nightseer

nightseer @ 02:38 pm: Side Effects: Intermission
Title: Side Effects
Disclaimer: I don’t own Final Fantasy VIII or Harry Potter
Summary: After killing Voldemort, Harry had planned on taking a long overdue vacation. However, Harry is Fate’s favorite toy, and she has plans. Two hexes and an accidental portal later, Harry finds himself dropped in the middle of another reality where people fear magic, and a Sorceress is intent on taking over the world.
Pairings: eventual Squall/Harry; currently mild Squall/Rinoa; for this chapter/intermission/whatever you want to call it Ron/Hermione
Warnings: Swearing, death, and eventual slash as the main pairing.
Author’s notes: Like always, if you spot something wrong, be it characterization, grammar, spelling, or demon spell checker mishaps, please let me know. If it’s characterization, please explain your reasoning, because we all see the characters differently, and it will help me more if you explain why you think I’m off.



Intermission:


…I understand why they did it.

Sometimes.

Okay, when I pretend the drug didn’t drag up more crappy memories than a Dementor and it wasn’t my bloody chocolate they spiked, I understand why they did it. I know they needed information, and I know that the appearance of someone who has magic right as Edea was about to kill Squall set of Irvine’s ‘too stupid to be true’ alarms, but they spiked my chocolate, and no one seems to understand why that bothers me so much when I tell them I wouldn’t have minded them spiking my food. But then talking about Dementors is not something I enjoy, and I am not telling those idiots about my parents’ deaths, which I know would be part of the whole damn thing. The only person here who sort of accepts wizards using chocolate as medicine is Dr. Kadowaki, and that’s only after I explained the reasoning behind it. I think it’s just one of those things that make this reality so different from mine.

The strange thing about the whole incident is Squall’s reaction. He acted like he was upset because of the drug’s affect on me and that I possibly could have killed all of them in a magical fit, but I got the feeling the real reason was because they betrayed his trust. He expected them to accept my presence with them simply because he did, which they should have. I guess. I don’t know.

I do know Ron and Hermione would have accepted something like this in public and chewed my arse out in private. That’s what they did when I showed up with the werewolf kid Lupin handed me that time. Maybe…


~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~


“Hermione?”

Gasping, Hermione grabbed Harry and Squall’s letters, used them to mark her place, and quickly shoved the journal in one of her robe pockets. She yanked on the string holding the bundle of letters together and tugged her letter free. Ron shouldn’t have been home for another three hours…

“Hermione, if you don’t get to this fireplace right now, I’m coming through! Hermione!”

“Just a minute, Ron,” Hermione yelled back, choking on the relieved laughter threatening to come out. Ron always checked on her during his lunch break. It didn’t matter if it meant he had eat his lunch while running up to the Magical Beast and Being liaison office during the week or if he had to bribe the head of the Auror training program with dinner at the Burrow to get floo time during the weekend, he always made sure she was safe. War habits were even more difficult to break than regular habits, Hermione realized as she ripped open the letter and pulled it out of the envelope. She had to make it look like she had been reading this letter, not something else. Ron was so suspicious these days.

“Fuck waiting a minute, Hermione Jane Weasley!” Ron bellowed, and that was it for Hermione. She collapsed on the kitchen floor, curled around the letter, crying.

Harry had missed their wedding. Harry had picked up Ron’s swearing, something bound to happen after seven years of being exposed to Ron’s foul language, and she hadn’t gotten the chance to hear her best friend, her little brother swear and stumble his way through his speech as Ron’s best man. Neville had done the speech.

“Hermione, where are you?” Ron yelled, his voice clearer now that he was in their small flat. There was the sound of someone running towards the kitchen, and Hermione wiped at the tears on her face. She couldn’t be like this when Ron found her. She should be happy Harry was alive, not angry he wasn’t coming home. She had read the part in his journal about his fear of becoming like Voldemort, going insane because he channeled too much magic through his body to open a portal back, but…

“Hermione?” Ron whispered, hesitantly stepping in the room, and Hermione looked up.

“He’s alive,” Hermione said in a small choked voice, waving at the mess of items on the kitchen table with the hand clenching the letter. “Harry’s alive, and he’s not coming home, Ron.”

“I’m going to call Madam Pomfrey,” Ron said, moving back to go to the fireplace, and Hermione shakily stood up and grabbed his arm. She dragged him over to the table, pulled his letter off the stack, and slapped it against his chest.

“I’m not crazy, I don’t need Poppy, and I don’t need to go to St. Mungo’s,” Hermione shouted, the tears falling faster now. “He’s alive, really alive, and he’s not…coming…back,” she finished slowly, watching Ron’s face as he read his name on the envelope. She could tell when he finally recognized the handwriting, the way his face shifted from concerned, to relief, to confusion, and then anger.

“He’s not…” Ron whispered, and Hermione shook her head. She didn’t know if Ron was going to say not dead, not coming home, not…whatever, but the denial felt right.

And when Ron angrily tossed the letter back on the table and pulled her into his arms, it felt just as right to wrap her arms around his waist and cry with him.


~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~


“Mr. Weasley, I don’t think you understand, the Minister is in a meeting with the search teams at the moment,” the minister’s secretary said, frowning at him and Hermione. It was frown number six; the ‘Minister Scrimgeour is extremely busy and I don’t think you are important enough to disturb him’ frown. Ron ignored it and pushed her out of the way. He had seen worse from Snape in school. If that woman ever hoped to scare off uninvited guests, she would have to do better to get rid of anyone who had attended Hogwarts in the past seventeen years. Especially if she wanted to get rid of anyone who had been in the same potions class as Harry Potter.

“I know,” Ron said as he stormed into the minister’s office. Pretending he didn’t see his boss raise his wand at him and didn’t hear the shocked gasps of the people in charge of the teams searching for Harry, he walked right up to the Minister and slammed the letter he was carrying down on the Minister’s desk.

“It’s from Harry,” Ron said, smirking when Scrimgeour instantly snatched the letter up, and he turned to walk out of the room. He grabbed Hermione’s hand, and they started speed walking towards the lifts, wanting to get away as quickly as possible.

Harry had been very clear in his instructions—owl their friends and the Order for a meeting, send Skeeter her letter, take the updated will to the goblins, and then finally, deliver the letter to the Minister for Magic and get away as quick as possible—and even though Ron still wanted to find Harry and rip him in half for making Hermione cry and the pain this was going to cause his sister, he knew better than to not follow the plan laid out. Harry wasn’t a natural at strategy like him, but he was good at predicting other’s reactions. Harry had repeatedly warned him in his letter Scrimgeour would try to milk this for all it was worth or possibly order the Unspeakables and Spellcrafters to find away to bring him back, but by the time Scrimgeour was done reading that letter, no one in the room would be able to so much as look up Harry in an old Hogwarts’ year book or even order someone else to do so. The spells Harry had put on it would make sure of that, and Ron had done one better by making sure to deliver the letter in person during one of the official ‘Find Potter’ meetings Scrimgeour had been holding every week since Voldemort’s defeat.

Ron wanted Harry home, but he wanted him happy more. Loyalty to one’s friends was a Hufflepuff trait Ron was proud to have.

“We’re going to be in so much trouble,” Hermione whispered fretfully, as they apparated into their flat. “When the Minister realizes what spells were on that letter…”

“We’ll be fine, Hermione,” Ron said soothingly, rubbing her back. “Scrimgeour won’t be able to do anything to us without looking like a complete idiot. Harry wrote that letter to Skeeter for a reason, love.”

“I suppose you’re right,” Hermione murmured, touching her right pocket. Ron watched the movement and tried to hide his curiosity. Hermione had been touching her pocket periodically like that since Harry’s letters arrived the day before. Ron had tried asking why, but Hermione had denied ever doing it in the first place and told him to leave it be. And he would, for now at least. Once Hermione went to sleep tonight, all bets were off.

“Ron, are you listening to me?”

Ron met Hermione’s eyes and tried not to panic. If his brief relationship with Lavender had taught him anything, it was that 'Are you listening?' was one of the most dangerous questions a girl could ever ask, only topped by the infamous ‘Do I look fat in these robes?’.

Hermione shook her head at him, smiling fondly. “I said I’m going to go lie down for a while,” she said, nodding her head towards the bedroom. “Do you mind waking me when the others get here?”

“Don’t mind at all,” Ron said quickly, thankful he had married a sensible, loving woman like Hermione; she knew he was complete idiot at times and loved him for it.

Hermione smiled sadly at him, and walked to their bedroom with a purposeful stride she normally used when she was on her way to the library. Ron frowned and, squashing the urge to follow her and find out what was going on, sat down in the old, raggedy arm chair her had brought with him from the Burrow. He picked up the photo album of the table and started looking through it. It was going to be a while before the others got to the flat, and he was going to use that time wisely.

He was going to find this ‘Squall’ person Harry had fallen for. It wouldn’t do for Ginny to blow up their home if she found out something she didn’t like.