Forgiven // Drarry

Ridden and Weighed

"Hey." Harry nudged Hermione. They were in the room of requirement, silently looking through plans of the next DA meeting. 

"Yeah?" Hermione asked, adjusting her frizzy brown hair without looking up. 

"I think I'm going to burn the book." Harry said absentmindedly. They had been hiding it in the Room of Requirement, until Harry could read through it all. Harry didn't want to risk taking it out of the room to do research. 

"Oh?" Hermione looked up at Harry with surprise. "But I thought you were going to read through it." 

Harry down for a millimeter of a second. 

"I...er...decided that I think you're right about the book. It is dangerous. I really don't want to cause any more problems in case anything were to happen with it." Harry lied. For some reason, Harry didn't want to share with Hermione that Malfoy had given up trying to find a cure. Maybe if he didn't tell anyone, it would make it less of a reality in his mind. 

That's good, Harry. I'm glad you took my words into consideration."  Hermione gave him a small smile. She got up and got the book which was resting on a  nearby shelf, hidden behind dusty knickknacks.  "We just need a fire place." 

They closed their eyes for a second, and when they open them, there was a stone fireplace in the center of the wall, burning a roaring orange flame. 

Hermione looked at Harry, who looked down at the old book in her hands. 

"I know, Harry." Hermione said with sympathy. "But, there's many other sources we can look through."  

Harry sighed. "Yeah..." He got up and walked towards Hermione. Hermione handed him the book. It felt like poison in his hands, but at the same time it felt powerful, and it felt like it would have what he most wanted at the moment. A cure. 

Harry shrugged those feelings off like sand being brushed off of his shoulders. He walked towards the fire, and after taking a breath, he threw the book into the fire. The fire grew and  became a bright burst of teal for a second before slowly fading back orange and dying down to it's regular size. 

It was a weight being lifted from his chest. But there were still many other weights keeping him down.  The fire engulfed the book, as the pages became black and slowly fell into the bottom of the flames. 

"I'm proud of you." Hermione told him.  Harry stayed silent as he stared at the dancing flames. 

"You sacrificed something toxic from your life even though the dangerous temptation to keep it tried to hold you back.  That's really brave of you, and strong." Hermione told him. 

"Thank you." Harry said, looking solemn. 

"C'mon Harry, we can work on our plans some more. And when Ron gets back from detention, we can tell him what we did." Hermione motioned for him to follow her. 

Harry continued to the table, after looking back at the fire one last time. 

***

Harry sat at his favourite place by the lake. Now that he no longer had detention with Umbridge, he wasn't researching the Devil's Curse, and he didn't have Quidditch practice, he actually had free time again.