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If You Can Help Her
By witowsmp

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Category: Alternate Universe
Characters:Harry/Ginny, Hermione Granger, Ron Weasley
Genres: Action/Adventure, Comedy, Drama, Fluff, Humor
Warnings: None
Story is Complete
Rating: R
Reviews: 570
Summary: This story starts with an alternative ending to Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets where Harry helps Ginny recover from her experience, unknowingly initiating a bond that affects the rest of their lives. Rating is for violence in the later chapters. **A French translation called "Si tu peux l'aider" is being written by the author Sined. It's posted on Fanfiction.Net.
Hitcount: Story Total: 295831; Chapter Total: 9687







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If You Can Help Her — Chapter 40 — The Beginning of Summer

As usual, Harry, along with Ginny, Ron, and Hermione, fell as they landed in Grimmauld Place while Sirius, Arthur, Molly, and the twins managed to stay on their feet.

“Well,” said Molly, “I believe that I’ll make us some lunch. Ginny-dear, why don’t you help me in the kitchen?”

“Could I put my stuff away first, Mum?”

“I’m sure Harry will be happy to take your trunk to the room you’ll be sharing with Hermione. Won’t you Harry-dear?”

Harry shrugged his shoulders nonchalantly. “Sure Mrs. Weasley.” He then grabbed her trunk and carried it upstairs, leaving his own for a second trip up the stairs.

-

After lunch was over, Arthur returned to work (he’d only had a half-day off). Harry and Ginny snuck off to Harry’s room to practice their transformations. “We shouldn’t have quit this while I was training for the third task,” said Harry. “I might have been able to escape by transforming.”

“Well, at least this way Tom has no idea what you’re capable of.”

“Besides bleeding, you mean.”

“Don’t start that again! You simply didn’t have the opportunity to show him what you can do!”

“All right. Anyway, we should get started.”

Together they closed their eyes as they concentrated. Harry’s hand became a paw as fur began growing on his body and from his clothes. His nose and mouth were reshaping into a muzzle while some of his teeth turned to fangs. His arms and legs were the right shape, but his torso was still the same. Frustrated that he couldn’t get any further, he closed his eyes tighter together and concentrated harder. He didn’t hear the door opening nor the surprised gasps. He did however hear the door slam shut. He opened his eyes as he reverted back to normal. First he saw Ginny, who’d also reverted back. He turned his head to see an astonished Ron and Hermione staring at the two of them.

Finally Hermione, whose ears were pink, spoke. “Y-You two have b-been doing this for a long time, haven’t you?” Without waiting for an answer, she continued. “Why didn’t you tell us? Maybe we would want to join you!” She appeared hurt and angry.

“This isn’t the only thing we do together that you’re not invited to join,” said Ginny defiantly.

Ron’s face turned red. “You’re not! I mean you can’t be!”

“I was referring to snogging, brother dear,” Ginny said with a smirk. “What did you think I meant?”

His face paled. “N-Nothing. Never mind. Why didn’t you tell us you were learning to become animagi?”

“We don’t want anyone to know. And we don’t want to register.”

“But Harry,” said Hermione, “you have to…”

“I have to make sure that if Voldemort gets me again I have some surprises for him! If I register, I might as well send him a letter with Hedwig!”

“Okay,” said Ron, “so you don’t want You-Know-Who to know. Why couldn’t you tell us? We’re your best friends!”

Harry took a deep breath as he looked from Ron to Hermione. “Honestly, I felt that Hermione would feel compelled to either turn us in or hound us to register.”

Hermione paled. “I would not. Well, it is dangerous you know. Not to mention against the law…”

“See what I mean?” said Harry.

“The decision’s already made, Hermione. So don’t you dare go telling anyone! Besides, Sirius has been helping us.”

Hermione sighed. “Fine. I understand the need for secrecy now, but what about before? You’ve both almost achieved the full transformation, so you must have been working on this for a long time. Why the secrecy then?”

“I wanted to follow in my dad’s footsteps, and Ginny wanted to join me.”

“Do you think you can help us become animagi?” asked Ron.

“Ronald!” said Hermione reprovingly until turning toward Harry and Ginny, “That would give us an advantage. Could you teach us?”

Harry and Ginny looked at each other until they both nodded. “We can loan you a book,” said Harry.

“But we won’t help you until you’ve both read it,” said Ginny, looking pointedly at Ron.

“What?” asked Ron, “You don’t think I can do it?”

The others tried not to laugh at Ron as he defended his ability to read a book. “I’m just not interested in those school books.”

“Including the Transfiguration book,” said Ginny.

“So?”

“Animagus Transformation is a very complicated form of Transfiguration,” said Hermione patiently. “Don’t worry, I’ll help you.”

“How did you get in here anyway?” asked Harry, “We locked the door.”

Hermione looked down. “Er, Mrs. Weasley said we could use alohamora if you two were alone.”

“WHAT?” screamed Ginny as she stood up, “We’ll see about that!”

She marched straight down the stairs with Harry following behind, not sure whether he was going to help her hex her mother or if he was going to stop her.

“Mother!” she shouted when she caught sight of the Weasley matriarch in the living room.

“Yes Ginny-dear, oh and Harry-dear,” she said while turning to face them.

“Why did you tell Ron and Hermione they could magic Harry’s door open?”

Molly’s ears turned pink. “I, well, I don’t think I have to answer that question, do I?”

“No, Mrs. Weasley. It’s obvious you still don’t trust us.”

“Harry-dear, it’s not personal. You two can do the same thing with Ron and Hermione. I just can’t be everywhere at once and want to maintain a wholesome household here. I suggest that you not do anything that you don’t want others to see.”

Both Harry and Ginny were upset by this, but didn’t see much point in trying to argue with her. They turned around and walked back in hopes of invading Ron and Hermione’s privacy.

-

Later that night, just before dinner, while the kids were all upstairs, Arthur and Percy arrived at the house via portkey.

Looking around, Percy said, “Where are we? I thought you said we were going home.”

Mrs. Weasley walked up to them. “Percy-dear, this will be home for a while. It’s Sirius’ and Harry’s house. You’d know that if you’d ever bothered to visit. It’s also the headquarters for the Order of the Phoenix and one of the most secure houses in Britain.”

“Order of the Phoenix?” repeated Percy, “What’s that?”

“An organization that Dumbledore set up during the last war to fight You-Know-Who,” said Arthur.

“Interesting. So it works with the Ministry. I suppose supplying extra manpower when needed. Very good.”

“Well son,” said Arthur nervously, “Actually it exists apart from the Ministry. You see, sometimes even a good minister such as Madam Bones can be a bit shortsighted. For example, she refused Dumbledore’s suggestion to try to make some sort of peace with the giants so they don’t join He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, so Dumbledore sent Hagrid and…”

Percy looked horrified. “YOU WENT BEHIND THE MINISTER’S BACK!!!” He backed up, looking as though he thought that his parents were about to attack him. “You, you’re vigilantes! You don’t care about law and order! You’re just as bad as You-Know-…”

At that moment, Molly slapped Percy across the face. “We are not! We’re trying to save lives, not destroy them!”

“Mother! You’re taking matters into your own hands, trying to do the government’s job! Father! I can’t believe you’d betray the Ministry like this! You’re renegades! I suppose you expected me to join your little group? You’re just lucky I don’t report you!” He looked at the fireplace. “Is this on the floo network?” When they sadly nodded, he took a handful of powder out of the jar and shouted, “The Leaky Cauldron,” as he threw the powder down.

-

Dinner was indeed a sad affair as Molly served everyone with tears streaming down her eyes. Once everyone found out what had happened, all the Weasley siblings wanted to murder Percy while Molly seemed to be mumbling things about failing as a mother. Sirius, Harry, and Hermione did their best to not get involved in the family dispute.

After that, Harry and Ginny continued working on their transformations, until finally a few weeks after the summer began, they’d finally achieved a full transformation on the same day. They excitedly told Sirius, who then watched them transform into a wolf and cheetah respectively. He was thrilled.

“I knew you two could do it! Great job, both of you!”

“Thanks!” they said together.

“Now all you’ll need to do is work on speed of transformation and holding the form. If you practice every day, it’ll become second nature to you.”

“Ron and Hermione found out about it, so we can practice holding our forms at night,” said Ginny.

“Good.” Sirius then looked nervous. “So, have you thought about how you’ll handle the dragon?”

Both Harry and Ginny blushed and looked down until Harry finally spoke. “We, er, discussed that. We believe that we’ll need to reach phase three of our bond before we can do it.”

“Y’know,” added Ginny, “Merging our minds and spirits seems like what we’ll have to do to have a combined form.”

“We’ll really be one entity at that point. It’s just a guess, but we think that once we’re in that phase, that’ll simply be what we become when we transform while holding hands.”

“The actual transformation might not require much extra work,” added Ginny.

“I suspected that as well,” said Padfoot as he cleared his throat. “So does that book tell you exactly what you, er, have to do to enter phase three?”

“Yes,” said Harry.

“Er, what do you have to do?”

“It doesn’t require physical intimacy, if that’s what you’re asking,” said Ginny smirking. “Lot’s of couples do that in phases one and two. It’s actually irrelevant to the phases.”

“Thank goodness,” said Sirius.

“We have to spend at least five hours every day for three months snogging passionately without interruption,” said Harry with a straight face.

The worried look on Sirius’ face caused both young people to start laughing hysterically. “You’re just kidding, then?”

“Yeah,” admitted Harry, “We have to sit or stand holding each other’s hands while concentrating.”

-

The young couple did that whenever they had the chance, but that hardly ever happened because of two factors. Molly wouldn’t leave them alone very often, always having work for at least one of them. The other was that Ron would want to interrupt them when they were alone, and they didn’t want to tell them about the bond, so they couldn’t risk him walking in on them and asking what they were doing. Even with Hermione’s help distracting Ron, they only got about an hour alone together at a time, and that was during Order meetings.

Once the Order members started showing up, the kids were expected to all go upstairs. In the middle of July, when the twins showed the quartet their new invention called ‘extendable ears’ and suggested they all spy on the Order, Harry said, “That sounds great guys! Tell us if you find out anything interesting.”

The bewildered expressions on Ron’s and the twins’ faces were priceless.

“Are you saying,” said Fred.

“That you don’t want to listen in yourself?” said George.

“No thanks,” said Harry as he grabbed Ginny’s hand and they walked toward his room.

“Oi! You’d rather snog than know what’s going on?” said Ron, looking frustrated.

“That’s right,” said Ginny with a grin, “and I’ll bet Hermione would, too.”

Hermione blushed as Ron looked at her with a grin. “Well, you see, they’ll tell us anything they feel we need to know,” she said.

“Yeah,” said Ron, now blushing, “Fred, George, have fun. Tell us what they talked about after we’ve left the room.”

-

Instead of snogging, Harry and Ginny were sitting in his bed silently facing each other while holding hands as the book directed them. They both had their eyes closed as they concentrated until there was screaming outside their door.

‘What was…’ Ginny heard Harry’s voice in her head for the first time for a few seconds before it was gone.

Harry opened his eyes. “For a moment, I could swear I heard your thoughts, but then they went away.”

“Me too,” she said excitedly, “but we’d better stop. Mum’s yelling at the twins and will probably be in here next.

Harry grinned. “Maybe we should hide under my blanket.”

She giggled at that suggestion as she got up and moved to Ron’s empty bed. “I can imagine how much she’d yell before even bothering to check if we were dressed.”

At that moment, the door swung open and Molly looked at them both, and Ginny had the distinct impression that she was checking the state of their wardrobe.

“Harry-dear, Professor Dumbledore wants to see you.”

“Um. Okay. I’ll be right down.”

-

Harry entered the kitchen to see that he was alone with Albus, whose face was grim. There was no twinkle in his eyes.

“You wanted to see me?”

“Yes, Harry,” he said, pulling out his wand and charming the door for privacy. “Not that it’ll do much good,” he muttered under his breath. “Have a seat.”

After Harry sat down, he said, “Professor, what’s going on?”

“Last night Voldemort and a few of his followers broke into the Ministry of Magic. They made their way to the Department of Mysteries and stole one object.”

Harry’s eyes went wide. “Voldemort himself went there?” Dumbledore nodded. “What did he steal? Last night I thought I felt him get very happy.”

The headmaster took a deep breath. “A few months before you were born, a prophecy was made regarding you and Voldemort. A Death Eater overheard the beginning of it, and it was enough to drive Voldemort to kill you. What was stolen is a record of that prophecy.”

-

Upstairs, Ginny could feel how shocked Harry was. She felt the shock turn into anger as Harry realized that Dumbledore had kept that information from him. Finally she felt fear like he’d had in the graveyard while he heard the words of the prophecy. She sent him peace as she took his emotions, allowing him to have a civil conversation with Albus as Ginny cried and punched the mattress she was sitting on for no reason she understood.

-

“Thank you for telling me this now, sir. I believe I’ll have to start working hard if I want to be the one to survive.”

“Yes indeed. I suggest you tell your friends about it. Since Voldemort is already aware of the contents, we don’t have to worry about him finding out. You may however, wish to keep the ministry or the press from learning about it.”

-

Please review. Thank you to those who have.
P.S. If you don’t know the words of the prophecy from OotP, I can’t possibly imagine why you’re reading this story.
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