Remember Me

“I’m back!” called Hermione as she struggled in through the front door or Grimmauld Place, banging the door quickly shut with her elbow. Her hands were weighed down by many bulging plastic bags, so heavy they were cutting grooves in her fingers.

Harry and Ron, who had been lounging on the sofa playing wizards chess, jumped up immediately and started to help her haul the shopping in. It was the end of February, and bitterly cold. Grimmauld Place offered little warmth. This was where they had chosen to hide from the Death Eaters who, they knew, were searching everywhere for them.

Hermione heaved a particularly heavy bag onto the table in the kitchen and started to sort through it.

“Everything go okay?” asked Ron concernedly.

She nodded. “I didn’t see any Death Eaters.” She removed her thick hat and scarf. “Though I saw someone who looked like a wizard looking oddly at me. And I think I caught sight of a Dementor but not for long.”

Ron nodded in relief, ripped open a packet of biscuits and offered one to Harry, who took one hungrily. They didn’t dare venture out to the nearby supermarket often, so when one of them did they had to buy as much supplies as possible.

“He probably recognised you from the wanted posters,” he told Hermione. “That wizard, I mean.”

She sighed and nodded, placing some pasta in a cupboard. “Called in on Cass on the way back,” she mentioned casually.

“How is she?” asked Ron.

Hermione shrugged. “Much the same. Apparently Tonks went to visit her and Cass got really annoyed with her. It ended with Cass chucking the water jug at Tonks’s head.”

Ron snorted, but Harry behaved as if there had been no mention of Cassandra.

Hermione took of her coat, and wrung out her wet hair. She almost reached for her wand to perform a drying spell, but Harry warned her not to quickly.

“It’s so annoying,” she muttered, dropping her wand down regretfully. “Not being able to use magic. I mean, I’m seventeen. I haven’t got the Trace on me anymore.”

“But it would give away our hiding place if you performed magic around me and Ron,”
reminded Harry. “You lived as a Muggle for eleven years, Hermione; surely you can live without magic for a bit.”

“I’ve been thinking about that,” she admitted. “Ron’s Trace leaves him in a few days. Maybe then it’ll be safe for us to use magic. Two overage wizards and only one underage one.”

“Couldn’t do that,” said Ron. “What if that doesn’t work?”

“True.” Hermione turned round, but she could tell what expression would be on Harry’s face. “Don’t worry about it, Harry, its fine.”

Harry nodded, and grabbed another biscuit, pulling over the latest copy of The Daily Prophet. His own face, along with Ron and Hermione’s stared up at him. They had used one that had been taken during a Autumn weekend.

Cassandra had taken it. He remembered how Ron had tried to persuade her to be in the photo and how she had vehemently refused, saying that her hair was a mess and she looked horrible.

He mentally shook himself. She’s gone he thought. She’s gone and that’s it.

The entire Wizarding world was looking for them now.

Still, he had expected that.

The days he had spent in Grimmauld Place infuriated him. He longed to be on the move, to meet Voldemort, to have this whole thing finished with. But Hermione had insisted that they stayed hidden. He hadn’t been outside for days. The cold, musty smell of Grimmauld Place was everywhere, the dark, dank walls closing in on him wherever he looked. He was sure Ron and Hermione secretly felt the same. They spent long evenings clustered around the radio, listening with fear that they might hear anyone they knew, yet longing for some contact with the outside world.

It was easy to forget that a war was going on outside the house. The war was going on all over the world. And yet what were they doing?

Harry sat on the table, watching Hermione and Ron.

“I’ve been thinking,” he said slowly. “I want to get out of here.”

Ron rolled his eyes. “After Hermione’s gone and got all that food? We’re not lugging that lot around the country, we’d break our arms.”

“And we’ve had this discussion before, Harry,” agreed Hermione. “It’s not safe out there.”

“The what’s the point of being here?” He couldn’t believe they were still trying to keep him inside. “I should have just stayed at Hogwarts then.”

“If you did, you probably wouldn’t be alive right now,” snapped Hermione.

“At least I would have tried. I’d have done something, that’s better than just sitting in here all day!”

Hermione’s eyes grew worried. “Harry…you said you didn’t know what to do…”

He ran his hand over hid scar angrily. “I don’t,” he admitted. “But don’t you understand, Hermione? I’ve got to do something.” He jabbed a finger to the Daily Prophet where it lay on the table. “All of this…it’s happening because of me! I can’t just stand back and let it
happen!”

“Oh, but…I know, I know, it’s just…”

“Just what?”

“Well, you’d just rush in there without any kind of idea, and then…”her voice trailed off and she looked shame-facedly at Harry.

“She’s right, you know,” said Ron. “Unless you have…y’know. Got any idea.”

Harry shook his head. “None,” he said quietly. “But there’s something else I want to do.”
“What?”

Harry looked up at Ron and Hermione.

“Heal the rift between Slytherin and Gryffindor. Or at least try to, because it was so important to Cass. I want to try.”

Hermione nodded understandingly, and Ron clapped him on the back.

“How can you do both, though?” he asked. “I mean, it would spoil the healed rift it you just kill You-Know-Who, and how would you be able to heal it once you’ve killed him?”

“Are you thinking that you won’t have to kill him if you heal the rift?”

Harry looked down at his hands and shrugged. “I think in the end I’ve got to kill him. That’s what the prophecy said. But I want to see if there’s another way first.”

Silence fell. There seemed to be no words at that moment for this. For the fact was undeniable. Either Harry would be a murderer or be murdered. There was no way around it, in the end. Healing the rift seemed like a distant dream really, something that they knew would never happen but they would try anyway, for without Cassandra, the idea seemed a hopeless one.

Harry looked at the radio. Murder or be murdered. That was what would happen.