Hear Me Out

Chapter 10: Zake Tinderstone

         The next morning, after a good nights sleep, Harry awoke to a pound. He jumped up, and then looked directly towards the door. Rubbing his eye, he got up and twisted the doorknob. There stood Hermione, in a maroon long sleeve shirt with denim jeans, dropping a box onto the floor. Once Harry stepped into the doorway to see a better view of the living room, he was knocked aback from how many boxes there were.

       "Blimey, Hermione! What are you doing?" Harry asked walking up to her his hands held out. "Moving in." Her quick response was. "What?" He asked, making sure what he heard was correct. "I said I'm moving in. Problem?" She responded with sass. He was obviously used to her sass, he dealt with her since the first year at Hogwarts. He even remembers in the fifth year when he just finished making an outstanding potion to hand in to Snape that wouldn't have failed, then she vanished everything in the pot in which she had thought he had finished. He remembers every single detail of them together. But why was she all of a sudden throwing everything into his house?

     "Don't take this the wrong way or anything, but why?" He asked enthusiastically with wide eyes. He was so shocked and thrown into disbelief that it seemed like his own eyes were deceiving him. "Well, I felt that every since Malfoy— I mean, Draco came last night, I went home while you were asleep and used a spell to throw everything into these boxes. All I needed to do was quietly Apparate and Disapparate from my house to yours without waking you up. Easy actually. All I needed was a little Felix Felicis to cheer myself up, and think positive thoughts that I'll get the job done."

       "And where in Merlin's beard did you find that Felix Felicis?" Harry asked, catching on, but still a little remotely confused. "Come on Harry! We live in a Wizarding World for crying out loud. There's wizards and witches everywhere!" She said loudly, looking through the box. Then she paused.

        She grabbed something that looked to be a small wooden picture frame and stared deeply into it. Harry was quite anxious and curious to see who was behind it. He snuck up behind Hermione. There it was. A happy Hermione and Ron on their anniversary. Hermione's arms were around arm, and Ron was smiling while looking into her eyes. The picture moved around, and soon enough, vanished Ron. A tear silently streamed down Hermione's face, and she put the picture back into the box. She stood up, in a tremendous effort not to face Harry.

        "Let's get started." She said, still with her back turned to Harry. "On what-"  "Researching Zake of course! What else?" She cut in, turning angrily around at Harry. Her eyes were full of tears, and Harry struggled not to comfort her. "Okay, let's go to the office room," Harry replied, calmly.

      *                                        *                                     *

    About thirty minutes of Hermione calming down, adrenaline pumping, and blood in the veins, they finally yanked up the hard drive and got the computer to turn on. "Well? Anything yet?" Harry asked, impatiently asked, pacing back and forth across the room, avoiding contact with the computer. "Nope." And when she heard him grunt she added, "not yet." Harry made Hermione look him up because he couldn't to see Zake's hideous face on that screen. The guy Ginny betrayed him with.

     "WAIT! I got something!" Hermione yelled, shaking the entire desk. Harry quickly stopped pacing, and ran over to the computer. "What?" He asked anxiously.

He watched Hermione click on a URL, and a page instantly pulled up on him. Hermione briefly read it aloud. "It's got nothing! Every thing Malfoy told us is in here. Nothing more. Nothing less. Just small details and a smaller description of what he explained. Of course Malfoy would know more about Zake then anybody else, since he closely knew him." Hermione said, spinning the chair around to face Harry. "No, there can't be just that. There's gotta be something else-"

"Harry, we've been looking the past half hour. Nothing. It seems that's all they know, or they know something we don't and are too scared to share it to the public. They don't want Zake to do anything bad to this person, especially because this was published by an anonymous user." Hermione explained. Harry seemed on the verge of giving up, with his hand on his forehead. "Unless- unless Zake wrote this himself!" Hermione shouted. Harry looked at her as if she was Fluffy and had three heads. "Hermione. Think for one second. Why in the world would Zake write something himself that would get him into trouble?" Harry asked. "Think about it, Harry! He would only post this is he WANTED people to know about it. Or else he wouldn't have done anything in the first place. He must've wanted people to know about him, become frightened, and hide from him so he can get a clearer route to you, instead of having to go through all of your "protectors" just to find you and destroy you." Hermione said intelligently.

"Hermione, you're bloody brilliant!" He exclaimed. "But, how do we get him to stop?" Harry added. Hermione shook her head. "That, I don't know. The only thing that will stop him is destroying you and taking over the world. And that starts with Ginny- Ginny! We gotta go warn Ginny!" Hermione instantly thought of. When Hermione picked up her coat and was about to head to the front door, she stopped in her tracks as soon as she heard Harry wasn't following her. "Harry! I know she's your ex, and I know you don't wanna see her. But her life is at stake. Heck, even my life is at stake!" She said, facing him with her arm out trying to explain.

Harry still stood by the computer, glared at the screen, and then turned back to Hermione. "Let's go."