J K Rowling - [Harry Potter 0X]

by Harry Potter

  “What was that?” she asked impatiently.

  “What was what?” Harry replied, taken back at her steely gaze.

  “What did you say about the power Voldemort doesn’t have?”

  “Oh, that,” Harry said relieved. He was worried that he had said something to upset Hermione. “It was just something mentioned in the silly prophesy.”

  Hermione closed her book and was obviously trying to compose herself as she strummed her fingers on the cover of a discarded book.

  “Do you mean to tell me that there was more to the prophesy than ‘me against him’ as you originally told me?” she asked very slowly, as if she was speaking to a dim-witted child.

  “Just a bit,” Harry replied with more than a little touch of fear. Whenever Hermione had gotten this way in the past, Harry always knew that he was in for trouble. And usually, rightfully so.

  “Like what?” The thinly veiled anger started to seep out of her body and Harry’s fear grew.

  “Um... just that I have a power he doesn’t even know about and that um... he marked me as an equal,” Harry said rapidly. He had hoped that the faster he said the words, the less angry Hermione would be.

  “And I take it you know what that power is,” stated Hermione as she rubbed her temples with her fingers.

  “Love,” Harry replied.

  “Love?” Hermione repeated disbelievingly.

  “According to Dumbledore, at least.”

  “Well, he wouldn’t have just made an assumption. Did he ever point out when you may have used ‘Love’ against Voldemort?” Hermione asked.

  “Yeah, I accidentally tapped into it when Tom possessed me at the Ministry of Magic. I was able to hurt him; so much so that Dumbledore reckoned that he wouldn’t try to sneak into my mind again because of the pain he suffered.”

  “Why... didn’t... you... tell... me... about...THAT!?!” Hermione demanded.

  “It’s not important, not anymore,” argued Harry. “Not since Voldemort took my blood! My touch used to be able to cause him pain before his resurrection. But now, he has my blood in his veins, and he can touch me without hurting himself.”

  “And when did your blood get taken, Harry?””

  “Fourth year, as you bloody well know,” Harry replied irritably.

  “And when were you possessed?” asked Hermione, a smile returning to her face. Apparently, she took a great amount of joy in seeing how long it would take Harry to catch up with her train of thought.

  “Fifth year... oh, wait...” Harry paused. “When he possessed me in the Ministry of Magic, he already had my blood in his veins.”

  “Harry, you may not be able to harm him just by touching him anymore,” explained Hermione, “but somehow, you were able to activate that power when he tried to possess you and you hurt him! You hurt him enough that you drove him away!”

  Hermione got that look again, the look she got when her brain went into overdrive. After a moment she asked: “Can you think of any other time you tapped into the power of love? Not necessarily just against Voldemort.”

  After a bit of thought, Harry offered, “Well, I don’t know if it’s love or not, but the two times I’ve used a Patronus against real Dementors could have been close.”

  “Could you explain?” Hermione asked patiently.

  “When I realized that it wasn’t my dad who cast the Stag Patronus I had seen, but me...” Harry said with his eyes closed, trying to concentrate on the memory from his third year. “I remembered thinking that I was going to leave the Dursely’s and live with Sirius. I was going to live with someone who cared for me.”

  “That’s familial love,” Hermione explained. “That is the love of a family. You had inadvertently tapped into a form of love when you cast the Patronus.”

  “And then the second time was when Dudley and I were attacked,” Harry continued. “Before I cast the Patronus, I remembered thinking about seeing you and Ron.”

  “Platonic love, love of friends.”

  “That’s about it,” Harry said with a shrug of his shoulders.

  “What about Cho?” Hermione asked. “You did have a crush on her which is a form of affectionate love. And you did kiss her.”

  “Oh, yeah” Harry said with a snap of his fingers. “When Snape was teaching me Occlumency, he was about to see an image of me and Cho kissing and I threw off his Legilimency attack for the first time, and it was without a wand or spell.”

  “That’s very good,” Hermione complimented.

  “And I entered his mind,” Harry continued, and Hermione’s jaw dropped. “I saw him as a kid hiding under a table as his parents fought.”

  “You entered Snape’s mind without a wand or casting a spell?” Hermione asked. “He’s a skilled Occlumens, one of the best; you shouldn’t have been able to do that! I mean Snape can even shield himself from Voldemort! His defenses should have stopped you easily! What you did is incredible, Harry! I think Dumbledore was correct. Think about it. Most wizards and witches can’t produce a corporeal Patronus, and even if they do, they might be able to drive away maybe one or two Dementors, like Remus did when we first met him. But when you thought about love in one way or another, you were able to drive away scores of Dementors. And look what you did with Snape; you easily broke through a skilled Occlumens’ shields and saw his memories, because you unknowingly tapped into your power of love. Apparently, when you access you power base, love, you are a very powerful wizard indeed!”

  Harry blushed at her compliment. Hermione paused and worried her lip before continuing: “Harry, I know it’s a touchy subject, but could you tell me what you felt with Ginny?”

  “Now I feel revulsion,” Harry answered, with only a minor shudder. “But during the time, I guess the best way to describe it would be to say it was like a scaly monster was living in my chest.”

  “A scaly monster? That’s not love Harry; that sounds more like lust and jealousy!” Hermione cried victoriously. “No wonder you were so ineffectual last year!”

  “Excuse me!” Harry blurted out. “Ineffectual?”

  “Yes Harry, ineffectual,” Hermione repeated. “Remember, you told me the events of the cave. You panicked. Panicking is something you’ve never done before. Remember in first year, Hagrid had to pair you with Draco because he had already scared Neville. Hagrid knew that you wouldn’t panic. In second year, you faced a forty foot snake that could’ve killed you just by looking at you and you didn’t panic! You may have been frightened, that’s only normal. But you did not panic. In third year, you drove off scores of Dementors without panicking. When you were Portkeyed to the graveyard during the final task of the Tri-Wizard, you dueled with Voldemort, the most feared Dark Lord in decades and again you didn’t panic! When we were outnumbered two to one by Death Eaters in the Hall of Prophesy, you were frightened like the rest of us, but you didn’t panic. There is a great difference between those two states. And because you didn’t panic, you actually came up with an escape plan.

  “But just this last term, everything was different. When the Infiri attacked, you’ve admitted that you completely forgot the simple flame hex. The same hex that Dumbledore had just reminded you about moments before. And then, when you were chasing after Snape and the Death Eaters as they fled the castle, you couldn’t land even one single hex on Snape. In all of your previous encounters with Death Eaters, you’ve always been spectacular. You were able to stun or incapacitate several Death Eaters when Voldemort resurrected himself, as well as your performance during the battle in the Department of Mysteries. You should’ve been able to deal with the zombies without freezing up, and you should have at least singed Snape.

  “See? This proves that Dumbledore was right. Your power base is love!” Hermione continued. “All you strengths come from one form of love or another. But last year, you were lusting after Ginny. And that lust was detrimental to your power base. Lust is not love in any way shape or form! Lust is a mockery of love. That’s why you were acting so strangely last year.
”

  “Alright, fine, then. But why were you acting so strangely last year?” Harry shot back. He was angry with her because deep down, he knew she was right. “You dropped S.P.E.W. like it had meant nothing to you even though you were clearly obsessed about the cause for two years. You broke the rules when you hexed McLaggen just so Ron could stay on the Quidditch team. I realize that you’ve bent and broken the rules before, but the times you’ve done that, people’s lives were at risk. But this time, you broke the rules just to save Ron from embarrassment. And then you chastised me when you thought I might have cheated when I tricked Ron into believing that I gave him the Felix Felicis. I was doing the exact same thing you did: saving Ron from embarrassing himself. It also took you months to find out that Prince was related to Snape, something you normally would’ve found out in no time at all! Especially since you were so dead certain that Eileen Prince was somehow related to the damned Half-Blood Prince in my Potions Text. You only bothered to check on what happened to Eileen Prince after Snape admitted to being the Half-Blood Prince.”

  Hermione hung her head in shame. Harry’s heart dropped roughly to his knees. “I’m sorry Hermione, I didn’t mean-”

  “No, you’re right Harry. We both acted strangely last year,” Hermione interrupted with tears in her eyes. “And my own reasons were pretty much the same reasons as to why you acted oddly as well. I simply wanted to be loved. I wanted someone to hold my hand and kiss me. I wanted someone to say I’m pretty and to mean it. I wanted someone to think of me when I wasn’t around.

  “All of the other girls in our year, and most of the younger ones as well, were already active in the dating scene, and as strange as it may seem, I felt compelled to start dating as well. Perhaps the underlying reason was as simple as I didn’t want those Yule Ball rumors to finally come true. You know the ones I mean; the ones that said that no boy would ever want to be seen with someone like me; a bossy know-it-all with bushy hair. But I didn’t want to date someone I didn’t know,” Hermione continued with her tears streaming down her face. “So I decided that it would have to be either you or Ron. And you were already ogling Ginny, so I set my sights on Ron. That’s why I stopped caring about House-Elves; Ron doesn’t care about them, he only cares about Quidditch. That’s also why I hexed McLaggen. And I suppose that’s the only excuse I can give as to why I didn’t figure about Snape and the whole Potions Text. I was so desperate for Ron to notice me that I ignored what was staring me right in the face. I needed Ron to notice me, there was no one else available for me. I had come to the conclusion that I didn’t have a chance with you. You’re popular, even though you hate it, and brave and handsome, and I’m ugly and bookish-”

  “Let me explain something to you Hermione,” interrupted Harry as he took her face gently in his hands and looked deeply into her eyes. “I think you are beautiful, and not just in a physical way either. Even though I can honestly say that your breasts are fantastic! Awe inspiring, to be truthful.” Hermione blushed as Harry continued, “But you’re beautiful in so many other ways as well. You’re ridiculously smart, incredibly brave, patient, kind, compassionate, and you know me better than anyone else. Remember back in our third year? The game where the Dementors eventually knocked me off my Nimbus? It was raining so hard I couldn’t see. Wood had called a time out and I was about to point out my vision problem. Before I could even begin, you appeared over my shoulder to help me out, without needing to be asked. Then in our fifth year, when I thought that I had somehow caused Nagini to attack Mr. Weasley, everyone let me wallow in self pity in that damn room. Ginny, the girl I was so infatuated with last year, let me rot in that room. But not you, you canceled a holiday with your folks and marched right up to Buckbeak’s room and literally dragged me out the moment you arrived. You’ve always been there for me, to help me, even when I thought I didn’t want it. You were the only one brave enough to say that Voldemort had laid a trap for me in the Department of Mysteries. And yet, you still went with me because you knew I needed your help. You know me better than I know myself.

  “Do you want to know what Ginny said to me when I broke up with her?” Harry continued. “She said that I’d only be happy hunting Voldemort. She said that’s why she liked me so much.”

  “How can she think that?” Hermione asked incredulously. “You want to be a father.”

  “W-what?” Harry stammered. It was as if Hermione had dumped a bucket of ice water over his head and it shocked him to his core.

  “It’s obvious to me that you want to get married and have a bunch of kids,” Hermione said, as if it was common knowledge. “You want the one thing you’ve never had: a loving family.” Harry slowly lowered himself to the floor and sat down.

  “I do?” he asked as an image appeared in his minds eye. He looked a little older and he was surrounded by children, his children. That image filled the young man with such happiness that he actually started to cry. “I guess I do want kids.” Hermione lowered herself into Harry’s lap and kissed away his tears. “You see, you do know me better than I do.”

  The couple sat on the floor in the Restricted Section just holding each other for a long while, saying nothing, just enjoying being in each others arms. Hermione finally pulled herself away from Harry’s embrace and said: “We better get back to researching.”

  “Do we have to?” Harry pleaded while still holding onto her hands.

  “Yes, we do,” Hermione ordered. “But it should be easier now that we have a better focus. We just have to look for spells and rituals which use love.”

  Hermione disappeared into the stacks as Harry grudgingly stood up and began his search anew. After an hour of browsing through the Restricted Section, Harry’s eye caught the words “Love” and “Magic” on the binding of an old red-leather book. ‘Could this be it? The thing that could lead to the downfall of Voldemort?’ Harry’s hopes were dashed though, when he read the full title: “The Magic of Making Love: By Thos. Antric.” He shrugged as he pulled the book from the shelves; he reckoned that he might as well thumb through it, seeing that it was the only book he had found in the past hour that even appeared to be remotely related to love.

  The first page Harry opened to had almost made him drop the book out of shock. It was a magical photo showing a witch and wizard, both very naked, in a unique position. A position that Harry thought should have caused a great deal of pain (‘Was that his foot by her ear or her own? And where was her left hand?’), but judging by the expressions on their faces, they were rather enjoying it.

  The next page that Harry randomly turned to piqued his interest. The chapter was titled “A Witch’s Orgasm and its Power; How You Can Benefit From It!” Harry didn’t need to read the chapter to learn how a witch’s orgasm could benefit him; he would be able to show Hermione just how much she meant to him, and he could properly return the pleasure that Hermione had given him. The next random chapter that Harry turned to made him think that the book was written precisely with him in mind: “The Hidden Benefits of Being a Parselmouth; Cunnilingus and You!” Harry marked that page and stuffed the book in his bag. The book may not help him defeat Voldemort, but it looked like it could help him in his love life.

  Harry returned to their desk to find Hermione already hidden behind a wall of books. The young wizard sat down at his chair and started to read the new-found book.

  The chapter on Parselmouths was very enlightening. It stated that Parselmouths have a magical ability that is focused within the wizard’s tongue, and while normally this magic is used to communicate with snakes, it could be used while giving oral pleasure to a witch to heighten the ecstasy for her. The book also had several diagrams explaining different techniques to illicit the best response from the witch.

  After he had read the chapter no less than ten times, completely skipping over the sections dealing with the theories and so-called “magical benefits”, concentrating strictly on form and technique, Harry realized that it had grown dark outside. He looked at the clock on the wal
l and noticed it was half past ten at night. “Hermione, let’s fetch some supper and call it a night,” he called out.

  XXX

  Harry was having a very interesting dream the next morning; he was on the shore next to the Hogwarts Lake. Some odd compulsion forced him to gobble some gillyweed that was in his hands and he then jumped into the water. After he felt gills popping out on the sides of his neck, Harry swam under the water for several minutes until he saw something that would lead him to his goal - what that goal was, he didn’t know, but Harry needed to reach it for some unknown reason. The thing that Harry saw was a mermaid. But it wasn’t what real mermaids looked like, merpeople are actually very unattractive, downright ugly one might say. This mermaid was quite beautiful; she looked exactly like Hermione did above the waist. And she was topless to boot! But before Harry could get a good look at mermaid-Hermione’s boobs, she dashed away. He gave chase immediately. Mermaid-Hermione dove into a dark tunnel at the bottom of the lakebed and Harry quickly followed, he was finally going to see her nipples even if they were only wet dream-nipples. The tunnel was incredibly dark, but unlike the water outside the tunnel which was cold, this water was warm and pleasant. For some odd reason, Harry felt his ever-present companion, ‘Harry, Jr.’ begin to stir in his swim-trucks. After a few moments of swimming through the tunnel blindly, Harry saw a slit of light in the distance. Harry instinctively swam toward the light and passed through it. He turned around and saw that he had just exited the tunnel and onto the lakebed through a giant clam.

  But before Harry could turn around and continue pursuing mermaid-Hermione, he was tackled by someone. As he was pushed down into the lakebed, kelp magically sprang to life to bind his hands and feet. Someone rapidly stripped off his swim trunks. He looked up into the beautiful hazel eyes of mermaid-Hermione.

  “I see that part of you is awake,” she said wickedly, indicating Harry’s partially aroused state, as she twirled his trunks in front of her while poking him in the ribs. “I’m just waiting for the rest of you to wake up.”