Chapter Text
Chapter Three
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He panted for breath, his heart pounding wildly in his chest, and struggled to swallow; there was a thick lump in his throat, his mouth too dry. His eyes landed on Justin Finch-Fletchley; his chin-length brown hair was glued to his scalp and face, it was so saturated with sweat, his teeth barred in a roar as he swung his arm and pointed his wand at a Death Eater, a powerful red blast knocking the robed figure to his knees. Harry blinked, his gaze trailing to Seamus, who backed into Justin and briefly looked over his shoulder in wary surprise. Recognition flared in his eyes before Seamus turned back to an unmasked MacNair, hitting him with a crackling Confringo.
Time slowed when a feminine shriek filled his ears, so loud the cacophony of screams and frantic casting of spells seemed dull in comparison. He twisted around, watching in horror as two figures fell from the balcony above- his heart stopped. Lavender Brown looked at him, her blue eyes latching onto his, unbridled terror etched into her features.
He blinked – and she hit the marble flooring with a stomach-churning crunch.
Harry inhaled sharply and pounded his fist against the table, ripping himself from the memory.
Fuck.
His pen clattered to the table, both hands reaching up to cradle his head, his fingers threading through his hair, nails digging into his scalp.
Fuck…
It’d been three months since that final battle, and the memories were becoming clearer, more vivid. But… but also different.
He sucked in another breath, lifting his head and palmed a tumbler of firewhisky, draining the contents of the glass before he picked up his pen again, dragging a line under the last thoughts he wrote - the ones he never finished.
I’ve been drugged. Potioned. With an Aphrodite Compound, and apparently have been for years. I know Ginny has been slipping me the potion, but whomever else
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Why am I remembering things differently than before? Lavender never looked at me when she fell from the balcony… Did she? My head feels so full, but so empty at the same time. So… mucked up. I recall the smallest details; details I would never have been able to spend time observing when we were in the thick of a major battle the way we were. I remember the smell of Seamus’ Confringo; it sizzled in the air and burnt like lightning. I remember the way it impacted MacNair’s stomach, tunneling through him in a fiery orange blaze. He stumbled backwards, and his face… He was clearly stunned that he’d been hit, then his features warped into confusion, but only for a second before…
Harry sniffed heavily out of his nose.
I can distinctly remember the smell. His skin instantly turned to charcoal and his fat caramelized, the muscle and organs beneath cooking. It was… Is ‘putrid’ even a strong enough word to describe the smell? Probably not. I’ll have to find a thesaurus to search for a better adjective… But that scent, that smell of burning human flesh, it’s not something I’ll likely ever forget.
The bite scars on Harry’s bicep twinged painfully and he winced.
I remember, almost as if it was in slow motion, the exact moment Greyback whipped around when the sound of Lavender’s body hitting the floor echoed in the Entrance Hall. It’s an easily recognizable sound, the snapping of limbs and the crack of a skull against solid marble. He looked so maniac, gleeful. His eyes narrowed in on her, his nostrils flaring as he took a deep breath, drool dripping down the corners of his mouth as he salivated at the sight of her mangled body.
It really wasn’t a conscious decision to step in front of Lavender, regardless of what people want to think or the poetry they spout about how gallant I was for taking Greyback’s bite, for leaving Lavender with some dignity in death. I don’t deserve all of this… praise, this
Familiar footsteps on the stairs made his pen pause and his head snapped up, listening as the stairs creaked under Hermione’s weight. Heat swirled deep in his gut with each step she took, with every little gallop down the stairs, how her feet seemed to move with anticipation or giddiness, then how she paused right before she took the final stair onto the basement floor, blowing out a steadying breath as she paced into the kitchen.
“Oh,” she squeaked, almost as if surprised he was already seeking out her eyes, her feet freezing to the floor.
That one word made a shiver go down Harry’s spine, and without really registering it until after it happened, his eyes dragged down his best friend’s person. The first thought that crossed his mind was she looked delectable, even if her jean shorts fell mid-thigh and her over-sized King’s College t-shirt revealed absolutely nothing. Her curls were piled high on her head, however, which gave a delicious peek of the creamy column of her neck. That little preview seemed enough to satiate whatever inner masochistic tendencies he had before a second perplexed thought of, ‘What are you thinking?! She’s your best friend!’ flittered through his brain. It didn’t help that his wolf simply huffed a laugh and shook his invisible head in what Harry could only decipher as disbelief. He sniffed his nose in retort, but his wolf just grinned.
After almost a week of living under the same roof as Hermione – in the mere days after his impromptu birthday party – Harry had grown somewhat used to his body’s reactions when Hermione was around. It was only for propriety’s sake that he reprimanded himself whenever his eyes drank in her curves, when they lingered a little too long on her tits, her arse, or, if she was in the baggy clothing she tended to favor, the lines of her neck or the length of her legs, because the two of them were supposed to be best friends, after all; siblings in all but blood. But as his eyes drifted up her figure again, from her adorable, pink-painted toes that tapped the floor anxiously to her impossibly long legs to the bend of her hips hidden beneath the hem of her father’s university shirt, he wondered what it would feel like for the tips of his fingers to dig into the flesh there as he kissed his way down her spine-
Fuck, Harry internally groaned and cleared his throat, shifting in his seat to better hide his burgeoning erection. He tilted his head at Hermione, trying to feign curiosity when all he could think about was moving her swath of curls off her shoulder so he could sink his teeth into the skin at the curve of her neck.
Stop it, he growled to himself, watching her eyes scour his face interestedly. He didn’t miss the faint flush that rose to her cheeks or the way she forced herself not to nibble on her lower lip.
“You’re not wearing your glasses?” she asked, trying to sound inquisitive, but there was dark undertone to her words.
That made Harry sit straighter and his blood run a little hotter. “Full moon’s tomorrow.”
Her perfect lips parted into an ‘o’ shape, lending his imagination a very inappropriate image, something having to do with his fingers threading through soft curls before palming the back of her head after she sank to her knees in front of him. Unbidden, he sucked a breath through his teeth and planted his elbow on the table as he covertly adjusted himself with his other hand, his eyes flipping up to watch Hermione take a step into the kitchen, her gaze lowering to his hand beneath the table and… bloody fuck, did her eyes just flare?!
“Oh?” she breathed, taking quick steps to the chair across from him, and pulled it out, lowering herself into the seat.
Harry cleared his throat again and as nonchalantly as possible, planted his other elbow on the table and picked up his pen again, flicking it between his fingers. “Yeah. My… lycanthropy helps my vision during the moon.”
“Oh,” Hermione said again, her eyes flicking up to his face as she tilted her head again, a soft smile lifting the corners of her lips. “I can see your eyes better…” then her own eyes rounded as she scrambled to say, “Not that your glasses aren’t fetching, because they are, of course. I’m just able to see just how green your eyes are without them.”
A deeper blush tinged her cheeks as her gaze dropped to the table and she fiddled with her fingers, one thumb nail pushing into the cuticle of the other. Harry chuckled, dropping the pen to the table again and leaned back in his chair, relishing the fond warmth that flooded his chest.
At least he had some blood that wasn’t directly in his cock at the present moment. He shifted in his seat again at the thought and his wolf just barked a laughed.
“After three months of this, I’ve found I much prefer myself without them,” Harry offered, watching Hermione lose the battle against chewing on her bottom lip, making his smile broaden wolfishly on his face. “I’ve even considered corrective eye surgery.”
She lifted her head in surprise, her lips forming that perfectly plump ‘o’ again. “Really? Will that…” she trailed off, searching for the words she wanted to say, “… affect your lycanthropy at all? If your vision corrects itself during the moon, will surgery have a negative effect?”
No, his wolf growled. It won’t.
Harry shrugged, ignoring his wolf’s comments, and laced his fingers together before cupping the back of his head. “It’s on my list of things to ask Healer Ahmadi.”
Hermione nodded in response, nibbling harder on her lower lip. He ripped his eyes away from the movement, focusing his attention down on his journal entry, on his awful, scrawled handwriting, his mind briefly wandering to the clarity of his memories. Just another thing to add to his mental checklist of things to ask his healers; he inwardly sighed in exhaustion. He really was over this… this.
“The reason I came down-” Hermione began, forcing some joviality into her voice, which made him peer up under his lashes at her, immediately catching the muscle spasm beneath her left eye, “-is because I received an owl.”
Interested, Harry lifted his head, catching all the minuscule twitches in her face the normal human eye wouldn’t be able to see. The corners of her mouth turned downwards in such a way that made it obvious she’d practiced hiding the movement, and while her eyes gleamed in faux excitement, her breath hitched in her chest when her lips started moving again, the underlying hesitation in her words speaking volumes about the contents of the letter she’d received.
“…at the Burrow.”
It was only then, as Hermione stared at him, her brow furrowing the longer he went without responding, that he realized he was too busy noting all the contradictions in her face to hear what she"d been saying. It was all too easy, however, for his mind to fill in the blanks: a letter from the Burrow.
A Weasley invited them to dinner.
It was expected, of course. Ginny had told him over a week ago that Molly wanted everyone for supper, and while Harry had half a mind to refuse the invitation, two things stopped him: the poorly hidden pleading look on Hermione’s face and his need to find out more about the Aphrodite Compound.
His drugging - potioning, whatever – never strayed far from his mind. It was a betrayal by the most basic of definitions. The woman he thought he loved slipped him a love potion and, according to the Head Healer at St. Mungo’s, had been doing so for a number of years. The icing on the cake was that she had help.
A lot of it.
If Ron’s behavior (jealousy and quick-to-temper tendencies aside, the Eau du Sex he’d shown up sporting at Harry’s birthday party spoke even larger volumes) implied even the most minute possibility of his culpability, then that meant it was highly plausible Hermione, too, was being drugged – or had been drugged, given her recent reluctance to be in Ron’s presence.
But… who else?
Suspicion – intuition – niggled at the back of his brain. It made him feel exposed, causing heat to rise to the surface of his skin. His flesh itched and he shifted uncomfortably in his seat, his teeth grinding as he clenched his jaw. It took literally every gram of willpower he possessed to keep his hands firmly on the table lest he scratch his skin raw.
Molly Weasley.
When he regained consciousness two days after the final battle, he was lying in a stiff St. Mungo’s bed. He remembered the feel of the wool sheets beneath his fingers and the chemical smell that only hospitals bore. It took less than a millisecond later for him to realize something was wrong. He didn’t even have to open his eyes to know that someone was near him, someone who didn’t have pure intentions. His hackles rose and when he did peel his eyelids apart, the first thing he saw was the Weasley matriarch standing over his bed, tucking a thin blanket around his emaciated body, worry carefully etched into her features. He’d immediately reared away from her, a low growl sounding in his throat. He’d been startled by the movement, by the warning he’d given, then felt wisps of regret in his stomach when Mrs. Weasley jerked back, her face warped in surprise. It took weeks of introspection and a fateful appointment with Healer Ahmadi for him to figure out why he’d reacted the way he did.
Also… hadn’t she once admitted to brewing a love potion as a girl?
“Harry?”
Hermione’s voice ripped him from his thoughts, and he peered up at her, noting the tilt of her head and the dip of a curious brow.
He flashed her a sheepish smile, and in a rough voice said, “Sorry, lost in thought.”
She dipped her chin, eyes softening knowingly. “You do that a lot now.”
“Do I?”
“Yes,” she answered simply.
He studied her as she studied him, her eyes flicking between his before they roamed over his face, smiling slightly as they took in his hair. He’d cut it recently, shorter on the sides, but kept it long on top; as odd as his deduction was, his conclusion was that his lycanthropy seemed to help his hair’s unruliness a bit, allowing it to lay down in a thick mop atop his head. Another thing his lycanthropy seemed to help was his ability to grow a beard. Eighteen he may be, but if he didn’t keep the dark hair on his jaw, chin, and upper lip neatly trimmed, he looked more Wolf Man than… well, part-werewolf.
She was looking into his eyes again, drinking them in as if seeing them for the first time. He remembered that first morning, the one where he woke up able to see everything without the use of his glasses. He’d spent more time than he’d willingly admit staring into the bathroom mirror, his gaze lingering on his eyes.
His mother’s eyes.
Bright and stunningly green, he’d studied them since his first full moon, something he’d never bothered to do before, not even after he’d been told time and time again that he’d inherited Lily’s eyes. The color was uncommon, that much he knew; a dark green outline bleeding into a perfect mixture of blue and yellow hues to create a true emerald green. His thick, dark eyelashes highlighted his eyes in such a way that they drew attention and coupled with his jet black hair, both starkly contrasted his pale skin.
He returned his attention to the woman sitting across from him. He wasn’t blind; she was gorgeous, and always had been. The first thing he noticed when she barged into the compartment on the Hogwarts Express during their fateful first year was her pretty, almond-shaped eyes. It wasn’t until she was gone that Ron teased unkindly about her bushy hair and oversized front teeth, but all Harry could see was her heart-shaped face and the constellation of freckles dancing across the bridge of her cute button nose. Over the years, she’d grown into her lovely features and eventually, it got to the point where it was difficult to look away when she entered the room.
Until you were drugged , his wolf reminded Harry. He huffed through his nose, pushing away his wolf’s grumbles and continued his ruminations.
Harry had noticed more than her physical appearance, of course. He was forever in awe of her intelligence and wit and, yes, even her occasional cunning. She was kind and caring, incensed by the injustices of the world and attempted to right those wrongs (even if the Hogwarts house elves became afraid of her and her knitting). And she’d always been loyal to a fault, despite his immaturity when he was younger.
Despite Ron’s influence on his behavior.
Looking back, Harry could confidently say he allowed his first friend to guide his actions towards others, especially Hermione. It made his stomach churn now.
Before his infection, Hermione was his best friend because she couldn’t be more. Now…
“Lost again?”
Her soft, amused voice jolted him out of his perusal. He met her eyes one more time before he grinned and huffed a laugh. His brain seemed to move triple the pace it once did, thoughts flicking through his mind in time with the flutter of a hummingbird’s wings. He thought this is what Hermione must have felt like her entire life, why and how she perceived the world the way she did, seeing as how her brain constantly ran on overdrive.
“Yes,” he answered, leaning forward and placing is arms on the table. “I feel like after all these years, I know you a little better. I didn’t know if that was possible after spending nine months in a tent together, but if this is how your brain works…” he trailed off for affect, twirling his hand up by his head, then grinned wider when understanding dawned on her.
“Maybe.”
“Maybe,” Harry repeated in agreement, then bit his lips together when the silence became stilted. Not awkward, but… unnatural for them. Deciding it would be best to reflect on that later, he answered her earlier question. “Dinner at the Weasley’s, then?”
Harry immediately noticed Hermione stiffen before she shifted slightly, uncomfortably, her throat working with a hard swallow, but she smiled broadly not even a moment later, nodding with forced enthusiasm. The hairs on his arms rose, his teeth grinding, and he nearly told her she didn’t have to pretend around him but stopped himself by literally biting his tongue.
He needed to keep this information to himself. Just for a little longer. Just until he had enough evidence to approach Kingsley about the drugging because blood results aside, Harry had little to go on except instinct.
If only a werewolf’s instincts were enough in the eyes of the Wizengamot.
“Dinner at the Weasleys,” Hermione stated with a deep breath.
This ought to be fun.