(no subject)
Binary Star
Summery: A binary star is a system consisting of two stars orbiting around their center of mass. To an observer, a binary star appears to be one light. Harry met Hermione first on the train. Since then, they have been inseparable. HHr. The dreaded fluffy hetbunny has bitten me.
Disclaimer: If I owned HP, I wouldn’t be getting up at 6 am tomorrow to go to work. Also- bit of the summery come from wikipedia.
1. The train
Traffic was bad on the way to King's Cross. A motorcycle and a large truck had collided, and were blocking traffic. Had the truck driver slept adequately the night before, instead of staying up to finish a good book, the story of Harry Potter’s days at Hogwarts might have been much different. He would have been several moments earlier catching the Hogwarts Express. He might have met a large family of redheads, developed a friendship with one of them, and gone on to have dozens of adventures.
But that was all fantasy. As it was, Harry just barely managed to avoid missing the train. Why hadn’t he thought to ask someone how to get to the platform? He might not have figured it out at all if it weren’t for a bushy-haired girl stepping through the barrier repeatedly, staring at it as though she still wasn’t quite certain she believed it was there. Harry was surprised the muggles in the station didn’t notice her.
He stepped past her and went on to the train, sitting in an empty compartment near the end of the train. He might have joined someone else’s compartment, but it seemed like a lot of bother, meeting up with strange people and trying to get to know them. Better to stay there.
He stared out the window, watching the bustle as the last few students boarded. There was a lurch, and the train left King’s Cross. Left the muggle world.
Good riddance, Harry thought with a touch of anger and a touch of relief. Now he was free of the Dursleys- free for months and months. Maybe he could just… not go back, at the end of the year. He could escape into Diagon Alley, and stay at the Leaky Cauldron. He had enough money, after all.
He was interrupted by a knock on the door.
“Do you mind some company?” a small voice said. It was the girl from before, the one who had accidentally shown him how to get onto the platform.
“No,” Harry said. “I mean- no, I don’t mind. Come on in.”
The girl sat across from him. “I’m Hermione Granger,” she said very quickly, holding out her hand.
“Harry Potter,” Harry said, taking her hand and shaking it. “I saw you earlier, didn’t I? Jumping in and out of the platform?”
“Oh,” she said, looking a bit embarrassed. “I wanted to know how it worked. This is all very new to me. I’m Muggleborn, you see, and I only found out about magic a few months ago. I know I must have looked a bit foolish.” She said this all very quickly.
“S’alright,” Harry said. “I wouldn’t have been able to figure out where to go, if you hadn’t been there. I was raised by muggles, too. No idea what I’m doing at all.” He grinned, a little sheepishly.
“Raised by muggles? But you’re Harry Potter!”
“Er- yeah?”
“You’re mentioned in dozens of books, you know. Rise and Fall of the Dark Arts, the Daily Prophet’s Most Notable Events of Our Century- anything to do with you-know-who, of course-“
“Well, I didn’t know about any of it until the end of July.”
She gaped at him. “Really? It must have been a terrible shock.”
“Yeah, I guess.”
The topic of conversation quickly moved to safer ground.
“So- do you know what house you’ll be in?”
“No,” Harry said. “I haven’t really had much time to ask questions, you know. But… my parents were in Gryffindor, I’ve heard. So maybe I’ll go there.”
Hermione nodded briskly. “That’s where I want to go, too. But I might go to Ravenclaw- that’s where the bookish people are.”
“You seem pretty bookish to me,” Harry said before he could stop himself. “I mean- smart, you know? It’s a good thing.” Harry was rapidly feeling like a buffoon. Maybe it hadn’t been entirely Dudley’s fault that Harry hadn’t had any friends in primary school.
Hermione blushed a little. Harry was glad to see that she didn’t look upset.
“Well- I wouldn’t mind Ravenclaw, of course.”
“But Gryffindor seems good, too,” Harry said.
They talked for a few more minutes, and a then a pale, blonde boy came in.
'Is it true?' he said. 'They're saying all down the train that Harry Potter's in this compartment. So it's you, is it?'
“Yes,” Harry said. “And you are?”
“Malfoy. Draco Malfoy.” He glanced at Hermione. “And you are…?”
“Hermione Granger,” she said.
“Granger? I don’t think I’ve heard of the Grangers.”
“That would be because I’m Muggleborn.”
“Oh,” he said with a look of distaste. “A mudblood. Potter, why don’t you come join my compartment? There isn’t much to see in here.”
“No thank you,” Harry said. A moment ago, he had been tiring of Hermione’s company. She was a little too talkative, and so eager that she wore him out. But now that she’d been insulted, Harry found himself feeling protective of her. “If they’re anything like you, I wouldn’t want to go near them.” He turned to Hermione, and mock-whispered, “It’s the smell, you see.”
She was shocked for a moment, then burst out into giggles. Malfoy stomped out of the compartment.
From that moment onward, Harry and Hermione were best friends.
2. The Sorting
Harry watched Hermione’s sorting with a feeling like he’d been punched in the stomach. Ravenclaw. She’d gone to Ravenclaw.
I’ll never make it into Ravenclaw.
He hadn’t even realized it, but for the entire train ride, he’d been planning his year around her. Around having a friend. He’d been imagining- oh, talking on the way to class, and sitting next to each other in classes, and playing card games.
Well, I don’t need a friend. I can handle being without one. I’ve done it before. Every day until now.
He was so busy steeling himself against the inevitable loneliness that he didn’t hear his name when he was called. The stern woman near the sorting hat had to shout for him again. He sat on the stool.
“Hmm,” the hat said. Harry was startled.
You talk? he thought at it.
“Yes, I talk. Now, where to put you. You’ve a fine mind- plenty of courage- and quite a bit of ambition. You’d do well anywhere.”
Ravenclaw, Harry thought. Please, Ravenclaw. There’s a girl I met on the train- I want to get to know her better.
“A Ravenclaw way of phrasing friendship if I ever heard it. Well, then, RAVENCLAW!”
Harry couldn’t quite believe what he had heard. He dashed off to the Ravenclaw table, and joined his new housemates. Or rather, housemate.
Right now, only one really mattered.
3. Petrifaction
Harry stared at Hermione’s petrified form, and felt very cold inside.
“Can she hear me at all?” he asked.
“No,” Madame Pomfrey said briskly. “But you can try, if it makes you feel better.”
So Harry spoke to Hermione quietly about the classes she was missing, and he read books to her.
He took good notes so that she wouldn’t be far behind when she woke up, and he continued looking for whatever the monster was. He bet Hermione had known; she’d had a mirror in her hand, and that wasn’t typical for her.
Something a mirror would save you from. Too bad it hadn’t helped her.
He asked Madame Pince what Hermione had last looked at in the library, and found the book. There was a page missing.
He found the page in her hand, and gave it to the headmaster. The next day the school brought in a dozen roosters, and killed the basilisk.
That wasn’t the end of it, though. Little Ginny Weasley, a friend of Luna’s, went down into the chamber. Harry followed with Dumbledore close at hand.
There were basilisk fangs only a few feet away. It wasn’t really that much work to destroy the diary.
And there there was a long time spent waiting, as Hermione slumbered and the mandrakes grew. Long weeks.
“Harry?” she mumbled as she woke. “I hope you took good notes.”
“Of course,” he said. “I learned from the best.”
4. Comfort
“He betrayed my parents,” Harry said, anger building up inside him. “I would have- he- I would have had a family, if it weren’t for him.”
“I’m sorry,” Hermione said. “I’m sorry.”
She hugged him, not worrying that everyone in Hogsmeade was looking.
5. The Second Task
Harry shoved the gillyweed into his mouth and dived below the surface of the lake.
We’ve taken what you’ll sorely miss, the song had said. Well, it was obvious what that would be.
What mattered was getting to her as soon as possible. It shouldn’t be too hard; Hermione had helped him work out what the clue meant with days and days to spare, so he’d memorized a good dozen useful spells.
For instance, the blasting curse which he was repeatedly sending behind him. In the air, it just put holes in things. Underwater, it had the same effect as pushing against a wall- it shot him forward. He was far ahead of the other champions. He might win this task.
It was an exciting thought.
A boiling hex took care of the Grindylows, and a quick severing charm removed the ropes that bound Hermione. The hardest part of the whole task was sitting in the water, waiting for the gillyweed to wear off while Hermione laughed merrily at him.
As long as she smiled, everything was well.
6. Comfort again
“Sirius is dead,” Harry said numbly. “He’s gone. He fell through the veil.”
Hermione hugged him, gave him a little kiss on the cheek.
He didn’t say: “I don’t have a family anymore.”
That wouldn’t have been true.
7. All was well
In the end, it wasn’t all of the people on the battlefield Harry sacrificed himself for. It was only one of them.
And when Voldemort died, it wasn’t the safety of the wizarding world that made Harry smile.
“I love you,” he told her.
They didn’t kiss then, in front of the dying and dead.
Much later, there was a wedding.
Sometimes Harry wonders what would have happened if he’d been a minute earlier to catch the Hogwarts Express. He likes to think it wouldn’t have changed much. Surely he and Hermione would still have one little boy and two girls. Surely they would still live in this house, full of books and laughter and sunshine.
Then he abandons the train of thought.
He couldn’t bear to change a thing.
A/N:
Ack! It’s a big fluffy hetbunny!
Where did you go, HD?