After two weeks of relentless torment, Harry Potter was absolutely certain he'd somehow managed to get on the bad side of a nurse named Jenny, though he was equally sure he'd done nothing in his memory to provoke her.
Once Hermione's injuries had healed, she was promptly discharged from the infirmary. Harry, Hermione, and Ron were escorted back to their respective worlds by Dumbledore. With Voldemort's downfall, Hogwarts had resumed its usual rhythm—students attended classes, professors taught, and life went on. But Harry remained confined to the infirmary, forced to choke down potions. Thanks to Hermione's nightly visits, however, he hadn't fallen behind on his homework.
The morning before Valentine's Day arrived.
"Jenny, are you still hesitating?" Lae'zel, who had come to visit her friend, slipped off her invisibility ring and sighed as she watched Jennaveive St. Leaf—Shadowheart—mechanically chew her steak at breakfast. "If I'm not mistaken, once you heal the last of Harry's lingering injuries today, you'll have no reason to keep him in the infirmary, will you? Where's the cleric who always charged headfirst into battle when we were crushing those ghaik? When did you become so paralyzed by doubt?"
"But, Lae'zel," Shadowheart said, lifting her head sadly to meet her friend's gaze, "Harry and that Hermione are truly in love…" Her voice trailed off. "I can't bring myself to tear him away from the one he loves…"
"Damn it all!" Lae'zel grabbed Shadowheart by the collar, yanking her up from the chair. "It's always Harry this, Harry that! Have you ever stopped to think about yourself? Have you forgotten the dangers we faced together, all the way from Toril? Are you saying your feelings for Harry are fake? I'm ordering you—go confess to him right now! Or I swear, I'll drag you and that idiot Harry back to the Astral Plane myself, with my entire Kith'rak squad if I have to! Trust me, I don't make empty threats!"
Meanwhile, in the infirmary, behind the innermost medical curtain, Harry sat on the edge of his bed, feet dangling, eating the breakfast Hermione had brought him. He glanced at the clock, puzzled. "Strange. Why hasn't Nurse Jenny come to force-feed me my potion today?" Normally, by this time, she'd have pinned him down and poured the foul liquid down his throat. What was different today?
Hermione, seated nearby, looked up from her study notes and shot him a glare. "Don't tell me you've started enjoying having that Nurse Jenny hold your head and force potions down your throat."
"No way," Harry said, scratching his hair. "She's not you."
Footsteps echoed from outside the infirmary. Hermione raised an eyebrow at Harry. "Well, looks like your beloved Nurse Jenny's finally here. Happy now?"
"Thrilled," Harry muttered, his stomach twisting at the thought of the bitter potions he'd endured for days.
The infirmary door swung open, and the sound of approaching footsteps grew louder.
Then, as Hermione looked back down at her notes, a crackling burst of electricity came from Harry's direction. At the same moment, a hand rested on her shoulder.
"Hello, Hermione Granger," a voice said. "I'm Jennaveive St. Leaf. You can also call me Shadowheart."
Hermione turned to see a white-haired woman whose beauty rivaled Fleur Delacour's. In Shadowheart's raised left hand, a finger-thick arc of electricity pulsed at a steady rhythm, directed at the bed where Harry Potter now lay, wisps of black smoke curling from his mouth.
Author's Note:
This story has a massive problem, and I only realized it when I'd already written up to the Yule Ball plotline. The issue became clear when I reviewed my work. I'd written over two thousand words smoothly that day, but upon rereading, I noticed Harry was constantly pushing Hermione away, even though my plan was for Harry and Hermione to confess their feelings to each other in this chapter. The character dynamics clashed with the plot. Neither Harry, Hermione, nor Shadowheart—who, after her time in Baldur's Gate, is open-minded about physical relationships—are the type to willingly share their loved ones emotionally. My mistake was setting Shadowheart up as Harry's romantic interest, which meant that, following the characters' own natures, either Shadowheart or Hermione would inevitably have to leave Harry. I ran into the same issue J.K. Rowling faced in the later Harry Potter books, where character development conflicted with the story's direction. Rowling forced Hermione with Ron and Harry with Ginny, but I don't want to betray the characters' own desires. The more I wrote, the more tangled it became, until I had no choice but to end the story at this moment, with Shadowheart's entrance.