They had. Hermione did remember. There had been so many letters during the summer explaining that Harry was vital to the future of the war, the only enemy that Voldemort would ever take seriously, and Hermione had reluctantly agreed. She didn't know exactly why Voldemort would take Harry seriously, any more than she knew all the details of why he had wanted to kill Harry as a baby. But she knew that it was important to keep other people safe.
Now, she knew that Professor Dumbledore had played with Harry's safety and dangled him in front of Sirius Black for no apparent reason. Now, she knew that Dumbledore would play with one person's safety, anyway.
And he had played with Hermione's trust.
Hermione blinked again, and again. She had spoken up in front of the Great Hall, and kind of shouted out why she had without meaning to, but she wasn't going to cry in front of them. She turned and walked back to their House table, where Ron put an arm around her.
"Can we leave?" Hermione whispered to him. Some people were watching her, but more of the attention was on the professors. Hermione thought that Professor McGonagall and maybe some other people were questioning Dumbledore.
"Of course."
Ron stood up with her and guided her towards the doors out of the Great Hall. And if some people tried to speak to Hermione, Ron glared them into silence.
Harry would have done the same, if he were here.
Hermione took a slow breath. She owed him an apology, and a lot of thinking. But she would write the one, and speak it when Harry came back to school, and do the other.
She wasn't going to let two people's lack of principles ruin her own.
"Henry, I want you to seriously rethink going back to Hogwarts."
Harry sighed and leaned back on the couch in the ivory sitting room, glancing back and forth between his parents. Father kept twitching like he wanted to stand up and check Harry's scar again. He had checked it last night, although Harry hadn't had a dream about Voldemort then, and the night before, right after the nightmare about Voldemort returning to life.
Well, the vision. Harry was smart enough to name it for what it was.
"Where else would I go, Mother?" he asked. "I can't go to Beauxbatons. I don't know French. And I don't know any of the languages that Draco talked about them using at Durmstrang, either."
"There are such things as Translation Charms." Mother looked as polished as the ivory around them on the surface, but Harry could see the twitching tension in her arms, the way she longed to let spells fly and destroy the delicate dishes and figurines in the room. Harry kind of wished she would. "And if you liked, we could keep you home for the rest of the Hogwarts year, and you could learn French and go to Beauxbatons during your sixth year."
"What about Draco?"
"Obviously it would be easier for both of you, in some ways, if both of you made the same decisions," Mother said softly. "Including easier for us. But you are twins, not the same person. I will respect what you want to do."
Harry took a deep breath and stared out the window. There were traceries of brown in the grass, and some flowers in the beds in the gardens had closed and wouldn't open again. He thought about staying here, and felt a great wave of longing rise in his soul.
But he also wanted to go back. He would miss Hogwarts, and Gryffindor Tower, and Ron, and Hermione, so much if he left now. And he didn't want to let anyone push him out. Not Dumbledore, and not Black, and not Voldemort.
Besides, he didn't think Dumbledore would give up on trying to get him to come back if Harry stayed home for the rest of the term. The last thing he needed now was for new rumors to spread about Father or Mother because Dumbledore couldn't keep his mouth shut.
"You've decided, then."
There was heavy grief in Mother's voice. Harry blinked and turned around. "I didn't say I had."
"You didn't need to. I know the set of your jaw." Mother sighed. "I won't try to dissuade you, Henry, but I would like you to tell us why."
Harry nodded. "I want to stay in Hogwarts," he said. "I would miss the classes and being a Gryffindor and my friends. And I don't want to look like a coward, like I'm running away, because I let them win. And I don't want Dumbledore to act like you've kidnapped me again, the way he did after you took me home from the hospital wing at the end of last year. You know that he would try to say that."
"You could let us worry about our own reputations," Father said. He was leaning forwards now, straining against something that looked almost like an invisible leash. Harry suspected that he wanted to destroy things, too, or people, just like Mother.
Did I inherit that?
Well, he had killed Pettigrew.
....
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