Weasley and Granger

Chapter 39: Harry's Slum

The group of Weasleys, Harry, and Hermione all bustled into the ward, nervous and yet very eager to see Mr. Weasley. As soon as they all had spotted him they rushed over surrounding him in a swarm of hugs.

Soon they found themselves asking Mr. Weasley a constant stream of questions. From 'How are you?' to 'How soon are you getting out of here?'

Fred started to ramble off a bunch of questions about what really happened, but each time he was shushed by his mother for talking about such things in a public place.

As Hermione had suspected the Ministry had not said anything about what had happened, especially since she couldn't imagine them explaining a giant snake getting into 'the safe confines of the Ministry of Magic departments'.

It seemed such a short time, but then they found themselves being reshuffled out of the room by Mrs. Weasley who had said Mad-Eye and Toni's would be wanting to speak to Arthur.

'Fine then, don't tell us anything then." Fred said bitterly once they were outside in the hall, he had tried to ask another question about what his father had gone through but was instead not given an answer.

Hermione our her hand on his left shoulder, and tried to give him a comforting smile.

"Should we listen in then?" George spoke up, which caused them all to return with confused looks.

"Did you bring them?" Fred asked.

"Of course, never leave Hogwarts without them." George smiled. He then reached into his pocket and pulled out enough Extendable Ears for all of them.

"Let's hope these work on St Mungo ward doors then," Fred said holding an ear up to his.

To Hermione's surprise, when she put one up to hers, she could actually hear the familiar voices as if she was in the room and standing next to them.

"Dumbledore seemed worried about this when I spoke to him this morning." Mrs. Weasley told the others.

"Of course he's worried. The boys seeing things from inside You-Know-Who's snake. Obviously, Potter doesn't know what that means but if You-Know-Who's possessing him..." Mad-Eye trailed off.

Hermione paled to be as white as a sheet. Her eyes darted to Harry who was almost identical in complexion.

"Harry?" She said wearily at him. But he refused to look at her.

—•—•—•—

Together the group was riding the train back, Harry still hadn't said a word since St Mungos. Because none of them had said anything about what they'd heard to Mrs. Weasley she simply asked if he was feeling sick. He replied shortly with no, but it was clear Mrs. Weasleys instincts knew better.

Fred sat next to Hermione on the train, holding her hand and he pulled her close. Hermione thought it was him just second nature that he would do that, but her thoughts tugged at the notion it was because of what they had heard at St Mungos.

While she thought about it more, she knew that Fred knew Harry could be trusted, so maybe it was just his subconscious doing that. Either way, she was overthinking such a simple thing as 'holding some one's hand and sitting close to them on a train'.

But Hermione noticed throughout the almost silent train ride that many of their party, of Wizards and Witches attempting to blend in with the Muggle public, were avoiding looking in Harry's direction. The bookworm shook her head at this 

When they all returned to 12 Grimmauld Place, Harry made a beeline straight for his room, with the excuse that 'he wasn't feeling very well'. Before anyone really had a chance to say anything, he'd already jumped to the second level of the stairs.

—•—•—•—

For the continuing few hours leading up to dinner, Hermione and no one else had actually seen Harry. Mrs Weasley, Tonks and Mad-Eye were oblivious to what had happened, but the others would share secret glances. 

"Can you imagine what he's going through?" Hermione paced the shared bedroom, as Ginny sat on her bed flipping through a copy of the recent Witch Weekly magazine that many others at Hogwarts read for their weekly intake of magical drama. 

"I mean, he's just learnt that the Dark Lord has been somehow possessing him, Dumbledore's known about it and that our immediate responses were to be afraid of him." She continued to rant.

"Hermione, there's not much we can do right now. We just have to give him time to process it all." Ginny said looking up at the stressed bookworm.

"He's had time, if he's not down at dinner I'm going to have to have a serious conversation with him." The bookworm continued.

"You sound like mum," Ginny mumbled as she looked down at her magazine again.

"I heard that." Hermione stopped pacing, she crossed her arms over her chest, "I don't sound like her." 

"You're acting like her a bit then." Ginny laughed.

Hermione scoffed and let herself fall face first onto her bed, landing her face on her pillow. Letting her impulses take over, she screamed loudly into her pillow. It was in this effort she'd hope to take out her stress on an inanimate soft object instead of one of her friends. 

"What did pillow ever do to you?" Hermione heard someone say behind her. 

"Ahh!" She screamed, and her reflexes caused her to jump in the air really quickly from shock.

"Don't apparate right near me like that!" She yelled at Fred as he fell onto the bed laughing from hysteria. 

"It's.... too.... funny.... ha ha ha." He said between laughs.

—•—•—•—

Dinner came and went, Harry, didn't join them. Hermione was about to get out of her chair and go get him. Or she was about to try to reason with him about the situation, when Fred and Ginny held her by her sides in her chair, so she didn't get the chance to.

By morning Harry was back downstairs again. But this time, he was just kind of there. Hermione noticed he rarely spoke to anyone and avoided a lot of people's gazes. Mrs Weasley was quick to suggest that they start to put up Christmas decorations throughout the house though. 

Some how, after they had started to locate the decorations stuffed in boxes and hidden away in places, Harry had slipped from everyone's sight, and he had retreated to where Hermione thought was the attic of the old house. 

Nearing lunchtime, Mrs Weasley called out to Harry but there wasn't any response. Finally fed up, Hermione ran up the stairs to get Harry out of whatever slum he had put himself in. She didn't even really knock on the attic door but pushed through it to see Harry looking out the window at the street below. 

She walked over to him, put her hands on her hips and waited for him to acknowledge her. All he really did was turn his head towards her. "Please go away, Hermione." He mumbled to her before he looked out the window again, at the street that was filling up with snow. 

"No." She frowned at her friend.

"Please just leave me be, up here, alone where I'm not anywhere near anyone else." He continued to look out the window blankly.

"Harry James Potter you are not avoiding people anymore! You are going to be out of this attic and you're going to be downstairs in less than a minute." Hermione snapped at him. "Because you are not a monster, the Dark Lord isn't controlling you, and you're being ridiculous about the situation!"

Harry's eyes widened, and soon he was grumpily walking out of the attic, even to Hermione's surprise what she had said had worked. Maybe Ginny was right, she did sound a bit like Mrs Weasley...

A/N: I know, I know! I missed an update, I'm going to try and catch up with it this week. So hopefully there'll be two updates coming next week! Enjoy though guys.