Chapter 30: Shadows After Laughter

It was the day after their “talk” at Lily Quarter at night; they had just gone to bed, not even giving each other the customary kiss 

They both wanted that day to end as soon as possible. To think that both of them had adult memories made it all the more embarrassing.

The common room was quiet, the fire snapping lazily in the grate, but Harry’s brain was anything but calm. His dignity lay in ruins; every time he blinked, fragments of Lily’s “Talk” replayed uninvited, like cursed echoes.

“Safe practices are outlined on page thirty-two, subsection three of the Ministry’s 1972 Guidelines on Magical Reproductive Health—”

He pressed the heels of his palms to his eyes, but it didn’t help. Another phrase pushed through anyway:

“Urges are perfectly natural, but must be managed responsibly. Boys often think they are ready before they are—”

Harry groaned quietly. He would never be free. Voldemort hadn’t broken him, but his mother had.

Hermione hadn’t spoken for several minutes. She sat stiffly, arms crossed, jaw set, lips pressed so tight they’d nearly vanished. Her glare hadn’t wavered — Harry swore he could feel it boring straight through his skull.

He cleared his throat, hoping humor might soften her mood. “So… should’ve checked the map before leaving the bathroom, eh?”

The glare sharpened. Harry wilted. He could practically feel the points being deducted from his life expectancy.

For a full minute, Hermione said nothing. Then, finally, she muttered through gritted teeth, “Well. I hope you’re happy.”

Harry flinched. “Happy? Hermione, that was worse than the Cruciatus Curse! I’m never eating dinner again. Every time I will  see food, I’ll hear my Lily  saying ‘when a boy and a girl reach a certain age—’”

“Don’t.” Hermione cut him off sharply, face pink. “Don’t you dare repeat it.”

Harry lifted his hands in surrender. “Alright, alright! No repeating. Not even under Veritaserum.”

Hermione sniffed. “Good.”

For a moment, the silence returned. Harry fidgeted in his chair, eyes darting to the fire, the window, anywhere but her face. Finally, he muttered, “I still think I’d have preferred Voldemort. Or Umbridge. Or dementors. All three at once.”

She pressed her knuckles to her lips, trying to hide the laugh. Failed.

 “Honestly, Harry…” she sighed, shaking her head.

Harry leaned back, rubbing his temples. “Next time I suggest sneaking out without checking the map, just hex me. Save us the trauma.”

That earned him another glare — but this time, the edge was softer, almost amused. Almost.

Harry grinned weakly. “See? You laughed. Admit it—this is so bad it’s practically funny.”

Her glare returned instantly, though softer this time. “Don’t push your luck, Potter.”

Come, let us get out of here. Hermione said, and Harry followed 

—----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

They marched side by side through the darkened corridors, their footsteps echoing too loudly for comfort. Hermione’s arms were folded, her expression sharp enough to cut glass. Harry just kept his eyes ahead, as though speed alone might carry them out of danger—or at least out of humiliation.

After a long silence, Hermione burst out, her voice hot and fierce:
“All of this—all of it—happened because of Sarah. Why is she always following us? She’s everywhere we go. Or rather—everywhere you are.”

Hermione’s voice sharpened, her curls bouncing with each step.
“She’s always around you. Following you into the corridors, lingering at meals, popping up wherever you are—”

She stopped herself abruptly, color rushing into her cheeks. “I mean—around us. Following us.”

Harry blinked, a grin threatening despite himself. Oh, he’d heard the slip.

Harry blinked, startled. “I’m sure she’s only doing her duty,” he said casually, though even as he said it, he knew the words wouldn’t convince her.

Hermione whirled on him, her curls bouncing with the sharpness of her movement. “Her duty? What duty? To stalk you? She’s a groundskeeper! She should keep to the ground, not skulk through the castle!”

Harry almost tripped. That was when it hit him—why Hermione’s frustration sounded so sharp, why her voice had that jealous edge. She wasn’t angry at Sarah. Not really. She was jealous.

The realization nearly made him laugh, though he quickly smothered it before Hermione hexed him. He needed a way out—fast.

“I’m sure that’s not her real job,” Harry said quickly, lowering his voice.

Hermione frowned, confusion overtaking her irritation. “Not her real job? What are you—”

Harry cast a quick Silencing Charm around them. The corridor muffled instantly, cutting off the creaks of old stone and distant wind. He leaned in, his green eyes serious.
“Hermione—Sarah isn’t Sarah. She’s Tonks. Our Tonks.”

Hermione froze. “What are you talking about?” she asked, but then he saw the moment the truth clicked. Her eyes widened, her mouth opening just slightly.

“Oh,” she breathed.

The sound echoed in the silence charm, small but weighty.

Harry straightened. “Why are you so surprised? After the chaos we’ve unleashed, this was bound to happen.”

Hermione shook her head, still trying to catch up. “You mean to tell me—she’s been in disguise this whole time?”

Harry allowed himself the faintest smirk. “Looks like even Hermione Granger didn’t piece it 

Hermione folded her arms tighter, color high in her cheeks.

 “So she’s Tonks,” she said, briskly, though her voice betrayed a flicker of something else. “Fine. But did she really have to be everywhere you go? Watching you. Trailing after you. Acting like—like—”

Harry grinned. “Like she was jealous?”

Hermione shot him a glare sharp enough to hex. “Don’t you dare. I am not jealous of a clumsy groundskeeper disguise. Or of Tonks.”

“Sure,” Harry said lightly, though the smirk tugging at his lips made her cheeks flare even brighter.

Hermione huffed, turning her gaze forward, her steps clipped. “You’re insufferable sometimes.”

Harry let the moment stretch just long enough, then softened. “Hermione… she’s not shadowing me because she wants to. She’s shadowing us because she has to. Think about it — she’s here under Dumbledore’s orders. That means he expects trouble. The kind he think he can’t handle alone.”

Hermione slowed, biting her lip. “You think it’s that serious?”

Harry’s expression sobered. “Everything we’ve exposed Peter, Braty and Severus. It’s too much to be a coincidence. Dumbledore knows it. That’s why Tonks is here. Not as a groundskeeper. Not even as an Auror. As a guard.”

Hermione exhaled slowly, her earlier fire dimming into thought. “So… she’s not just watching you. She’s watching us and everyone. To make sure we don’t stumble into something we can’t come back from.”

Harry nodded. “Exactly. And if she’s this close, it means the danger is closer.”

The silence between them deepened, heavier now, less about embarrassment and more about the road ahead.

Hermione finally whispered, “Then we can’t afford to slip again. No more mistakes.”

Harry met her eyes and nodded. “Agreed.”

Hermione’s glare snapped back, but this time it didn’t quite hide the flicker of embarrassment beneath it. She opened her mouth to retort —

—and the sound of something crashing behind them made both of them jump a foot in the air.

They spun around.

There stood Sarah, mop in one hand, bucket upside-down on her head, and one foot still tangled in what looked suspiciously like a coil of rope.

“Evenin’,” she said cheerfully through a face half-shadowed by the bucket. “Don’t mind me! Just keepin’ the corridors safe from… uh…” she tilted her head, the bucket sliding a bit lower, “… dangerous buckets.”

Harry groaned, dragging a hand over his face.

Hermione pinched the bridge of her nose. “Oh for Merlin’s sake…”

Harry, though, couldn’t stop the twitch at the corner of his mouth. He watched Sarah shuffle, mutter, trip over her own broom again — and finally straighten up with a sheepish smile at absolutely no one.

Then he leaned toward Hermione, his voice low but wry.
“You’ve got to admit,” he said, “she sells the part. No one would ever suspect a thing.”

Hermione gave him a long, exasperated look. “No one except us,” she muttered.

But even she couldn’t quite smother the reluctant curve tugging at her lips.

—-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

They excused themselves from the awkwardness of Sarah’s clattering lanterns and made their way toward the Great Hall. Their footsteps echoed in the corridor, but Harry’s grin hadn’t faded.

“I still can’t get over it,” he said at last, half-laughing, half-teasing. “You were jealous. Of Tonks.”

Hermione stopped dead, turning to face him with her arms folded, chin lifted high. “I was not jealous.”

Harry arched an eyebrow. “Really? Because from where I was standing, you were about two seconds away from hexing her into next week.”

Her cheeks flushed scarlet. “I was concerned,” she said primly. “There’s a difference.”

“Mm-hm,” Harry murmured, the smirk tugging at his lips. “Concern that she was spending too much time following me around?”

Hermione’s glare sharpened. “You’re insufferable.” But despite her tone, her steps quickened to match his, as though determined not to let him see the faint smile threatening to escape.

But as the laughter of humiliation and teasing slowly ebbed, the silence that followed carried a different weight. A heavier one. Both of them felt it.

The Chamber. The basilisk. Myrtle’s bond. Salazar’s portrait. None of it was finished. None of it was simple.

Harry’s grin faded as he glanced sideways at Hermione, his voice quiet.
“We’ll have to go back.”

Hermione’s steps slowed, the echo of her shoes dull against the flagstones. Her brow furrowed, and she pressed her arms tighter to her chest, as though holding in the ache that Harry himself felt humming beneath his skin. Her eyes lifted to his — steady, but still wide, still searching for something solid to cling to after all they had seen.

“I know,” she whispered, her voice trembling but sure. “We don’t have a choice. If what Salazar said is true…” She hesitated, biting her lip, then admitted softly, “I trust him. Because it feels true. It feels like my body is at war with itself.”

Harry’s chest tightened. He nodded, every line of his face carved with agreement. “Yeah. Mine too.” The words came rough, dragged from somewhere deep, because saying them out loud made the reality impossible to ignore.

Hermione drew in a long breath, her voice strengthening as though building a case not for him, but for herself. “If he can help even a little — if he can show us how to settle it, how to keep this… whatever it is… from tearing us apart — then we have to keep going back. And that’s not even counting everything else.” Her eyes flicked, bright and sharp, as though cataloguing truths faster than she could speak them. “Thessareth. Myrtle. The bond. And what Salazar might still be able to teach us. We’d be fools to walk away from it.”

Harry glanced sideways at her, a wry half-smile tugging at his mouth despite the weight pressing in on them. “Not exactly the kind of lessons McGonagall would’ve put on the schedule.”

That pulled the faintest huff of air from Hermione — not quite a laugh, but enough to soften her expression for a heartbeat. Then her seriousness returned, sharper than ever. “No. But maybe the kind of lessons we need.”

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