Forever Knight [Harmione]

Chapter 8: Calling

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Harry broke the surface of slumber and felt a cool hand touching his forehead with delicate pressure. The comfort surrounding him rippled gently to nudge his headache away, and the pleasant scent of all things her was a balm to his disorientation.

"Hermione?" he said, his voice gravelly. Slowly, he opened his eyes and naturally, everything was a horrible blur.

"Nope, sorry." It sounded like Tonks. It probably was.

He remembered, in a rush, why Hermione wasn't there, and it made him feel miserable. He tried to get up and felt his vision spin rather viciously. Perhaps seeing the glazed look in his eyes, Tonk's blurry hand went to his shoulder, coaxing him back down.

"'Fraid not, Harry. Give yourself a few more minutes."

She didn't exactly have to twist his arm. His vertigo left him with little choice but to lie back down and let it pass.

He felt something being slipped into his hand. It was his glasses, and when he put them on, he saw that Ron was in the room, too.

They were in Hermione's room, which was a bit strange. One would think they'd bring him to his own room. Then again, he was thankful for the softness of the bed.

The question must have reflected on his face because Tonks said, "Ron hauled you in here and I suppose any room is as good as any."

Harry could only surmise Ron had done it out of some subconscious awareness of Harry's need to be near Hermione, or something like that. At the moment, he was in no position to be pondering Freud.

"What happened?" he croaked.

"That's what we want to know. We heard you screaming," Ron said in his oft-heard awed tone. "And when we got to you, you were holding your scar and it was glowing. You looked like you were in pain, Harry. Were you?"

Harry shot him a sardonic grimace. "No, Ron, I wasn't in pain. I was just screaming for dramatic effect."

Honestly, the stupid questions... no wonder Hermione loses patience with all of us sometimes.

Ron arched an eyebrow with deliberate slowness before turning to Tonks. "He's going to be fine."

Tonks shot Ron a wry look. She leaned over Harry and pulled down the skin beneath his eye.

Harry wrenched his face away instinctively. He wasn't about to risk having her poke his eye out. "Tonks!"

"You're still very pale," she said. "Sarcasm does not count as recovery."

The prospect of Tonks attempting any kind of treatment was something he might consider an occupational hazard, but he wasn't about to tell her that. "Yes, but-umm-what happened to the installation crew?"

"Well, they freaked out, of course," said Ron. "I swear, short of throwing virgin sacrifices at your scar, you'd think they've never seen worse working for vampires."

Trust Ron to put my scar and virgin sacrifices in one sentence, he thought with a slight smirk. "Are they still working down there?"

Ron nodded.

"Well, it was my first time to see your scar do that," said Tonks, looking rather freaked out, herself.

"Welcome to my world," Harry muttered.

"So did you-" Ron began uncertainly. "Did you feel... You-Know-Who?"

It took all of Harry's will power not to roll his eyes. "Oh yes. There was plenty of You-Know-Poo."