Dear Harry, the letter read,
Ron and I aren't speaking. He's pretty mad about the whole Wizard Family Services disaster. I suppose I can't blame him. Looking back, I can see a huge list of things I should have done and didn't. I could have talked to you again and told you that I was getting worried enough to file a complaint. You'd have probably told me the truth, then. And even if you let me still wonder, I could have reported the matter to Dumbledore first, or even McGonagall as your Head of House. Either one of them would have made sure you were being treated all right. When I think about it now, involving Family Services seems like it was a bad idea all around.
So, what I'm trying to say is that you were right about what was driving me. I didn't think Professor Snape was the best dad for you to have, and I guess I was just determined to get you out of there, any way I could. Not that I thought of it that way at the time, you understand. I really did think I was doing you a favor. I can see now that it was pretty presumptuous of me to decide Snape wasn't suited to be your father. If anyone would know about that, it would be you. And you seem pretty happy with him, so... enough said.
I have to admit that Malfoy surprised me with that little speech of his at the door. Ron didn't appreciate that, by the way. That's actually the main reason we're fighting. He wanted me to agree that Malfoy's up to something, calling me clever to my face. I told him I thought it was... well, not sweet. I'd never say Draco Malfoy was that. But he wasn't as nasty as usual, was he? Do you think it's because he's been away from his common room for so long? Or maybe it's got to do with being separated from the terrible influence of his parents?
I have to be honest with you, Harry. Almost six years' worth of experience is telling me not to trust him at all. And I don't. That is, I can't possibly, no matter how well you think you know him or how convinced you are that he's reformed. But I don't want to make the same mistake with him that I just did with Snape, so if he continues to be civil, I will be as well -- just for as long as you want me to, that is. If he double-crosses you, I'll waste no time in telling him what I really think of him.
Hermione
P.S. Did he really say I was cute?
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Coming Soon in A Year Like None Other:
Chapter Sixty-Five: A Letter From Wiltshire
Chapter Sixty-Six: The Owlery
Comments very welcome.
Aspen in the Sunlight
Chapter 65: A Letter from Wiltshire
http://archive.skyehawke.com/story.php?no=5036&chapter=65
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A Year Like None Other
by Aspen in the Sunlight
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Chapter Sixty-Five: A Letter from Wiltshire
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"Well, that's quite a Lumos," Hermione understated with something approaching aplomb.
Harry quickly incanted his Parseltongue version of Nox and watched as the brilliant blast of light dissolved.
"It looks better indoors," Ron saw fit to declare. "I mean, it was just the same, but it's only when you see it melting walls that you really get the full impact."
"Or when it flings you backwards into a wall," Harry added as he waved a hand to indicate the Devon countryside. "You can see why Severus decided I ought to practice out here instead of at home."
Hermione, Harry noticed, didn't react to that last word, though she did stiffen a bit as Snape walked over from where he had been talking to Draco. That worried Harry, at least until he understood it. She wasn't so much resentful now as remorseful. "Professor? Thank you for Portkeying us all out here so we could see what Harry can really do now. I..." She straightened her posture a bit. "I really am sorry I didn't realize there was a perfectly valid explanation for everything."
Snape looked down at her, his black robes billowing in the breeze, but in the end, he didn't reply to her apology. Harry didn't like that, but it did fit his attitude towards her. He'd refused to side-along Apparate her and Ron out to Devon, had said when he was explaining his plan to Harry that it would put him rather closer to Miss Granger than he cared to be. Harry had worried that a Portkey might open up Devon to intruders, but his father said that a Portkey into a location protected by Fidelius would only work for people who already knew the secret.
Earlier that day, Snape had taken Ron and Hermione up to the headmaster's office so they could be told by the secret-keeper himself that there was a cottage hidden out in Devon.
And now here they all were, supposedly allies, but Snape was still furious with Hermione. Harry could tell, and so could she, obviously. He saw her give a tiny sigh as the Potions Master ignored her apology and shifted into full teaching mode.
"As you have seen," he began, "Harry's wanded spells these days are vastly amplified. Indeed, far beyond what he intends, quite often with catastrophic results. He knows not to use his wand except, perhaps, when he is under attack."
"Wandless," Ron breathed, glancing at Hermione. "You were right about that!"
The girl lifted her chin as though she was still not really speaking to one Ronald Weasley.
"Harry," Snape directed. "Demonstrate another wanded spell so that your Housemates have a better idea of just what catastrophic might mean."
"All right," Harry agreed, pausing to think for a moment. "Um, maybe you should all move back a tad," he urged, motioning. He knew by then that his Incendio produced an explosion, not a spark, so he pointed his wand away from Snape's little cottage, and at a rock in the area of meadow that previous practice had rendered devoid of any grass to burn.
Ron flinched as the spell took effect, but Hermione merely nodded as though expecting it.
Harry swayed on his feet, then remembering that his father had told him to be honest about his weaknesses, admitted, "I get tired really easily doing wanded magic, now. I think that was why I fainted over that first Lumos, Ron. I didn't know how to turn it off, so it drained me way past what was safe."
"Yeah, you should have seen him after he cast the Basilisk," Draco added. "So it's not just extended spells that can wipe him out. Extreme kinds of magic can do it as well."
Harry couldn't help but note the oh-so-casual way Draco tossed that out. Yeah, no mention of the way he'd yelped and zoomed high into the sky on his broom the minute the Basilisk had appeared, or how afterwards --still shaking a bit-- he'd groaned to Harry that seeing as he'd joined the cause of Light, there weren't supposed to be any "honking great snakes" hanging about!
"Harry. Cast. A. Basilisk," Hermione echoed, swallowing.
Glaring a bit at Draco for mentioning it, especially in front of someone who had been petrified by one once, Harry nodded. "That's Serpensortia for me. Well, wanded. Without a wand I cast a normal viper." And then, when Hermione still looked horrified, he went on, "I won't do it again. I only did it that once because I wanted to see what would happen. Good thing I still had enough energy left for a couple more wanded spells that night."
"Gryffindor recklessness," Snape drawled.
"You're a fine one to complain about it," Harry murmured, repressing a smile as he explained to his friends, "Severus made me Stupefy the Basilisk so he could collect scales and venom to brew with!"