Always and Forever

Chapter Two

Chapter Two:

Hermione POV

When the door opened of Ronald's room, Hermione couldn't help but bound and leap towards the messy haired boy. She wrapped her arms around her best friend's neck. The move almost sent Harry flying back into the door that he came through. "Harry!" She smiled happily. "Ron! He's here! Harry's here! We didn't hear you arrive! Oh, how are you? Are you all right? Have you been furious with us? I bet you have... I know our letters have been useless—but we couldn't tell you so much, Dumbledore made us swear we wouldn't..." she could've continued but a pair of hands pulled her arms away from the Chosen One's neck.

"Let him breathe, Hermione." Ron closed the door behind Harry and smiled at his friend.

Hedwig flew into the room and landed on Harry's shoulder. "She pecked us half to death when she brought your last letters, look at this rubbish." Ron held up his right hand and showed off the sported deep cuts that were on his fingers from the owl.

"Sorry about that..." Harry said coldly. "I wanted answers, you know..."

Ron flushed slightly. "We wanted to give them to you, mate. We really did! Hermione was going spare, she kept saying you'd do something stupid if you were stuck all on your own without news, but Dumbledore made us swear—"

"—swear not to tell me. Yeah, Hermione's already said that." Harry crossed his arms across his chest and Hermione's stomach dropped.

There was an awkward silence that filled the room as Hermione tried to think of what to say to make her friend feel better. She tried to imagine if the roles were reversed how she would feel if Ron and Harry were keeping information from her and she was abandoned in the dark by herself with no knowledge and answers. The thought made her shudder.

"I think Dumbledore thought it best you were with the muggles to stay away from all the evil right now in the Wizarding world." Ron suggested but that was clearly not the right thing to say.

Harry had a flame in his green eyes. "Yea? Safe huh? Were either of you attacked by dementors this summer?"

Hermione shook her head. "No... but that's why Dumbledore made sure that people from the Order of Phoenix tailed you all this time—"

"Didn't work that well, though, did it?"

The Gryffindor girl tried to continue and put her hand against her friend's shoulder, feeling the ratty flannel shirt under her palm. "Dumbledore was so angry when he found out. We saw him when he heard that Mundungus had left before his shift had ended. It was rather scary."

"Well I'm not. I'm happy it happened so I finally got answers. Why has Dumbledore been keeping in the dark anyhow?"

Ron shrugged. "He must've thought that was best. Besides, we have been left out of loads of stuff too! Mum won't let us anywhere near those Order meetings."

This was obviously not the right thing to say. Harry began to explode going on about how he has been through more than anyone in this room. Every bitter thing that Harry must've been stewing over the Summer cam rolling off of his tongue. Hermione put her hand down to her side, stung by the resentment that her friend was feeling towards her at the moment. "Harry... we're really sorry!" Hermione cried. She felt the pain of tears threatening to spill out over her eyelashes onto her cheeks. "You're right. I'd be furious if it was me."

If looks could kill, she would be dead. Harry turned to her and had to pinch the bridge of his nose to calm down. "What is this place anyway? Can you answer me that?"