
Ron for having done that.
Just as he was passing through the front hall, the Dursleys returned. Harry told them he was
about to take a shower before dinner, since the gardening was done, and Dudley said, “Does
that mean Hermione’s not doing anything? Hermione! Want to place Space Wars on my
computer?”
Hermione came into the front hall and smiled at Dudley warmly. “I’d love to.” They all three went upstairs, Dudley and Hermione into his bedroom, and Harry into the
bathroom. Standing under the spray, Harry thought again of Hermione sunning herself in the
bikini, touching her skin while he was putting the sunscreen on her...But then he realized that
even if Hermione were interested in him (and it was certainly starting to seem that she was), if
she was already in danger merely for being his friend, how much more dangerous would it be
for her to be his girlfriend? And there was Viktor Krum to consider. And there was
Ron...Hermione thought he was annoying and immature, but he could turn into quite a
formidable enemy if he were angry about Harry and Hermione being togetheras Harry
suspected he would be, if that were to happen and he found out. Then Harry would go from
having two friends to having a girlfriend and yet another mortal enemy...
Harry got out of the shower with his head whirling. He dressed and went to Dudley’s room,
sitting on the bed and watching Hermione and Dudley at the computer, not saying anything. He
felt like he was in a trance, trying to sort out his feelings and his desires, and trying to figure out if
any of it was worth putting her life at even greater risk than it already was. He went down to
dinner when it was time, and then he volunteered his and Hermione’s services for clean-up duty
again, so he could talk to her, but he couldn’t seem to say anything to her that wasn’t related to
dishwashing and drying. She didn’t talk much either, except for one time when she suddenly
said, “You know, Harry, I never told you how proud I was that you stood up to Voldemort. So
many adults wouldn’tor couldn’t.” She sounded a little like she was quoting Sirius’ letter to
the DursleysSirius had probably said the same thing to Hermione, he supposed. He got the
impression that she, however, was speaking of Viktor as one of those who couldn’t or
wouldn’t.
They played chess in the living room after cleaning up, while the rest of the family watched an
American comedy on the television, the laugh track filling the empty spaces in conversations so
that no one felt compelled to talk. It was strange, now, Harry thought, to be playing chess and
not having the pieces moving of their own volition...
After they finished the game (Harry won; he played a lot of chess with Ron, so he was used to
having to work hard at it, but not used to winning) they said goodnight to the others and went
upstairs. In the hall between their rooms, Hermione suddenly leaned forward and kissed him on
the cheek again. Harry swallowed, looking at her in terror, then tentatively leaned over and also
kissed her on the cheek. She sighed.
“I suppose that if you want to think of me as your sister...” she trailed off. Harry grinned at her
and whispered, “Too late,” then forced himself to go into his room, after seeing her smile and
blush in a satisfied-looking way, forcing himself not to step across the small hall and behave
toward her in a far less brotherly fashion...
The next day would be their last before going to the Burrow. After the morning run, Hermione,
Harry and Dudley went to the store to buy the ingredients she needed to make dinner. She
wanted their help carrying it all back to the house. After lunch, she shut everyone out of the
kitchen and started working on the meal. When it was close to time, Harry and Dudley moved
the table and chairs out into the garden for the al fresco meal, per her instructions. When
Hermione finally called them all to dinner, they were stunned. She had made sautéed mushroom
caps with roasted peppers, olive tapenade, pesto and melted Gruyere cheese; a salad of wild
greens with a balsamic vinaigrette; leg of lamb with sautéed spinach and truffle risotto; and
chocolate gateau with Turkish coffee for dessert, plus fruit and cheese besides.
It was by far the most elegant meal any of them had ever eaten. Petunia and Vernon seemed to have forgotten who had made it and went into raptures over every mouthful; Dudley was thrilled
to be rid of celery and lettuce; and Harry thought, She should teach the house elves at school
how to make this...then tried not to laugh at the thought of the house elves allowing themselves
to be taught recipes by the mad reformer, Hermione Granger, who scandalized them every time
she called their situation enslavement.
After dinner, Harry and Hermione cleaned up again. It seemed that she had used every pot in
the kitchen. When they were done, it was only just getting dark, so they went out to sit in the
garden, settling on the bench under the arbor. It seemed natural for Harry to put his right arm
along the back of the bench behind her shoulders, then to bring his hand to rest lightly on her
bare shoulder, stroking her soft skin lightly, moving his fingers in circles. Hermione leaned her
head on his right shoulder, resting her left arm on his leg, as they listened to the symphony of the
crickets and watched the pink glow fade from the sky and become sapphire velvet. Harry
wasn’t sure how long they were sitting like this when he looked down at her and saw her
looking up at him. He couldn’t think of anything to say; he didn’t want to talk, and he hoped she
didn’t either. Then he knew what he wanted to do, knew it more clearly than he’d ever known
anything before. Their mouths gradually grew closer and closer; he could feel her warm breath,
smelling of chocolate and coffee, and he felt her lips begin to brush his.
“A large black dog is coming.”
Harry started, pulling away from her. Sandy had spoken under the loose sleeve of his T-shirt.
He looked around the garden, left and right, and over his shoulder. Then he looked back at
Hermione, who seemed more than a little annoyed.
“What is it?” she said, an edge to her voice.
“Sirius is coming,” he said simply, still looking around, trying to see his godfather, wondering
whether he was already there and had seen them. He removed his arm from around her and
crossed his arms over his chest. Hermione crossed her own arms, frowning; he thought it was
possible she assumed he was just making excuses. But then, after another minute, glittering eyes
appeared around the corner of the potting shed, and a large black dog came padding over to
them quietly. Hermione looked at Harry again, annoyed and perplexed.
“You keep doing that!”
* * * * *
