Ours to Catch Chapter 21

The atmosphere was very tense as Hermione silently ate her food. Her new avian friend, which she couldn’t figure out a name for much to her chagrin and the raven’s amusement, was a lot more difficult to figure out than Hermione thought would be. She knew the raven wasn’t a familiar, like she first thought, because the bird left and would be gone for days before showing up again. There was no rhyme or reason Hermione could figure why the raven kept leaving and then showing up.

Her friends both hated the bird and were very wary of it. Harry, Ron and even Neville thought the bird had to belong to someone in Slytherin and was only hanging around Hermione to try and get more info on Harry. Even Luna and Ginny thought the bird was suspicious, especially since Hermione was so defensive of it. She had argued several times with them, but in the end, she couldn’t fault their logic. The bird showed up when it wanted, and would be gone for days at a time and never interacted with Hermione beyond sitting on her shoulder. Eventually it was decided the bird was only allowed with Hermione outside of the common room and never when Hermione was meeting with the boys outside the room to talk about Harry’s suspicions.

The one thing that made Hermione know, without a doubt, the raven had to be a familiar, was the gifts the raven would bring. And it wasn’t just shiny items.

The most common things the raven would bring were small trinkets, like rings and shiny rocks. With those gifts, Hermione thought it was just a raven deciding to do what Crookshanks did: bring her gifts. She had read ravens were partial to collecting things they thought were pretty and Hermione believed the raven was gifting her something from said collection. But then the raven started to bring books.

They weren’t large books but she knew the books the raven brough, always when she was outside and not around others, were books not commonly found. She knew she wouldn’t be able to go to either the Hogwarts library or Flourish and Blotts. The books also gave a lot more information on old rituals, rituals she had never heard of and were done outside instead of inside. These were books she was sure had to be in the Black library. But when she questioned the raven, she knew the raven was more than smart enough to understand her, the raven didn’t react or just flu away. She loved when she received those books, even if they were proving Harry was likely right in saying the bird belonged to someone.

Hermione knew who the likely owner was but didn’t want to admit to anything until she had solid proof, not just guesses. She was just going to keep being nice to the bird and acting like it was just an animal or even a familiar, until she knew otherwise. She didn’t want her friends to start making connections about the animal and what it was bringing, she didn’t want others to know what had happened during her summer; she really didn’t the boys to know.

That was another thing Hermione was starting to feel stressed about. Christmas break was coming up fast, Hermione had no idea how time seemed to be moving so quickly without her time turner, and she was already invited to go to the Burrow for the entire break. As much as Hermione didn’t want so much alone time with people she was slowly starting to feel a constant anger towards, there were no other options for her. She couldn’t go to her parents because she knew she wouldn’t be welcomed; that relationship had dwindled to the point Hermione was sure they would rather her not go home instead of forcing her presence on them. She also couldn’t spend the entire time with the Lovegood’s, even though she knew Luna and her father really wouldn’t mind. She also couldn’t spend her time at Hogwarts, her friends would be too suspicious of why she would prefer to be there instead of with the Weasley’s.

So, she was going to the Weasley’s. She wasn’t sure if she was happy about it or not.

“Dumbledore still hasn’t talked to me.” Harry complained on the train as they headed towards King’s Cross so Molly could pick them all up.

Hermione had been stressed with all her homework, reading all the new material the raven had given her and trying to draw her own conclusions of what the Black sisters had told. She was actually looking forward to going on vacation, even if it was at the Weasley’s house.

“Perhaps he’s been busy with work, like the Ministry and making sure they don’t do what they tried to last year with another Umbridge.” Ginny offered with a shiver. No one liked that professor. She was brought in by the Ministry and even though there was another Minister in power, with how at odds Dumbledore was with the Ministry, no one would be surprised if they tried to take control of Hogwarts again.

“I doubt they would try doing that again.” Ron quickly put down his sister’s idea.

“I think it has something to do with what I saw before school started.” Harry said with a frown. This, Hermione actually believed.

“Do you know anything besides it being a ring?” Hermione asked again. She had tried to get as much information about what had happened from Harry but it was like Harry wasn’t even there and was only told what happened by a third party and hadn’t asked for any details. “Do you recall what magic you felt coming off of it?” He had never been good at sensing magic, more relying on others to tell him what was going on instead of figuring it out on his own. Hermione knew Harry had natural talent with magic, it was why he did so good in the tournament but since he never applied himself to actually learnmagic and how it works, he wasn’t as good as Hermione knew he could be.

Harry frowned and all but glared at the golden girl, “I told you already, all I know is that it was a ring and Dumbledore got hurt when he destroyed it. It was the middle of nowhere and I couldn’t see if there was any inscription on it. It wasn’t like I could just ask Dumbledore to stop destroying it so I could look at it.” He sarcastically answered, annoying Hermione.

“I understand that Harry.” Hermione said with a huff of annoyance, “But sometimes people are able to remember things the more they think about it, I was just making sure there was nothing new you remembered.”

“Don’t you think he would have told us, if he remembered anything else?” Ron jumped to defend his best friend, “We tell each other everything, don’t be so daft.” Ron said with a sneer.

“Don’t be an arse Ronald, she was just asking.” Ginny said with a glare towards her brother. She wasn’t supposed to know about what had happened over the summer with Harry and Dumbledore but she had walked in on Harry and Ron talking about it in the common room one weekend and now she and Luna knew what happened since she shared everything with Luna. Hermione was very thankful to have Ginny and Luna to talk to about everything about the boys.

“Then she shouldn’t ask stupid questions.” Ron said, not even bothering to look at anyone else, likely realizing he was too defensive on Harry’s behalf but didn’t want to admit it.

Hermione had to bite her tongue to keep from saying anything she knew would only antagonize him and ruin their breakfast. They were due to leave tomorrow for break, thankfully all their exams were over and all they had to do was pack what they wanted to bring with them.

“I know there’s something we’re missing, that he isn’t telling us and I really want to figure it out.” Hermione said instead, knowing they would rather hear her say that than anything else.

“I’ve tried reaching out so many times. I don’t understand why he’s ignoring me.” Harry said with a frown, “I want to tell him about Draco and what he may be doing, but I can’t seem to catch him.”

The rest of the conversation devolved into a conversation about what Draco may or may not be doing with Voldemort. Ron was feeding his theories, insisting that Draco always was on the dark side and now that they were older and Voldemort was back, he was only just now being more obvious about it. Ginny and Luna were in their own world, occasionally talking with Neville and Hermione about a class they had. But for the most part, it was just Harry and Ron doing most of the talking, being the loudest of the group.

Hermione hadn’t seen her new friend in a few days, she had been hoping to see the raven at least once before leaving for the Weasley’s but it didn’t seem like that was going to happen. She had no doubt she wouldn’t see the raven while at the Burrow. She had a distinct impression the raven didn’t like either Ron or Harry the few times the raven had been around them; so she highly doubted she would see the raven before returning to Hogwarts.

A/N: I know I don’t really use author notes, but I did want to add that the real story will start once the trio are on the run; that had always been my intention with this story. But I wanted to set up a few things, once they are in the pseudo 7th year of school, I won’t have as many time skips and where the actual title comes from.