Dear Ginny
Part 4, Situations Change
By Chem Prof
Part 4, Situations Change
Letter 13
Thursday, 10 July
Dear Ginny,
I’m so sorry that it’s been so long since I’ve written. I can’t believe that more than a week went by. We’ve been very busy here. I’m learning an incredible amount of magic. That’s what comes from hanging around with Hermione all day every day without anyone else around to distract me. Now I understand how she knows so many spells. I think we’ve been studying at least 8 hours every day. Don’t tell Ron, he’d never let me hear the end of it. Probably tell me I’m turning into Hermione! Actually, you should tell him the things we’re doing. I think he’s probably interested even if he’s refusing to write to us right now. I really am sorry for the way things turned out with him and Hermione, and that I had to choose between the two of them. But I’m certain that I made the right choice, because we’re definitely making progress on our ‘project’.
We’re not studying ALL the time. I’m sure that would drive me nutters. We mix up the studying with exercise during the day, and spend an hour relaxing by the pool if the weather’s nice. We’ve also learned that as we get physically stronger, combined with practicing spells over and over, our spells get more powerful. And like I said in my last letter, we spend time with the Grangers during the evenings. I’ve even gotten her dad to tell some embarrassing Hermione stories from when she was little. She always turns red and crosses her arms and pouts when he does. She looks so cute that her mum always laughs and teases her about it. I can usually get her to come out of it by giving her a hug and telling her we all love her anyway.
We finish up by practicing Occlumency and Legilimency with each other right before bed. Hermione found a couple of books about it and we’re learning how to do it right. (Instead of how Snape pretended to teach me – that evil git!) She tests my shields and I test hers. She teased me by threatening to try to find my memories of kissing Cho and I got her back by threatening to find her memories of kissing Krum. She didn’t realize that I only kissed Cho once, and I had already described that one to her. And I didn’t realize that she never actually kissed Krum.
One of the results of all of this is that I’m learning a lot about Hermione that I never knew before. In that regard staying here and getting to know her parents definitely helps. I’m really starting to understand her better – what makes her act the way she does. I’m thinking that if Ron understood some of these things about her it might have gone better between them.
We’ve also had a couple of major excursions. The first was to Gringotts. I haven’t been to my vault since before third year. Hermione reminded me that Sirius had left me some things, and we decided that I should really find out what all was involved in that. Boy was I in for a shock. When we got there we were sure there would be a long wait because of what Bill said last year, but as soon as I identified myself one of the goblins took us to a conference room. At first they didn’t want Hermione there, since it was confidential estate stuff and only family are usually allowed to be present, but I convinced them to let her stay by telling them she was a very close friend.
The second shock was that not only was I left quite a bit by Sirius, but I was also mentioned in Dumbledore’s will. When we heard that we were overwhelmed a bit from recalling his death, and realizing that he thought that much of me, and they had to wait for us to pull ourselves back together. The main thing that Dumbledore left me was his pensieve and an enormous collection of memories. It took Hermione and me an entire day to sort through them all. And Ginny, guess what? Some of them were of my parents when they were students! I couldn’t believe it. Those were the ones we looked at first. (Please don’t tell Ron this part – I actually cried a bit afterwards. Hermione was really nice about it. She just held me and didn’t make fun of me or anything.) It was so wonderful to finally learn more about them. It’s pretty interesting how much my mum was like Hermione. Seeing the way she scolded my dad and Sirius in one memory was just like watching Hermione scold me and Ron.
Dumbledore also left me quite a collection of books. As you can imagine, that was Hermione’s favorite part. She’s going to be looking through them for anything that might be helpful while I scan through the rest of the memories. All in all, on top of the things I mentioned before, it’s been keeping us incredibly busy.
Back to my inheritance. It turns out Sirius’s estate included quite a bit of money as well as some properties other than ‘that house’. I decided that some of the money should go to the members of the Order to show my gratitude for everything they’ve done, including taking time out of their lives to keep watch on me and all that. That means your family will be getting some along with the others. (Keep this part to yourself since I don’t want your parents to try to give it back – I made it so they would get quite a bit extra. I really wanted to do something special for your guys in return for all that you’ve done for me. You’ve practically made me a member of the family.) We might be able to use one or more of the properties, too. We’re thinking they might be good places to live and train after I come of age. That sounds better than the idea of renting a flat. We’ll be looking into that more next month.
The other major excursion was a visit to a muggle orphanage. Please make sure Ron knows about this, even if he doesn’t want to hear about the rest of this letter. It’s part of our project. Tell him it was successful. What happened was, we got the idea that this orphanage might have some valuable information that we could use. It was the orphanage where Tom Riddle lived before he went to Hogwarts and during the summers while he was a student. (In a way life was the same for him as it was for me at the Dursleys. Scary thought that.)
So anyway, Hermione and I went there, and our cover story was that we were married and were thinking of adopting a child. Hermione was brilliant. First, she came up with some glamour spells that made us look older, and then she put on an act about being unable to have children and how she loved me so much and that I wanted so badly to be a father and she was devastated when she found out she couldn’t give me a child. She broke down crying and everything. She was so good she almost had me convinced.
Well, they bought it. Hermione insisted that we be allowed to look the place over to assure ourselves that the kids were well taken care of – so that there wouldn’t be a lot of psychological damage to overcome. It was pretty clear to the staff member interviewing us that she was the decision maker in our family, so they pretty much ignored me and let me wander around on my own. I used a locating spell Hermione found in one of Dumbledore’s books and found what we were looking for. There was a dangerous part because it had a nasty trap on it, but we figured it out (i.e. – Hermione figured it out) and neither of us got hurt. It was incredible that everything worked out so well. The only downside was that I feel kinda bad that there are orphans there who need homes that we won’t be able to give one to, since we were only pretending. Hermione didn’t get their hopes up, though. She left it that we just weren’t sure and would have to think about it some more.
We were so excited afterward that we couldn’t even think about anything else. Hermione was hugging everyone in sight when we got home. We even took her parents out to dinner to celebrate. For me it was also a way to show my appreciation for them letting me stay here for a couple of weeks.
That was yesterday, and we decided to declare a day off today. That’s when I decided it would be a good chance to write some letters. I promised to keep Remus and McGonagall informed of how we’re doing too. Herminone’s writing the one to McGonagall and I’m going to write the one to Remus after I finish this one.
Hope your summer’s going all right and the wedding plans are coming along on schedule. Looking forward to seeing you then.
Harry
-oooOOOooo-
Letter 14
Saturday, 12 July
Dear Ginny,
I’m starting to wonder if maybe writing these letters to you isn’t such a good idea. It seems like no matter what I write I manage to say something to set you off. I didn’t say I was in love with Hermione, I just said I understood her better. Look, I’ll see you at Bill’s wedding next week. Hopefully we can work this out then.
Harry
-oooOOOooo-
Letter 15
Sunday, 20 July
Dear Ginny,
Wow, that was quite an experience! I had no idea that weddings were that chaotic. Hermione says that muggle weddings are like that to some extent, but that this one was even crazier than any she’s ever heard of. I’m really sorry we didn’t get to spend very much time together. I had no idea that your being in the wedding party would keep you so busy. Ron too. I mean I know you wanted to talk to me, and I was hoping for that too, but it just didn’t seem like there was any good time. And I couldn’t just go off and leave Hermione by herself. She was already pretty uncomfortable being there after breaking up with Ron. At least we did get to dance that one dance together.
I do think that there are some things that we need to get straight about our relationship. I’ve been thinking about this quite a bit lately. I have a feeling that you don’t understand what I meant when I broke up with you. It seems that you thought it meant that I was going off without you, but whenever I came to the Burrow we would be able to be together again like nothing had happened. When I said back at Hogwarts that we couldn’t be together anymore, I meant we weren’t going to be boyfriend/girlfriend at all – not just when I wasn’t around. The whole point was that we couldn’t be as close as we were at the end of the school year because it wasn’t safe to be a couple any more. If any of the wedding guests had seen us acting like we were together it would have made the whole thing pointless. So it couldn’t look like I was any more attached to you than to anyone else. That’s why I danced with some of the other girls as much as I did with you. It’s true that I spent more time with Hermione, but I was her escort to the wedding after all, and we were seated together. Of course I danced with her more. Just like you spent more time with Fleur’s cousin who was your official escort.
All of that aside, I really had a great time. I couldn’t believe how nice and fixed up the Burrow looked. Fleur, of course, looked incredible in her wedding gown, but I thought the bridesmaids’ gowns looked smashing too. You especially were stunning in yours. I don’t think I’ve ever seen you look so pretty. Hermione says that in muggle weddings the bridesmaids often think their dresses look horrible, but that sure didn’t appear to be the case at this wedding. By the way, tell Ron that Hermione and I thought he looked quite dashing in his wedding robes as well.
Please thank you mum for inviting us and be sure to tell her how much we enjoyed it and that she did an incredible job in putting everything together. The food, of course, was out of this world. The flowers were lovely and the fairy lights just made the whole atmosphere magical. Like I said, it was just an incredible day. (Hermione spent two hours describing it to her mum!) Bill and Fleur are so fortunate to have each other. It’s obvious that they’re very good for each other.
We’ll be back to our regular routine now. We don’t have any special excursions planned for a while. It will be mostly working out, learning spells, and training. We’re still thinking of moving out of here after my birthday, to one of the other properties I now own. Moody is checking them out for us. Wherever we go, it will probably be unplottable, and maybe even under a secrecy charm, so it will be harder for people to get messages to me. Don’t worry, Hedwig will always be able to find me so we’ll still be able to keep in touch.
I think that’s all for now. We’re pretty tired from all the excitement and ready to head to bed.
Harry
-xox-XOX-XOX-xox-
Sorry, no big fireworks at the wedding as some readers might have been expecting. Sometimes it’s more important what doesn’t happen than what does.