When Leia found Hermione, she was already packing her things, furiously arguing with one of the two men that had come with her. It was impossible to say for the moment, because the bushy-haired witch was ranting at him, and 'finding Hermione' merely meant hearing her all the way through the open doors of the small set of officer's quarters she had been assigned as a guest of honour. Considering recent developments, revoking that status seemed enticing.
"…you're staying here? We've failed, we need to go back and see what we can salvage without…"
Whatever was said after that the queen could no longer hear clearly; either Hermione had deliberately lowered her voice, or her emotions had turned from undirected anger to something else, something less energizing. When she finally stepped through the open door into the set of rooms, she finally heard one of the men.
"Because I know why he doesn't want to come!" Neville Longbottom's surprisingly calm and firm voice reached her ears, and though the need to take those last few steps into the room was there and strong, Leia stopped in her tracks to listen for a while. Was it the completely moral thing to do? Probably not, but she could not help herself.
"What?" Hermione had been caught on her back foot, as much was clear. "What do you mean, you understand him? He's casting the Killing Curse!"
"That's not why you're mad, and you know it, Hermione," the man accused her, and Leia could hear how much standing up to her took out of him. "We've both learned there are many things worse than a quick death, and the way you told it, you did not even want to hear him out. No, you're angry because you know he won't want to come back. And that I completely understand."
The two fell silent for a while, though whether that was because both were calmly thinking things through, or because there was a real storm brewing was impossible to tell. Surprisingly, it was once again Neville who began talking once again.
"I've had two years to live through just a fraction of the insane attention and shifting image Harry has had to deal with all his life… and really, I'm sick and tired of trying to help people who don't seem to want our help." Though not completely comfortable with the language quite yet, so she was probably missing some of the emotions involved, it was clear as day to Leia the young man was dealing with a few rather strong ones himself. "Have you seen how these people are about him? Whenever he's mentioned, they can't help but be proud of this place and their 'Captain'. My grandmother is dead, Voldemort had my parents… euthanized, there's nothing for me to go back to, especially if Harry isn't coming back."
More silence. This time, however, it was broken by Hermione, and the catch in her voice, the tone, took all of the righteous anger out of the queen waiting to ream her out for hurting Harry. "But… but he has to… otherwise my… my parents will have… will have…"
Leia knew that tone, had heard it often enough, had herself spoken in it often enough to recognize it. This woman had lost something, recently enough for it to still cut deeply, something deeply, profoundly hurtful to lose.
"I know, Hermione, I know," Neville tried soothing her, but even in a language she was still coming to grips with, Leia could hear how much he felt out of his depth. Then, he surprised them both massively, maybe even all three of the ones currently privy to the conversation, when he continued, "But whether Harry comes back or not, it won't bring your parents back, and it won't suddenly force their deaths to make more sense. They were killed to hurt you personally for poking your nose at Riddle and his thugs by your mere existence. No deeper sense to it than that."
It was a somewhat callous, pessimistic view of things, but with what she had heard the man reveal of his own family only moments earlier, the words rang with a certain, undeniable truth; however much the princess… queen of the Alderaanians, she achingly reminded herself, would have liked for the yarn Harry had spun her to be true, that Bail and Breha Organa's deaths, along with all of those on Alderaan, were given meaning by the end it was likely to spell for the Empire, that simply was not the case. Their deaths had been a senseless act of barbarity, an attempt by power-hungry tyrants to cow the galaxy, to keep it under their heavy, oppressive boots. Maybe if everyone on the planet, or Neville's, or Hermione's parents had chosen their deaths, it would have given them meaning. But their choices had been taken from them, and as much as those left behind tried to make sense of that, there simply was none to be found. Only a wholly inadequate sense of partial justice, if that.
Now that she was really thinking about it, Leia came to realize she had an urge to kick the next person that told her the sacrifice of the people of Alderaan would not be in vain; the people of Alderaan had not sacrificed themselves; they had been murdered! Sure, some of them were members of the Alliance, knowingly defying the Empire, willingly taking on the risks that came with that act. They might not have chosen to sacrifice themselves specifically against the Death Star's super laser, but they had obviously been willing to lay down their lives for everyone's freedom. Many though were simply people, or so far removed from politics that the celebrated New Order mattered little to them: small-time farmers, recluse artists, people like those. She might not have agreed with their choice to remove themselves from the fight for freedom, but it was still their right to make that decision.
Suddenly, it felt like she was intruding too much into something deeply personal for both of the guests she had been listening to, and she was just about getting ready to leave, her earlier anger sizzled out like a small flame doused under prodigious rainfall, when Hermione bumped into her. The witch looked a fright: hair frazzled, not just with the impressive bounce it usually had, and eyes rimmed from crying, she made for the picture of misery. Overcome by a very 'Harry-like' instinct, the queen simply took a step forward and hugged the slightly taller woman, pulling her down to a shoulder strong from regular combat training. Well, Harry-like in that it was totally spontaneous and that he would, under just about all circumstances, agree to Hermione being comforted; physical touch he was still somewhat reticent with.
"I'm…" she stumbled out, not really sure of the words coming out of her mouth. How did you tell someone you had basically been snooping on a conversation this intimate? Eventually, it felt best to just get it over with. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to listen, but… I recently lost my parents, too. So, you know, if you want to talk…"
Only with her last words did she notice she had instinctively been lacing them with a calming charm, one of the pieces of magic she could cast most easily without a wand or staff; maybe that was because it was so close to the limited abilities, she had been able to pick up with the Jedi's mind tricks. However, she had picked it up this well, though, it was definitely working, and soon, Leia stood there, holding up a sleeping witch she had been about to throttle only minutes earlier.
OOOOOOOO
Unlike he had been told beforehand, when the regional anaesthesia began wearing off, Harry did not feel massive amounts of pain. Unluckily, that did not mean he was not completely weirded out by the feeling of more fire ants, crawling all over his newly attached prosthetic limb. Still, if Arden had indeed been hoping for a painful lesson in avoiding situations that might motivate him to chop off his own hand, she would be sorely disappointed. He was now, barely an hour after his surgery had finished, sitting on his bed in the infirmary, doing his very best to try and not scratch off the synthiskin covering his artificial limb. So far, despite how hard it was, he had been successful, but that damnable itching was still there. At least the servos powering the prosthetic's movement had been disabled, so that he only had to control his right hand, while the newly attached left one was lying inertly on the stark white linen of the bed.
He was finally broken out of his near-painful state of concentration by someone entering the room. Like he had expected, it was Leia, and no one else. Truthfully, tolerating more visitors than just his girlfriend would have been something of a chore, really, so it was a good thing she came alone.
"Hey, how are you?" the young woman questioned, hesitantly sinking down on the edge of his mattress, on his right side, far away from the replaced limb.
"Pins and needles, itches like you wouldn't believe," Harry chuckled, going for a light-hearted approach, hoping it would remove that horribly worried frown on her face. At some point in time, he might have said he was fine, but no one had ever seemed to believe it, Leia certainly would not. Would not appreciate the attempt to deceive her, either. "We might have to get a replacement for the medical droids, though; their bedside manners are atrocious."
His attempt at humour managed to elicit at least a wan smile, so he would consider his mission a success, in that regard.
"Next, you'll be telling me the food is bad…" his girlfriend joked back, carefully reaching for the artificial limb, almost as if trying to convince herself it was actually there. "No matter how often I see this, it still always astonishes me."
To make it more real for her, Harry would have liked to lightly taker her probing hand with his left one, but at the last moment, he once again remembered motor input was still deactivated. What a lost opportunity that was.
"Feels good?" he questioned, fighting the increased tingling her touch caused.
"A bit cooler than I remember your hand being. But I'll get used to it, no question." Leia admitted reluctantly, carefully tracing the contours of metallic fingers covered in artificial skin. Then, hesitantly, she added, "I would've gotten used to you with only one hand, too. You would've hated it, though."
It was a certain fear brought on by this entire episode he had been pushing down, successfully so, up until now; of course, for a man of action, being short a hand would have felt horrible, even with magic at the tips of his fingers. No more staff training, no more flying most likely… a crippling blow, both literally and figuratively. Still, no sense in fretting over what-ifs.
"I would have," Harry therefore concurred quickly, before moving on. "Anything going on I should know about? Mercer hasn't had an opportunity to update me yet, and you know I hate being out of the loop."
If the mischievous grin his girlfriend was now wearing had not clued him in on the fact that she was preparing something at least adjacent to a prank, her amused tone certainly would have.
"Well, something interesting did happen, when I was still on Coruscant," she told him, looking like butter would not melt in her mouth. "I've met a few people I recognised…"
"Oh, there are Alliance members on Coruscant?" Harry ventured, surprised. He had thought the very centre of the Emperor's power, 'Imperial Centre', would have been one of the last places the Rebels would go. It sounded rather dangerous.
"Oh, I'm certain there are. Policing that entire planet is impossible, what with all the corruption and crime in the lower levels, and it is the capital of the Empire," Leia replied easily, looking like she was delighted he had misunderstood her measly clue. "But no, not members of the Alliance. Well, maybe some are."
Beseechingly, the wizard looked at her. "Fine, I'll tell you," she declared magnanimously. Still, despite the grand portrayal, something was clearly bothering her, something that made her chew on her lower lip, something aside from his most recent rush with improbable dangers no one seemed to be having to face. "I stumbled on a group of Alderaanian refugees while I was on Coruscant, and an old friend convinced me that if I was going to help them, it was necessary for me to take up the mantle of the… the Queen of the Alderaanians."
With how she had been building this up, Harry had been expecting something more… well, he was not really sure what kind of 'more' he had been expecting, because momentous this certainly was. Not bad news though, as far as he could tell. Unless? Could it be? He was far from fully informed regarding the royal customs of his girlfriend's home planet, though he fervently hoped political marriages excluding lowly bounty hunters were not a thing for her.
"What exactly does that entail?" he eventually questioned, warily looking at her. When he saw her expression falling, the wizard elaborated, "Obviously, I'm happy, especially if it helps you help your people. Still, does this mean anything for us?"
"Oh no, no, it doesn't," Leia rushed to assure him, before planting a chaste, loving kiss on his chapped lips. "It might have, in the past, but there are no more noble houses left to pressure me into anything. I just know you don't enjoy the attention, and you would certainly get a lot of that simply for being with me, especially if more Alderaanians start relocating here."
Harry could not help it: he laughed in relief. "If that's all," he quickly reassured the peeved looking woman sitting on the edge of his bed. "I've had a lot of time getting used to it, I'll manage. And it's you who'll be getting most of the attention, anyway."
For a moment, it looked like Leia was about to correct him, but eventually chose, not to. Instead, the two of them simply fell silent, as she stretched out on the stiff mattress next to him, cuddling into his chest, listening to his breathing, occasionally reaching up to kiss him under the chin and on the neck, just tenderly caressing him with her lips. That was how the surgeon droid found them when it came in, too, and though it looked to be disapproving of the two organics enjoying any kind of intimacy in what was obviously considered the droid's domain, there was no comment. Maybe it had heard part of the captain's earlier talk about having the medical staff replaced for excessive rudeness, or maybe there was simply no reason to say anything. Regardless, he appreciated the lack of biting commentary.
"Neuromotor functions will now be activated," the droid announced, and without preamble, it opened a small hatch on the palmar surface of his lower left arm and began prodding at the machinery inside with a long, needle-like device. "I will now perform a test on sensory and motor functions."
Several minutes of severe prodding, hot and cold metal objects being held to fingers and vibration sensitivity testing, Harry was declared 'healed', despite how unruly a patient he had supposedly been. Then, he was unceremoniously shoved out of the infirmary of his own base of operations, with the droid citing overcrowding as the reason. Just like during his short operation, the room was empty, when last he saw it.
"What's on your mind?" Leia eventually questioned, when, by mutual, unspoken agreement they had reached a secluded spot near the edge of the security zone besides a burbling brook. Apparently, she had noticed the tight set of his shoulders.
"Hermione," Harry admitted, troubled by their last, short interruption, and even more so now that he saw how off-kilter his girlfriend appeared to be at the mere mention of his friend's name.
"Oh… uh, yes," the princess… queen began, searching for words to express herself. "I might have been planning to get into a screaming match with her when I left the infirmary earlier, but ended up snooping on her, then hugging and lulling her to sleep. Might make things a bit awkward…"
Truth be told, the wizard was not completely sure, how to react. Part of him, the part that was angry at his best friend of seven years, wanted to ask why Leia had consoled someone who had not even given him the curtesy of really listening, let alone consoling him in what had been and still remained a highly emotional situation. Another part, one he was a bit more at ease with, even proud of, was immediately worried for the witch's well-being; to fall asleep in the arms of someone she probably did not like all that much at the moment, especially in someone so incredibly stubborn as Hermione was wont to be… well, he did not know what might have brought this on, but it could not be good.
Obviously taking his silence as a tacit encouragement for her to continue speaking, Leia did exactly that. "It sounded like she had lost her parents, like she had not taken the time to grieve, like she was desperately trying to make sense of everything, and you not wanting to come back forced her to stop and think, something she must have been avoiding doing for quite some time now."
Her words hit Harry like a sledgehammer; after everything Hermione had gone through to keep her parents safe, they were dead? No wonder she was angry at him. Scratch that, she probably was not even really angry at him, just angry, period. He knew how it felt to simply be angry at the world; it was how he had felt after Sirius' death, and he had taken it out on his friends back then, too. Granted, their biggest crime had been following orders to keep him out of the loop, while he had admitted to casting a piece of magic most wizards considered frightfully evil, and enough to be included in a line-up with two fates worse than death, yet still, the situations were not dissimilar. All of these thoughts were racing through his head at incredible speed, until at once, they all came to a screeching halt.
"Where is she?!"
The wizard was already getting up from the grassy soil when Leia began her reply. "She's sleeping, you can't talk to her now," his girlfriend protested, nevertheless joining him in his mad dash for one of the entrances. "We don't want to wake her up, she looked like she's hardly been sleeping."
While it might, on the outside, have seemed like her words were falling on deaf ears, Harry was taking her words to heart. He had simply decided to take up a silent vigil at her side for whenever his friend, his sister, eventually did wake up, even if it took hours. It was the least he owed her for endangering her and her parents by the mere association with his name. And while it was decidedly possible the Grangers had died from some cause other than Death Eaters, it also sounded like too remote a possibility to seriously consider. No, if Hermione's parents were dead, then Riddle's thugs had somehow managed to get to them in Australia.
"Then I'll be there when she wakes up," Harry declared stubbornly, even as the two of them reached the massive gates they had left not much earlier. "Her parents are dead because she was friends with me… least I can do is try and be there for her, even if she doesn't want to see me."
Leia was scurrying along beside him, doing her best to keep pace, though with his tremendous motivation and longer legs, she was having a hard time of it. Eventually, though, the queen even managed to get in front of him, only to turn around, put a hand on his chest and brake abruptly.
"I'm sure she'll be delighted to see you, as soon as she wakes up," she told him, gently but firmly pushing against his instinctual need to press on. "But she'll also be asleep for quite a while now, and from what you've told me, Hermione doesn't like you not taking care of yourself. At least get something to eat, first, maybe grab your datapad so you have something to read while you wait."
Much as he wanted to protest, Harry knew she was right; Hermione would be furious, even more so he reminded himself, if he disregarded his own well-being. Touched too, maybe, but mostly furious. Of course, the disturbing possibility of Hermione not wanting to talk to or even see him was still there, too, though that one did not bear thinking about.
"You're right," the wizard eventually admitted, looking at his girlfriend, chagrined by her disturbingly reasonable demands. The humorous words feeling stale in his mouth, he continued, "Come, I'll show you to a good time; some water and Imperial crew rations."
OOOOOOOO
When asked later, when exactly he had fallen asleep, Harry would have been unable to tell. It was somewhere between 1 and 2 in the morning, he was sure, but that was about it. What he did know was that spending a night of fitful sleep, sitting on an uncomfortable couch, serving as the pillow for the delectable young woman sprawled out across him, would have gotten him a stern talking-to from Madam Pomfrey, were he still at Hogwarts, and with good reason, for once, he had to admit. Apparently, these were not the best sleeping arrangements for someone who had recently been fitted with a new lower arm. With a groan on his lips as he noticed the re-emergence of the fire ants on the newly attached prosthetic, he finally awoke.
Across from the couple, on one of the two armchairs the room had available, his blinking eyes could just barely make out the bushy-haired form of one Hermione Granger, worrying her lower lip as she noticed him waking up.
"What are you doing here, Harry?" she questioned, the quiet words immediately dredging up shallowly buried fears of her reaction. "That can't have been comfortable, you should be recuperating…"
"I…" the wizard began, no longer quite as sure, why exactly it had been necessary to wait in Hermione's rooms instead of in his own quarter, where he actually had a bed and shower and fresh clothes. "I wanted to see you as quickly as possible. Leia told me about… about your pare…"
He never got the opportunity to finish the sentence he had not known how to finish, he was enveloped in a crushing hug by his best friend. But where these embraces had, once upon a time, been a source of great succour to him, a calming presence, how she was now clinging to him in desperation, it shook him to his very core.
"I failed them, Harry…" Hermione sobbed, still quietly, even in this state still worried about waking Leia, who was still fast asleep, now propped up by a cushion. "The Death Eaters got them."
Floundering, looking for something to say, he finally decided there was nothing to say, really; instead, he simply reciprocated the hug, gently running his hands up and down her back, ignoring the wetness seeping through the fabric covering his right shoulder. Movement somewhere else on the piece of furniture eventually broke the tense silence, and the queen joined their huddle, with one calming hand on each of them.
"What happened, Hermione? I thought you kept them safe by modifying their memories?" Harry eventually questioned when she had calmed down somewhat. He tried pulling back a bit, so he could look her over, but it was obvious she was not willing to let go, the witch's two arms firmly holding him close. It would make talking harder, obviously, but if this was what she needed, who was he to deny it?
After a few more, shuddering breaths and a sad sigh, she finally began talking. "I'm not really sure. I think it happened because of Tom's agents in the muggle government," Hermione reported, her voice kept mostly free from any emotion by her considerable force of will. If he had to guess, the captain would have thought she was scared of completely breaking down if she allowed these feelings even the slightest bit of purchase. "Even Wendell and Monica Wilkins still had to arrange for travel to Australia, that must have left a trail the Death Eaters could follow."
Slowly, that growing feeling of guilt Harry had been dealing with ever since he heard of the Grangers' fate, was starting to break free, until it forced him to croak, "I'm so sorry, Hermione. They're dead because you came along to help…"
Once again, he could not finish, as the two arms clinging to him suddenly intensified their hug to an almost painful degree, pressing the air out of his lungs in one large swish not suited to forming words.
"I was having trouble recognizing you. You've changed so much. Shh," she shushed him when he wanted to protest, then went on, "Yes, you have. But that was just classic Harry. I don't blame you, just like I didn't blame you when I modified their memories. If anything, I blame myself; I should have been more diligent, made sure they didn't leave some kind of trail behind. I shouldn't have relied on the Death Eaters being completely lost in the muggle world."
From somewhere to the left of their impromptu huddle, a snort reached his ears.
"How about you blame the people actually at fault?" Leia posited, wry with a hint of mourning and intense sadness. Then, turning to Harry, she added, "Didn't we have this kind of talk about Alderaan, too? About feeling guilty for things that aren't my fault?"
"We did have that, didn't we, dear?" Harry replied, a quiet sense of déjà-vu overcoming him. "Can you remember how that ended?"
"If I'm not completely mistaken, that was the first night I spent in your bed?"
Now, the two of them could not hold onto it anymore, and both started laughing lightly, despite the sobriety of the situation. It had obviously been much less salacious than Leia had made it sound, though Hermione had no way of knowing that.
"I'm just saying, blame the people that are actually guilty," she continued softly, laying her hand back on the witch's shoulder. "Your parents don't gain anything from you blaming yourself for their deaths or fighting a losing battle you don't believe in. If you want to fight whatever fight it was you wanted Harry to join you in, do it because you think it's the right thing, not because you think it'll somehow make your loss mean something. Nothing will."
Shocked, the wizard looked at his girlfriend. A gentle smile on her face, she explained, "I love what you said about Alderaan's destruction being the beginning of the end for the Empire, but at the end of the day, it was still senseless slaughter. But thank you for trying to make me feel better, it helped back then."
They spent another few minutes like that, eventually separating so they could actually look at each other. Hermione offered Leia an apologetic expression, possibly for uninvitedly cuddling up with another woman's boyfriend; the queen waved it off, whatever it was, once again making Harry think he would never fully understand other people, let alone people that were women. Outside of Arden, obviously, but she was not overly complicated. Before they could really get to talking, though, his comms device started buzzing insistently. As he accepted the call on his wrist unit, a small holographic image of Mercer appeared between the three of them.
"Hey, Boss, we've got an incoming message from a… Urai Fen, a representative of Tyber Zann. Says he has a mutually beneficial 'oportunity' for us."
OOOOOOOO