janus ~ hermione granger

lxxix

"hermione, maddy!"

"go away," maddy snuggled into hermione's side, but the granger girl had other ideas.

"what's wrong? harry? are you alright?"

"it's okay, everything's fine. more than fine. i'm great. there's someone here."

"what do you mean? who-"

she stopped when she spotted phoebe and ron, sliding out of her bunk, much to maddy's dismay, and running into phoebe's arms.

"come on," harry sighed, helping maddy up.

when the darker girl finally opened her eyes, she pushed harry away and ran into the red head's arms due to hermione still hugging phoebe.

"don't mean to interrupt, but it's freezing,"

after a couple moments, the five went inside the tent so that ron and phoebe could fill them in.

"i wanted to come back the minute we disapparated, but we walked straight into a gang of snatchers."

"a gang of what?"

"snatchers," ron repeated as if it would help.

"they're everywhere, gangs trying to earn gold by rounding up muggle-borns and blood traitors, there's a reward from the ministry for everyone captured. we look like we might be school age, they got really excited, thought we were muggle-borns in hiding."

"i had to talk fast to get us out of being dragged to the ministry."

"what did you say to them?"

"told them i was stan shunpike. phoebe took a polyjuice potion, so she just looked like a random girl--told them we were married. first thing i could think of."

"and they believed that?"

"they weren't the brightest," phoebe shifted uncomfortably, causing ron to interlace their hands.

"hold on," maddy quickly stood up, holding up a finger. "may i ask?"

"please don't," phoebe begged.

"what happened?"

"we kissed," ron shrugged. "what happened while we were gone?"

the older taylor was about to yell at the red-head, but hermione playfully rolled her eyes and dragged her girlfriend back down.

"we went to godric's hollow, and you-know-who's snake was there, nearly killing harry--would have if it weren't for maddy--you-know-who arrived and missed us by a second."

"what?"

"don't want to talk about it. how'd you find us?"

"this," he replied, taking a small silver object out from his pocket.

"the deluminator?"

"it doesn't just turn the lights on and off. i don't know how it works or why it happened then and not any other time, because we've been wanting to come back ever since i chose to leave. but we were listening to the radio, really early on christmas morning, and we heard--we heard you."

"you heard me on the radio?" maddy looked back at the duo, confused.

"no, we heard you coming out of his pocket," phoebe corrected. "your voice came out of it."

"and what exactly did i say?"

"something about us being safe, and if we would come back. so, i took it out, and it didn't seem different, or anything, but we were sure we'd heard you. so i clicked it. and the light went out in my room, but another light appeared right outside my window. it was a ball of light, kind of pulsing, and bluish-"

"like that light you get around a portkey," phoebe stopped the red head from rambling.

"i knew that was it, so we grabbed our stuff and packed it, then i put on my rucksack and we went out into the garden. the little ball of light was hovering there, waiting for us, and when we came out it bobbed along a bit and we followed it behind the shed and then it--it split in half and went inside us."

"sorry?" harry asked, sure he had not heard correctly.

"it sort of floated towards us," ron illustrated the movement as he spoke, "right to our chests, and then--it just went straight through. it was here," he pointed to his heart, "i could feel it, and it was hot. once it was inside me, i knew what i was supposed to do, i knew it would take me where we needed to go. so, we disapparated and came out on the side of a hill. there was snow everywhere-"

"we were there-"

"we spent two nights there, and the second night i kept thinking i could hear someone moving around in the dark and calling out," maddy furrowed her eyebrows, harry nodding along.

"yeah, well, that would've been me."

"did you cast the protective spells?" phoebe turned to hermione, who smiled in response. the younger girl began to tell the other one which ones she used but they were interrupted by ron awkwardly clearing his throat.

"we couldn't see or hear you. i was sure you were around, though, so in the end i got in my sleeping bag and waited for one of you to appear. i thought you'd have to show yourselves when you packed up the tent."

"we've been disapparating under the invisibility cloak as an extra precaution. and we left really early, because, as the both of them said, we'd heard somebody blundering around," hermione informed.

"well, we stayed on the hill all day, and kept hoping that you'd appear, but when it started to get dark we knew we must have missed you, so i clicked the deluminator again, the blue light came out and went inside us, and we disapparated and arrived here, in these woods. we still couldn't see you, so we just had to hope one of you would show yourselves in the end--and harry did. well, we saw the doe first, obviously."

"you saw the what?" hermione sharply questioned.

as the three of them(well mostly phoebe because she was the only one who would make sense) explained what happened, the couple switched their gaze between the others.

"but it must have been a patronus! couldn't you see who was casting it? didn't you see anyone? and it led you to the sword! i can't believe this! then what happened?"

ron continued to explain how he had watched harry jump into the pool and had waited for him to resurface; how the new couple realized something was wrong and the boy dived in to save harry.

"phoebe stabbed it with the sword."

"and--and it went, just like that?"

"it sort of screamed," the taylor girl shrugged, taking the locket out of her pocket to show hermione it's punctured windows.

"well, thanks for the bed time story," maddy chuckled, grabbing the locket from her girlfriend's hands and dropping it in her beaded bag.

"how do you deal with that," harry scoffed as the darker girl dragged the bright witch to their bunk.

without even thinking about it, maddy smirked at harry, plopping down on the bed.

"please don't tell me," hermione groaned, hearing ron and phoebe's snickering.

she turned around and saw harry, but there was a pumpkin on his head, just like what maddy did to blaise during their first defense against the dark arts class the previous year.

"whoops."

word count-1163
date written- december 8, 2020
please how long is this book going to end up being-