Obliviate my Destiny {Book 5}

25. Snakes start to sing

Through the flickering lights, the two figures came into view. A girl with bedraggled brown hair and hat pulled lowly on her head, a boy with stubble and straggly hair and little round glasses.

Harry and Hermione were actually here.

"Rory?" Harry said, his mouth open in surprise and the sound of his voice after so many months induced tears, and with a little shriek I flew at him, hugging him close to me.

It was like the first time we met all over again, hugging each other so close that it hurt but in the good way, icy tear tracks on jackets and fiercly loud heartbeats in ears. Feeling his arms around me, I felt for the first time in a while things might actually be alright.

"I—I thought you were dead," I choked out. "There'd been no news, I—"

"You know me, I like to stay out of trouble," Harry said, his voice ragged with emotion. "But from what I've heard you haven't in Hogwarts."

Smiling so hard that my face hurt, we pulled apart, drinking each other's features in. Harry had grown more in the past months; grow stubble all across his face and while he looked exhausted he looked like him.

"What was the first thing I ever said to the three of you?" Hermione said to Gennie, Cole and I, looking on the brink of happiness, but wary with her wand held high.

"You thanked me for defending Crookshanks," I remembered, willing Hermione to realise we were who we said we were.

"You asked, 'Can I sit here', on the train to Hogwarts." Gennie said with a smile.

"I'm pretty sure you asked me was I that guy who set my brother on fire?"

Hermione beamed, and within moments the five of us were in a messy group hug almost all of us sniffing back tears.

"But Gennie, we heard—"Hermione began.

"I leapt off a fence into the ocean; luckily Rory was there otherwise I would have drowned." Gennie said, shuddering at the thought.

"Look, I think we should save all the re-cap nonsense for later—I'm officially inviting you both for a Christmas dinner of pizza and curly fries." Cole said. "We're staying in our house—well Arthur and Louis are too and oh my god, we can have a family Christmas!"

"Stop rambling, Cole." I said fondly. Turning to my brother, I asked: "So what brings you here?"

Harry looked around a couple times before replying a low voice, "We think Bathilda Bagshot has the sword of Gryffindor here. And well we saw the graveyard...."

"I brought flowers." I said, showing him the now limp bunch of crysanthenums. "Should we carry on looking for them?"

Harry nodded, and the others decided to look around for anything notable about Bathilda or the sword while we visited our parents. Arms linked, we walked slowly through the graveyard, talking about what had happened since we'd been forced apart in the Ministry.

"—And then Ron left, so we were left to essentially to fend for ourselves." Harry finished.

"Well that sucks, but if the horcrux was influencing him then he probably wasn't in the right frame of mind."

"See, I don't see how the Hollie you're talking about is the one I met last summer," Harry said slowly. "I mean she was a little cute kid with plaits and a stuffed dragon.... Cute little kids don't suddenly snap and go on killing sprees."

"Have you even watched a horror movie, Harry?" I sighed. "I don't know, but I think she's lost to me now...."

The darkness was a blanket over us now, wand light and the stars our only guide through the endless graveyard. Faint murmers came from the others as they looked at other graves, but all of that was background noise until Harry murmered: "Rory, they're here.... Right here, behind Ariana Dumbledore's grave..."