Harry Potter was really starting to hate his birthday again. Hatred for this particular day of the year was something he hadn't felt since the one followig his first year at Hogwarts when he was no longer the only one that July 31st was important to. In the last two years however Uncle Vernon had reconstituted his yearly present for Harry. The beating of his life. This year's session was most definately the worst and Harry could no longer feel much of anything...he was simply indifferent or...numb.

The summer was just like all the others. Lonely and painful. As Harry sat alone in his room he thought to himself..."No, this summer is worse." Sirius was still on the run. Cedric was dead because of him. And Voldemort had finally returned to destroy his life...again. He had also been forced to lie and tell the Weasleys that he could not visit them this time due to the Dursleys finally wanting to spend the summer with him, getting to know him. He still wasn't completely sure they bought it. Hermione, he knew, had most definately guessed what was going on and what was going to happen to him this summer. Ron on the other hand...well he hadn't known his friend could be so gullable. Ron seemed disappointed but also happy for Harry since he was finally getting some attention from his family.

This is what made Hermione so different from Ron. Hermione had always been the one Harry was always closer to. Yeah he could talk to Ron about anything that concerned teachers, or Quidditch or just regular guy stuff but Hermione was the one he always craved talking with when it was serious. He told her about that night in the maze the second they got on the train home after catching her on her way back from the prefect compartment. She was frightened by some of the tale but she was also more level headed than Ron and therefore able to mask her fear long enough for her to tell Harry that she wasn't going anywhere, that she was there for him whenever he need her and that she would never abandon him.

The reason Harry knew with absolute certainty that his beautiful Hermione would have never swallowed his pile of lies was because, not only was she his girlfriend and he could never lie to her successfully, but also because she knew what Ron did not.

Hermione knew the truth.

Yeah, they're paying attention alright. He thought with no small amount of bitterness.

It was really more like Dudley was paying attention to his gang of friends and beating on the neighborhood kids, Uncle Vernon to how much physical injury and pain he could possibly inflict on Harry without killing him and Aunt Petunia was paying attention to the happiness of her husband and to the possiblitly of any "freakishness" Harry might be practicing. But Harry wasn't stupid. He knew that the second he even tried to use magic, self-defense or otherwise, he would never be going back to Hogwarts again. That just wasn't an option.

Hermione would know this the second she had read "I won't be leaving Privet Drive this summer" because she had seenthe truth with her own eyes only weeks ago.

Flashback:

He needed this. He needed the wind and the hight and the adreneline rush, and the absolute and total quiet of the skies. There was no practice today for any of the teams so Harry had decided to take advantage of the open pitch to just...fly. He needed it more than he had thought. He needed to feel free - just for a little while. He loved Hermione more than anything in the world and it wasn't as thought she sufficating him or anything but the weight of keeping something from his girlfriend, Hermione of all people, was a heavier weight than he had originally anticipated.

Here he could let the weight off himself for a bit. He could be free. Here he was so high Uncle Vernon could not touch him and no one could see him as the disappointment he constantly felt like..

After he finished his workout, thoroughly out of breathe and more relaxed than he had been all year, he went to the showers. This one time, he didn't lock the doors to the team locker rooms, as he thought he was perfectly alone.

He was wrong.

Hermione had decided to forgo the studying this evening after dinner in exchange for spending sometime with her boyfriend. Harry had been obvious to her that there was something weighing on him this year (more than than the obvious) and even more so as the year drew to a close. She had a sinking feeling in her stomach that it had something to do with those horrible beings the Headmaster called his family, but Harry would always ask her to talk about something else if she ever brought it up. This is why she had only ever brought it up twice at the begining of the year. She knew he didn't want to bring the Dursleys here, so to speak. The magical world was a refuge for her love and although she grew steadily more suspicious of those people, she would not bring them into the only place Harry had to escape them. She desperately wanted to know what was bothering him so but she knew if she asked he wouldn't tell her and she loved him too much to force it, although part of her felt she ought to.

But for today atleast she was going to just offer up her company. Free of books and classwork, just some free relaxing time with his girlfriend. She didn't find him in the tower and the teachers hadn't seen him except for Professor Snape. The man was nearly positively pleasant to be around lately and she didn't dare question why.

When she had asked, Professor Snape had no problem with telling her that she could most likely find Harry on the newly fixed Quidditch Pitch as he had last seen him heading outside with his broom over his shoulder.

Now Hermione was just at the entrance to pitch. She looked to the skies expecting to see her favorite seeker doing some insane move that would make her heart stop. Unfortunately she was disappointed. She looked from one end of the pitch to the other but there was no one flying around out here. She turned around, set to go look for Harry in the tower again, when she noticed the door to the Gryffindor changing rooms open.

"Well duh, of course he would take a shower after flying, he always does." she thought, unbelieving that the thought hadn't first occured to her when she didn't see him flying.

She changed direction and headed to the changing rooms. She stopped at the door and listened. She didn't hear any showers running, nor the rustle of clothing so she assumed that Harry was atleast decent enough for her to see him, and walked in intending on finding her boyfriend on a bench tying his shoes or checking over his broom.

"Harry!" she called out, so as not to startle him.

He didn't seem to have heard her so she went further in to find something she had never expected.

Harry was shirtless, doing exactly what she had thought, tying his shoes, when she saw him. That isn't what stopped her in her tracks however. She had seen Harry with his shirt unbuttoned and in short-sleeves so she knew he was 'very' handsome. What she had never seen before is what she saw now.

Scars. Many of them, too many in fact. They littered the whole of Harry's back.

Through no will of her own, Hermione let out a gasp of shock.

It was this small noise that immediately drew Harry's attention to the fact that he was no longer alone and that whoever was here could easily see what he had done so well to hide for years. He knew that he couldn't just sit there so he stood up, and braced himself for whoever he was about to face concerning his darkest secret. As he turned around and finally saw who was there, he realized there was no way for him to prepare himself for her knowing.

Hermione.

His girlfriend, his love, his Hermione, that he had kept this from.

Harry froze.

"Harry..." she let out in a strangled whisper.

"Hermione hold on!" Harry desperately tried.

"Look it's no big deal ok, I can handle him I promise, it only happens when he's really angry or drunk so really..." he rattled, not realizing that he just gave Hermione more information than she had and far more than he would have wanted to.

Hermione for her part had noticed that Harry was so paniced about her seeing him this way that he was rambling without thinking. She however wasn't going to stop him if this was the only way to get the truth. She knew what he was hidding in part, and as she listened to him ramble on she suddenly pieced together the puzzle, the picture she got however was the one she hoped she wouldn't.

She was livid.

"Your uncle did this to you!" she exclaimed, outraged. 'He gave you all those scars?"

"..."

"Harry please, tell me the truth." she begged. "There is no one else here but me I promise you that, please tell me!"

"Yes" Harry whispered, but Hermione heard him.

Harry couldn't bring himself to look his girlfriend in the eye anymore. The minute he heard her ask her question, he knew that not only had she enlightened the thought once already, but also that he had given her the final pieces she need to actually put the majority of the picture together.

"Why didn't you tell me Harry, you can trust me with anything" Hermione had to ask.

This got his attention immediately. Did she think he didn't trust her? That was an outrage! Of course he did, it had nothing to do with that...

"Hermione! I love you more than anything in this world you know that! I trust you more than anyone please believe that." Harry explained and pleaded.

"But Harry..." she didn't understand. If it was some guy thing he had only wanted to share with Ron, that she would get. This...this didn't make sense to her at all.

"Hermione" he stopped her. He could see in her eyes that she was lost. She couldn't comprehend why he would keep this from her. To be honest, in her shoes, he would have had the same problem but it had nothing to do with trust.

"Mione, I DO trust, I love you, nothing could ever change that. Me not telling you about...my uncle had nothing to do with that. Love, I am your boyfriend, I am supposed to protect you, to make you feel safe. I want to do that. I'm also constantly looked to be some great powerful person. I didn't tell you because I didn't want you to think I couldn't do that. I didn't want you to be disappointed in me." Harry finished.

Hermione Granger was, for lack of a better term, stunned stupid for a minute. When her brain caught up with her she didn't utter a single word at first.

She kissed him.

Harry was the next to be stunned it seemed. He knew Hermione inside and out and yet he still hadn't thought she would react this way to this new information. After a minute he finally decided he didn't care. She didn't seem cross with him or upset so he just enjoyed himself. He closed his eyes and allowed her to kiss him with all she was worth. Her left hand was busy softly stroking his cheek while her right went into his hair.

She was going to make Harry Potter see reason whether he liked it or not.

She finally pulled back when she felt the beginnings of air becoming a problem. As she open her eyes and met that beautiful emerald green she adored so much a new level od determination set in to make Harry see how wrong he was.

"Harry Potter what in the name of Merlin could ever make you think I would be disappointed in you? Yes it's true that I don't like that you didn't tell me what that sorry excuse for a human being has done to you but your reasoning is completely ridiculous!" she began. "Do you think I don't know what would happen if you even tried to defend yourself using magic while at home? Whether you were being mutilated at the time or not Harry they would have snapped your wand and I know that is why you didn't try it. Your Uncle is supposed to love you but at the very least treat with some level of decency. I am livid with Vernon Dursley and his wife Harry, for allowing such a brutal man to torture that last connection she has left to her sister. Even more so a child!" Hermione had to stop here for a moment. She was so angry!

"Hermione, love breathe!" Harry ordered. She was turning red, and he was slightly worried about her. Still the sight that she was so enraged for him made his heart give a gentle tug. She smiled at him and after she took a breathe she finished what she had to say.

"Harry none of this was your fault and you deserved none it. You are good and you are kind and strong. Nothing short of becoming a Death Eater yourself could make me think any different of you. I love you." she finished softly. The whole through her speech she looked him directly in the eyes, making him believe her words.

"I'm sorry" he said.

"It's Ok Harry, but don't forget that what others do to you is not going to make me love you any less, it just can't be done." she replied.

Harry lent his forhead against hers as his arms encirlced her in an embrace. He relaxed with her in his arms, "I love you so much Hermione" he whispered softly. As she smiled, some of the wieght of his situation had finally begin to lift.

End flashback

Harry didn't think he would ever forget that day. He had been so terrified of seeing such disappointment in those stunning brown eyes when all he got was what Hermione had given him all along. She loved him unconditionally. That night in the common room, she heard it all. Harry told her almost everything. He got angry, his magic made the portraits around the room shake, she calmed him before anything serious happened, and when he finally realized just how much he had let out of hiding...he broke. And his wonderful, loving Hermione was still there for him. As his shoulders shook and the sobs overtook him sitting there in front of the fire, she held him in her arms with his head on her lap and his arms holding onto her knees for dear life. She let him get it all out and for the first time in all his life, Harry Potter simply...cried.

So yes, Hermione Granger knew without a doubt why Harry would not be seen until September. Harry only hoped that while he really didn't want anyone to see him in such a bloody and beaten state, from a muggle no less, a part of him was crying out to her from Surrey to tell someone...anyone! To help him.

As his vision started to fade from the pain that he could no longer ignore with thoughts of those he loved, he looked out his window at the stars. The last thing he saw before everything faded to black was a letter fall from the air gently to the corner of his desk with probably the most beautiful handwriting, besides Hermione's, spelling out...my son.