Chapter 1548 - Ch. 22-25

Chapter Twenty Two

Hermione was sitting on the couch between her father and Kimmy watching the spectacle before them and doing a poor job of hiding her smile. Jake was looking up from a wizard's book on Quidditch, complete with moving pictures, Kimmy was dressed in a pair of jungle-camouflage boxer shorts and swinging her feet from side to side on the cushion. Crookshanks was curled in the armchair, sleeping and oblivious to the scene playing out before him. Hedwig, transformed back to her snowy white self and in a much better mood for it, was perched on the back of the chair and preening her feathers.

In the center of the living room, Miranda was squaring off with Harry... and she was winning.

"But I really don't think that's necessary, Missus Granger," Harry pleaded. Miranda shook her head. "Harry, I can see your socks."

Harry glanced down toward his feet where the hem of his jeans just barely touched the top of the sides of his trainers. When he moved his leg, there was a flash of white from the sock underneath. He frowned and looked toward Hermione for some help. Hermione just smiled and sat back.

"Face it, dear, you need new clothes," Miranda said. "You can't very well go back to school tomorrow without any clothes that fit. I'll just not have it."

"Dudley's old clothes will still fit."

Miranda looked affronted.

Jake chuckled. "Son, just concede defeat. It'll be the better for you to surrender now."

Harry looked over at Jake (for a split second he looked shocked), looked back to Miranda, then his shoulders sagged.

Miranda, seeing she'd broken him, patted him on the shoulder. "There's a good boy. We'll go out today and get you some new clothes."

"But we just did that at the first of summer," Harry mumbled.

"Yes, but as you saw fit to grow in leaps and bounds you'll just have to do it again. How you could grow so much in a single summer boggles me."

Jake snorted. "They say you do the most growing when you sleep," he glanced over at Harry, "the way this boy's slept the summer away we should count ourselves fortunate that he's not seven feet tall by now."

"Oh, you leave him alone," Miranda shushed her husband.

"Eating like a horse probably had a fair bit to do with it, too," Jake retorted.

Harry glanced at Hermione, his smile and hers faltered momentarily, then Harry sighed. "I haven't grown that much."

"Well, you really have, Harry," Hermione jumped up from the couch and stepped up to stand toe to toe with him. She had to look up to meet his eyes. He was almost a head taller. Harry looked startled by the contrast. "Well, yes, but I'm wearing..." he looked down to comment on his shoes... only to see Hermione was wearing shoes, too. He stopped and frowned, for a moment genuinely baffled.

Hermione chuckled. "Well, it won't be enough to catch you up with Ron, but definitely a growth spurt."

"Huh." Harry looked over at Miranda. "All right, Missus Granger, I yield."

"Wise boy," Jake remarked from the couch.

"You two already went to that wizard market and saw to your school supplies, right?" Miranda asked. Harry and Hermione had gone to Diagon Alley on their own (with Kimmy as escort, of course) one day last week to get the books for their next term while Miranda and Jake were at work. Miranda hadn't liked the idea of them going off alone, but Hermione had been persistent. Jake seemed to think they were well old enough to go by themselves. It had been her husband as a champion in their corner that finally made Miranda give in and allow it. One morning the four of them left the house earlier than usual, and before work Miranda and Jake dropped Harry, Hermione, and dog-form Kimmy off at the train station. They didn't pick the trio up until Jake and Miranda were on their way home that evening. The two teens had come to the car package-laden and laughing from their day-long outing. Predictably, Hermione was chattering up a storm about their upcoming year of school. Miranda felt the beginning of term coming with a heavy heart. She knew Hermione loved Hogwarts very dearly, but it was hard to see her daughter leave every term, knowing she'd be gone for months. In the past they could at least count on Christmas as a break in the long absence... but after this last year Miranda was no longer so sure Christmas could be guaranteed. Miranda had a plan for that already in the works. Since this last Christmas Hermione had stayed at school because of Harry, Miranda would just invite Harry to stay with them next Christmas. But that was half a term away. For now, there was still the start of term to worry about.

"Yes, Mum," Hermione answered, "and we had to get new robes, the both of us. Our old ones didn't fit."

Miranda shook her head. "Weeds, the both of you. Growing like weeds."

"This book is great, Harry," Jake said as he flipped a page, "thank you for picking this up for me."

"Oh, it's no trouble. I know my stick figures weren't really doing much of a job of explaining Quidditch, and since Hermione had us dallying in the bookstore for three hours..."

Hermione blushed and looked down.

Jake laughed. "Oh, that's our Hermione. To my benefit. It looks like an absolutely fascinating game. And you play this 'seeker' position?"

Harry nodded.

"From this book, looks like quite a tough spot to play."

Hermione grinned. "Oh, it's the most challenging Quidditch position on the whole team. A seeker has to be the fastest, with the best reflexes, and has to be fearless. Some of the maneuvers I've seen Harry pull off chasing that infernal golden ball..."

Jake looked to Harry with a smirk and winked at him. "And Hermione says she doesn't know a thing about Quidditch."

"Hermione knows something about everything; if she says she doesn't know anything then she's plain lying," Harry answered and Hermione harrumphed.

"You'd outgrown your school robes?" Miranda asked, still fixated on her original topic, and looked closely at Hermione, "maybe you should come along too and get some new clothes as well."

Harry laughed, as if turn-about was fair play.

Hermione shrugged, not nearly as agonized by the prospect of shopping for clothes as Harry. "All right, then. And I can help you pick out stuff for Harry!" she beamed at him.

Jake slammed the book shut (inside came the squawk of startled Quidditch players), "Don't, Harry. By all things decent and holy, don't. Never let your girl pick your clothes, wars have been fought over less."

Miranda rolled her eyes. "Honestly."

"Don't be daft, Dad, and besides, Harry won't mind a little advice, would you?"

Harry looked between Hermione, Miranda, and Jake, all three watching him, then answered, "Well, I..." he glanced at Hermione and seemed to weigh his final decision on her face, "Hermione's advice has yet to steer me wrong." In fact, more times than not it had saved his life. Seemed a small thing to trust her to suggest shirts.

Hermione smiled brightly. Jake, despite his dire warning, looked oddly pleased with Harry's answer, as though he had unknowingly been tested.

"It's settled, then. We're off, Jake, come along, you two," Miranda gestured them toward the front door. As Harry was passing the armchair, Crookshanks leapt up on the back beside Hedwig and meowed at him. Harry scratched the cat behind the ears with a faint chuckle. "I remember; I'll bring you some ice cream this time."

When they were gone and Jake was alone in the house he shook his head, sighed, and opened the Quidditch book once more.

That night, Harry lay in bed and stared up at the dark ceiling, fingers interlaced behind his head. He couldn't sleep. Tomorrow they'd wake early and head to King's Cross to board the Hogwarts Express for their return to Hogwarts. Kimmy wouldn't be going to the train station with them; she would see them off at the house then retire to her closet abode to dispense with her quarters and return to Hogwarts via her floo into the headmaster's office. Hedwig was secure in her cage on the dresser, a little dour at being unable to fly (unavoidable since they'd changed her back to white), but soon enough she'd be back at the owlery of Hogwarts and completely free to fly. She seemed to understand that and gave only a few doleful hoots before falling silent. Harry's things were packed, his trunk at the foot of his bed containing all of his possessions, including the new clothes he'd bought earlier that day. He had a set of muggle attire out for the morning trek to King's Cross, and his new school robes were on the top of the pile in his packed trunk so it would be easy to fetch them when they all changed on the train. He was ready to go.

Usually the return to Hogwarts was the most eagerly anticipated day of his summer. This year... he wasn't so sure. Normally his summers were so atrocious that the beginning of school was a manner of salvation. This summer had been different. The Grangers had welcomed him to their home and unknowingly given him the best summer of his life. It would be bittersweet to say goodbye to that.

And to what would he return? Possibly Voldemort. Maybe his death. Maybe the death of those he cared about. For once, he didn't want to go back. He wanted to disappear, to be invisible to the world. He wanted to be in Avalon with Hermione.

His door creaked open and a familiar, tentative whisper issued forth into the night's silence. "Harry?"

Harry looked toward the door, his vision blurry since his glasses were on the nightstand beside him, but he didn't need to see to know his visitor. "Yeah?"

Hermione slipped into his room, shut the door, and padded over to his bed in flannel pajamas. "Good, you're awake." She sat down on the edge of the bed beside Harry. He didn't bother to move over... it forced her to touch his side, and he rather liked it. "It's so hard to sleep before the first day back to school," she whispered excitedly, "it's like the night before Christmas."

"If you say so," Harry mumbled. His Christmases had been of two varieties, locked in his cupboard so he wouldn't ruin Dudley's Christmas morning, or one of only a few homeless, orphan Hogwarts students who had no place to go.

Hermione looked down at him and he instantly wished he hadn't said anything. "Oh, Harry, I'm sorry."

"It's fine," he turned his head to face her. "I can't sleep either."

Hermione stared upward, "I've been thinking..."

"Wow, what a shock." Hermione swatted his arm. Harry chuckled. Hermione shook her head, and he could sense that she had a smile on her face, though he couldn't see it.

"About what?" he asked.

"Our 'project'." Hermione was wired with excitement, it read in the mere tone of her voice. "It just hit me, we might actually be able to do it. We've done the really hard part of it, the part most witches and wizards can't manage. I'm just so nervous... but so thrilled. I can't wait for the first full moon."

"I've been thinking, too." Hermione turned in his direction.

"About?"

"Avalon, actually. I was kind of thinking it would be really nice to never have to leave there, never have anybody know where we were... just disappear."

Hermione went still. Finally, she ventured lowly, "Voldemort."

"Yeah." Hermione sighed. "I've been trying not to think about that, but seems I can't help it."

"Me neither."

Hermione didn't speak, but Harry could still tell she was tense. He could almost hear her uneasiness in her breathing, and he could picture her face so well that he imagined her expression and would lay gold on his being right.

He scooted over on his bed and beckoned gently, "Come here, Mione."

Hermione wordlessly lay down on the bed beside him and turned on her side. Harry sidled up behind her and rested his head on the pillow next to hers, nearly lost in her wild hair. By now he was used to that stomach flutter and heart patter that jolted through him. Hermione gave a breathy exhale. "It won't be the same," Hermione said faintly. "When we go back."

"No, it won't." Harry let the night swallow them a second before he said, "But whatever happens, I want you to know this has been the best summer of my life."

Hermione caught her breath. "Really?"

"Yeah." Harry closed his eyes and breathed in... the scent of Hermione's hair was thick in his nostrils. Her body was touching his, spooned lightly together as they were, and he was having a physiological response to it. After Berti's he didn't bother shying away or trying to deny it. Hermione wouldn't run off or judge him, and he felt so safe knowing he could trust her so much.

Hermione sighed but didn't move away from him. "I'm glad you came home with me."

"Me too. I got to see what it's supposed to be like."

"What what's supposed to be like?" Hermione asked over her shoulder, barely rolling in his direction to try and look at him, and in the roll pressing more firmly into his hardness.

"A family," Harry replied gruffly. He cleared his throat. "I think this is what my mum and dad would have been like. I can't see them being like the Weasleys. Don't get me wrong, I really like the Weasleys, but I don't think that's what my parents would have been like. I think they would have been like yours. Or I like to think." Before he could think on what he was doing, Harry draped his arm over Hermione's waist.

He didn't know how she might react to that, but when she snuggled back against him it was not wholly unexpected. Somehow, it filled a hollow in him. They lay quietly together, each lost in their own thoughts. Hermione didn't show any signs of leaving, and while Harry would have been fine with that, it was he who eventually said, "You probably ought to go back to your room."

"Why?" she said in a sleepy, throaty voice. Harry's reaction to her intensified, but it was okay because they both knew and allowed it and thus it lost its power to humiliate him... at least with Hermione.

"Because I don't want your dad to catch us like this."

Hermione paused, and she seemed a little perplexed. "What about my mum?"

Harry frowned. "I like the idea of your dad catching us less."

"How come?"

"Not sure. Just the same, I don't want to find out why."

Hermione sighed. "You're probably right."

Harry couldn't help the involuntary squeeze he gave Hermione's middle before he let her go. Hermione moved off his bed and headed toward the door. "See you in the morning, Harry." She slipped out of his bedroom as silently as she'd entered, and Harry rolled over on his other side. There was that exquisite ache again, so familiar a foe by now, and it brought a small smile to Harry's lips.

Chapter Twenty Three

Ronald Weasley stood on platform nine and three-quarters looking around for his two best friends. The twins were already on the train, they'd rated escaping their mother's rains of kisses on the cheek a greater need than greeting Harry on the platform. As Ron wiped at his cheek, he almost had to agree. But he was too anxious to see his companions, so he'd suffered a parting mother. He'd only talked to Harry and Hermione via owl a few times over the summer, and it seemed like this summer had been the longest he'd gone without seeing either of them. Typically he'd see Harry once at the Burrow, and truth be told he was a little surprised Harry hadn't come to spend the other half of the summer with them. But no matter, they'd all be packing on to the train in short order, the trio once again. And this time, he had some great stories to tell them about his summer! This would make Egypt look like a Hogwarts class trip.

Ginny came up beside him. "Any sign of them?" Her long red hair was twisted, knotted, and laid against the back of her neck, a style common among the witch dragon-keepers who did that to help keep their hair from catching on fire from an unruly dragon. One of the witch dragon-trainers had shown Ginny how to do it.

"Not yet," Ron said. "They better bloody hurry or they'll miss the train."

Ginny stood on tip-toe (it barely brought her to shoulder-height next to her towering brother), and she cried and pointed, "Oh! There they are!"

"Where?" Ron looked around the crowd.

"Right there, silly. They're just saying bye to the Grangers."

Ron followed Ginny's finger and squinted. Then his eyes widened. It was Harry and Hermione, all right, but Ron didn't even recognize them at first.

Hermione's hair was longer, past her shoulders, with sun-streaked gold highlights. Her skin was lightly tanned and her body… well, from a distance she actually looked like a girl, even in jeans.

Harry was beside her, and Ron could scarcely believe his eyes. It hardly looked like Harry at all. He was loads taller than when he'd left at end of term. His hair was shorter, though still out of control in the back. Harry, too, sported a tan, and in addition he… well, Ron wasn't one to ogle a bloke's body, but Harry could hardly be called 'scrawny' anymore.

Ron gaped as he watched Hermione's mother kiss and hug Hermione, then do the same to Harry, and while Hermione hugged her dad Harry stood back. Hermione's dad and Harry shook hands, then Ron's two best friends turned and moved to their trolleys.

"Hermione!" Ginny called out and waved. Hermione looked up, spotted Ginny, and waved. Ginny dashed off to meet them halfway and Ron finally snapped out of his stupor and followed at a much cooler brisk walk.

When he reached his friends Hermione and Ginny were hugging. Harry stood casually at the handle bar of his trolley, watching on with a patient smile and devil-may-care stance. Hell, he looked half the part of a ruddy movie star, what with his new tan, and new hair cut, and new frame. At least he still had the glasses. Ron would expect it was a Death Eater who'd downed polyjuice potion if he didn't have the glasses.

Ginny let go of Hermione, whirled to Harry, and she shrieked."Harry! You're so tall!" She jumped up at him and threw her arms around his neck. Harry bent over in surprise and chuckled, and thank Merlin it was still the same old uncomfortable-bashful Harry chuckle. "Come on, not even close to as tall as Ron."

Ginny moved her arms away from his neck and pinched his arms. Harry pulled back and looked at her, baffled. "Shite, Harry!" Ginny giggled, "someone's been working out."

Harry freed himself from Ginny's grasp with an embarrassed grimace.

"Leave the man alone, Gin," Ron finally found his voice. Mostly because he didn't quite like watching his sister man-handle some boy, even if it was Harry.

"Hey, Ron," Harry said with a smile.

"Bloody hell, mate," Ron said as he shooed his sister away and stepped closer to his friends. "I hardly recognize you."

Harry rubbed the back of his neck a bit uncomfortably at all the attention. "Good to see you." Ginny had been right about the working out bit. When Harry lifted his arm to worry the nape of his neck in an oh-so-Harry gesture there was a shifting of bicep muscle before the shirt sleeve covered it up.

Bloody hell indeed.

"Yeah, you too, and Hermione," Ron turned to address Hermione, and for a moment he was tongue-tied. Up close, she looked even more the girl than she had from a distance. Ron had so not been expecting that! She looked fit, tan, shapely… she even had a fair set of breasts. Or had she always and he just hadn't noticed before? Surely he'd have noticed something like that. Well, he certainly noticed now. Ron found himself having a bit of a time looking up from them, in fact. When he did, he blurted the first thing that came so elegantly to mind. "Hell, Hermione, you're hot!"

Hermione blushed and looked away. Ron wanted to slap himself on the forehead. From the look on his face, Harry might volunteer to do the honors.

"So… how was Romania?" Hermione asked to change the subject.

Ron blinked, stammered, then remembered his adventure-filled holiday and how he was going to impress and regale his two best friends. "Oh, yeah, it was great! I've got loads to tell the both of you. Better tell you on the train, though, if we don't get a move on they're apt to leave without us."

Harry, Hermione, and Ron boarded the train and found an empty compartment near the back. They stowed their trunks and pet carriers while Ron prattled on about his time at the dragon lair. Students passed by the open compartment door, and the first indication that things weren't quite the same as last year was how few people stopped to call in a hello to Harry. As often as not, classmates seemed apt to duck from meeting his eyes and hurry by. Ron stood with his back to the door, oblivious, but Hermione looked once at Harry with afrown.

Harry sighed and turned to Ron, "Could you close the door, Ron?"

"Huh? Oh, sure," Ron turned and slid the door shut. Harry sat down on one bench of the compartment. Hermione moved to sit beside him. Ron sat opposite them and leaned in. "Harry, I completely understand now. About you and the dragons, I mean. Had a bit of a run-in with a Hungarian Horntail myself." Ron pulled up the sleeve of his left arm and turned slightly to show them. Hermione gasped. There was a burn mark on his upper arm, easily marring a good six inches of freckled skin. The train jarred under them as it started to getunderway.

Hermione leaned forward and inspected the scarred-over wound.

"Yeah, real nasty beasts, those Horntails, eh, Harry? You know, I thought it was bad enough watching you tangle with that one last year, but really loads meaner up close and personal-like, they are. If I hadn't turned my head when I did, near as like this one would have gotten me on the face."

The compartment door slid open and Ginny poked her head in. Ron quickly lowered his shirt sleeve, but not before Ginny saw it. She got a devilish look in her eye and turned her gaze to Harry and Hermione, "Oh, is he having you on about that burn of his?"

"Go away, Ginny," Ron snapped.

"You mean that wasn't from a Hungarian Horntail?" Hermione asked.

Ginny came into the compartment, closed the door behind her, and sat beside her brother. "Oh, it is… but the way Ron tells it you'd think he was wrangling a sire-male over a mate-ready female."

"Shut up, Ginny," Ron spat and glowered darkly at his sister.

Ginny ignored her brother and said, "It's from a hatchling. We were warding over a batch of newborns and he wasn't looking and a hatchling Horntail burped."

Hermione sniggered but quickly covered her mouth with a quick look at Ron, amusement still in her eyes though she tried to hide it. Harry laughed. Ron gave his sister a sour look.

"Don't worry, Ron," Hermione said as she dropped her hand. "We won't tell anyone."

Ron gave a lop-sided smirk, "Thanks a bunch," and he shot a look at Ginny, "some people know how to be decent to a fellow."

"What I'd like to know," Ginny said, mindless of her brother's wounded pride, "is what happened with you two?"

Harry cocked his head in confusion and Hermione's brow furrowed.

"You're both… different. Hell, you're both buff!"

Hermione looked shy about it."Not all that different, Harry and I just thought it might be a good idea to work up our strength a bit this summer. Never know when it might prove useful. We didn't have much to do once we finished all our homework, so we did a spot of exercising. Speaking of, are you finished with your homework,Ron?"

Ron conveniently ignored Hermione's question. "Blimey, Hermione, your house must be like a boot camp from the looks of you two."

Hermione looked bothered by the remark.

Harry frowned. "We both thought it would be a good idea." There was an ever-so-subtle edge to his voice. Not surprisingly, it went over Ron's head.

"Well, I doubt you'll get many complaints," Ginny said with a snicker and another look at Harry. Harry blinked at his friend's little sister, confused again.

Ron groaned, "Shove off, Ginny, I can't stomach any more of it. Go find some of your giggly friends and stop drooling!"

Ginny cast a sidelong glance at Hermione and stood, leaning over her brother, "Oh, like you haven't—"

"Get!" Ron yelled, his ears as red as his hair, and Ginny complied with an unruffled strut.

"A real spitfire, that one," Ron grumbled when she was gone. "OH! I almost forgot to ask, what was the deal with Hedwig showing up at the Burrow black?!"

The first half of the train ride was taken up with swapped stories of their summer holidays. Ron spared no detail, overlooked no recount of his time in Romania with the dragons. Even once they were back at the Burrow it seemed there'd been a small disaster involving the twins and a new experiment that actually ended up ridding the Weasleys of their attic ghoul… as well as their attic, and a rabid garden gnome that wreaked havoc for several weeks, chasing around anyone who went out into the yard. By comparison, Harry and Hermione's quiet summer full of homework, exercise, and a trip to grandma's was utterly dull. It was a flip from the usual, where Harry was beset by more action that he cared for and Ron complained of his average, boring life. All were the happier for the switch.

At the midpoint of the trip, the snack trolley came through the train corridor. Harry bought them all sweets and they whiled away a few miles with the countryside whipping past their window talking about the upcoming year and nibbling on candy and treats. Hermione had a good list of subjects she was looking forward to taking for several reasons, and proceeded to share them with her friends. Ron looked surreptitiously at Harry and made a 'shut up already' face and ticked his head at Hermione, who was still talking enthusiastically about advanced Arithmancy and fifth year History of Magic.

Harry had actually been listening to Hermione, and paying attention, thank you very much, and when Ron gave him that look Harry was a bit peeved. He didn't think he scowled at Ron, but the startled blink and shrug of 'what gives?' before Ron was distracted by a hopping chocolate frog made Harry suspect that he unintentionally had. Neville popped in to say hi (he seemed painfully shy around Hermione), and Seamus stopped by sporting a new earring. Hermione informed him that McGonagall would make him take it out first thing. Fred and George swung in for a bit, teased Harry about beefing up for the benefit of the fine young girls of Hogwarts, flirted playfully with Hermione, then darted out again with furtive looks when a small explosion was heard a few compartments over.

As the afternoon wore toward evening, things got quiet. The flurry of reunions had ebbed and chatter in the corridor outside the compartment had decreased as everyone settled into the part of waiting to arrive at school.

Harry and Hermione let their familiars out of their cages for a bit of a break… by unanimous decision, Pig was kept securely in his cage. Hedwig was rocking with the train's motion on the bench space next to Ron, dozing.

Crookshanks was curled up in Harry's lap sleeping.

Hermione looked up from her much-beloved Hogwarts, A Historyand stretched her arms over her head and gave an enormous yawn. Harry smirked… he knew very well how late Hermione had been up last night. When he turned to glance at Hermione he caught Ron out of the corner of his eye. Ron was staring at Hermione's stomach… when she lifted her arms overhead her shirt rode up and exposed a strip of lightly muscledabdomen.

Ron looked stupefied. Harry glowered and threw a chocolate frog box at him. Ron yipped and jumped then looked quickly out the window as though he hadn't been stealing a look.

Hermione brought her arms down and looked around, "What?"

"Nothing," Harry answered, then lifted Crookshanks out of his lap, to the cat's disgruntled meow, "sorry, Crookshanks, I gotta go to the loo."

Harry slipped out of the compartment and made his way to the end of the train where a loo was in the caboose. The boys' and girls' bathrooms were squished close together, and just as Harry was coming out of the boys' restroom someone was coming out of the girls' and they bumped into each other.

The girl squeaked and Harry, on reflex, reached up and grabbed her shoulders."Sorry."

The girl proved to be Parvati Patil. She looked up at him and for a moment didn't seem to know who he was. Then she gasped when recognition finally assailed her. "Harry! You're alive!"

Harry dropped his hands and backed up at the odd outburst. "Last time I checked."

Parvati blinked at him then seemed to register her blunder. "Sorry… I'd heard over the summer… oh, never mind, it doesn't matter what I heard."

Harry studied Parvati in the whole of a second. She hadn't changed much over the summer, though it seemed she looked more tired, more subdued. He was hard-pressed to find the pushy girl he'd taken to the Yule Ball. She looked like she'd suffered the death of a classmate and that it had not left her unscathed. Harry returned to her remark with trepidation. "What did you hear?"

Parvati sighed and wrung her hands in front of her chest, dark skin and hair for the moment making her seem that much glummer. "Just… well, Lavender told Angelina who told me you'd been abducted by a band of Death Eaters right out of your aunt and uncle's home and… You Know Who killed you…"

"Right. Well, no." Harry moved past Parvati and headed back toward the compartment he shared with Hermione and Ron. Things were some semblance of sane with his two friends, at least.

Parvati ran after him and put her hand on his shoulder. Harry stopped and turned to her.

"I'm glad you're not dead," she said softly.

"Uh… thanks."

"Someone else said, someone who said you hadn't been killed, that you wouldn't be coming back to Hogwarts…"

"Shouldn't be, you mean," a third voice joined theirs. Unmistakable. Harry and Parvati turned to the bleach blonde head poking out of the nearest compartment door. Draco Malfoy. Parvati scowled and stepped away as though the Slytherin was oozing puss. Harry wanted to groan. Bloody perfect.

Draco Malfoy was thinner, taller, and his features seemed even sharper than last year. He looked cast of iron, the edges still ungrounded, ugly, and near as like to cut you for coming too close. If possible, Draco looked perhaps even paler, his nearly-white hair longer and the most unkempt Harry had ever seen the prim and proper Slytherin allow himself to appear. He was rangy in an indulgent prince manner… and just as unsavory.

Draco leaned arrogantly out of his compartment and gave Harry a good up- and-down. "My my, Potter, someone thinks himself quite the stud. Doesn't change your being a complete freak, of course. Think if you make yourself pretty enough the Dark Lord will keep you for a boy toy rather just off and kill you?"

"You would know all about that, wouldn't you, Malfoy?" Draco sneered. "You're pretty cheeky for a dead man."

Harry glanced at Parvati, "No, actually, we just established that I wasn't dead."

"Now that You Know Who's come back, you'll be the first on his list. Being the bleeding heart you are, I'd expect you to stay away from Hogwarts to save these weaklings. I mean, if you're his target, you'll just be bringing the Dark Lord to the school if you're there."

"You're awful," Parvati hissed.

Draco chuckled. "I'm just not worried myself. He'll only kill the mudbloods and mudblood-lovers, and I'm neither."

Parvati turned, disgusted, and pushed past both boys to stomp off down the train corridor, jet black hair swaying.

Draco looked after Parvati. "Don't think she has the stomach for this kind of thing, you know. None of them do. And here you go bringing it right into Hogwarts. Tisk, tisk, Potter." "Shut your face, Malfoy."

Draco stood upright… and looked incensed when he wasn't as tall as Harry.

"Or you'll what, Potter? Hex me?"

"No, I'll sic Hermione on you. How's your nose, by the way?"

Draco seethed, looked like he might spit, then slammed back into his train compartment. Harry glared at the closed door then started back to his own.

When he cracked open the door to the compartment that he shared with Hermione and Ron, he had to pause a moment at the scene found within. Ron had taken all the chocolate frog cards from all their boxes and was going through them, laying them out in piles. Hedwig was still swaying sleepily to the rhythm of the train on the bench down from Ron. Crookshanks had curled up underneath his and Hermione's bench, a purring gingerball.

Hermione was lying lengthwise on the seat, asleep.

Harry smiled faintly, despite himself, and moved into the compartment. He went to the bench and looked down at Hermione, then he fetched a blanket from the carriage rack overhead and spread it out over her. When he was finished, with an extra tug to bring it around her shoulders and a moment to brush an errant strand of hair away from her cheek, he moved over to the bench and squeezed down between Ron and Hedwig. Hedwig stirred, looked at him, and stepped up on to his thigh for some attention. Harry's hand came up and petted his owl.

Ron looked up from his frog cards, looked over at Hermione… and for a moment he looked constipated.

"All right there, Ron?" Harry asked in a hushed voice so as not to wake Hermione.

Ron shook his head, face contorted. He looked rather like he was sitting a test that he'd not studied for… which was most of them. He scratched at his nose, scowled, then said oddly, "Hey, Harry?"

"Yeah, Ron?"

Ron glanced over at him, his expression remarkably schooled for Ron.

"Hermione didn't get any letters from Viktor this summer, did she?"

"Krum?" Harry puzzled over the question. Why in the world would Ron care if Krum had written Hermione?"No."

Ron nodded, gave a grunt, and turned back to his frog cards.

Harry was perplexed. He studied Ron a few seconds, then glanced at Hermione still sleeping soundly, then at last turned his attention to Hedwig. She blinked up at him, golden amber eyes wise perhaps, but if she had any insight this time she kept her council. Harry brought up his second hand to stroke her breast feathers, and the owl hooted softly and nibbled on his fingers.

Harry glanced out the window of the moving train. Night had fallen. It made Harry remember just how little sleep he'd gotten himself the night before.

He began to look forward to his old bed in Gryffindor tower.

He dropped his head back against the seat cushion and let his eyes drift shut. He ended up dozing off to the sound of Crookshanks purring, the train wheels thrumming, and Ron sorting through a batch of chocolate frog cards.

Arriving at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardy was like looking into a twisted mirror of Erised. On first glance it looked as it should, everything seemed in place, but suddenly there, and there… moments out of place, things not as they once were. Students were bustling through the GreatHall, cheering the first years being sorted into their houses, tearing into the feast laid out over the long house tables… but in the normal there were shocks of wrong. Reminders. A silence held too long, a sidelong look toward Harry, a passing of fear behind young eyes, a gradual but steady shifting away from where Harry sat at the Gryffindor table. Hints of the death everyone could not forget, though they fought so valiantly to pretend it had nothappened.

Harry was the only reason it couldn't disappear, so they'd let him carry the burden of Cedric and Voldemort and leave them children.

Harry hadn't known what to expect when he returned to school after the Triwizard Tournament. Hermione had spent a summer being so considerate and supportive that he almost fooled himself into thinking it would be like that with everyone. But it was folly, because he was a black stain on the occasion. He'd returned as he left, a receptacle of the ugly and undesired.

Harry sat at the Gryffindor table sandwiched between Ron and Hermione, his buffers. He appreciated them immensely for that. From his place of safety, his zone of acceptance and diehard friendship, he looked around the table at his classmates. He was not the only one to return looking different. Many of his classmates had grown. Some were thinner, some were fatter. Hair was different, some voices had changed, faces were painted for the fresh start when possibilities were as high as the enchanted roof. It was like a room full of masks. Harry felt oddly detached as he watched the farce, the façade of untroubled youth that swirled around him like a masquerade ball. They knew it was fake but they were all so convinced, spurred to believe by acts of desperation alone, that they didn't remember they were acting a part.

And they had the nerve to look at him like he was the problem, the thorn in all their sides. If only they had a chance to see the real thorn, the real blackness over their days. They'd really forget about Harry Potter then, because who would spare a shred of hatred at a boy in the face of Lord Voldemort?

Hermione was close beside him, her arm looped through his, clinging to his forearm as though she'd leaned in to whisper a secret and forgotten what it was… as well as forgotten to move away. Harry owed her a vault-worth for the calm that brought him as he sat in the eye of a storm no one would acknowledge.

Then Dumbledore stood and broached the unspoken, spoke to their collective peril, the dangers that would await them in the future. And then there was a new target. Fear and shock and hate focused on the headmaster, because he dared to speak of it, dared to make it real, had the audacity to tear from them their tissue paper veil of fine. Harry both pitied and was grateful to the headmaster for his act. Dumbledore met his eyes across the room and gave him the barest of nods, a small awareness that, of all of them, this year would be hardest on him, and Harry was more than ready forbed.

As the students filed out of the Great Hall, first years clumped anxiously behind prefects, Harry, Hermione, and Ron lagged behind the rest. The rest of the Gryffindors hurried toward their tower. It was conveniently contrived so that no one noticed, and of course did not do it intentionally, as Harry was left to drop back and out of sight. Hermione slipped her hand into his and walked close at his side. Ron dragged his feet on Harry's other side. Even Ron, the king of oblivious, had noticed a mood among the other students. A disquiet. They were a silent trio, Harry walking with his taciturn red-haired friend to one side and his hand holding Hermione's on the other.

When they reached the common room, when the sphere of interaction forced a more personal approach, their classmates were less transparent. Fellow Gryffindors came up to Harry and asked him about his summer, told him he looked well, commiserated about the impending term sure to be horrendously homework-ridden. In the end, there were only a few well and fully rattled Gryffindors who didn't live up to the courage of Godric Gryffindor and greet Harry kindly and welcome him back. Though it was forced and a little tense, it was affirmation that Harry was still one of their housemates, even if he was the perceived reason they had to grow up faster than theyought.

And as Harry sat on the couch next to Hermione, her hand still firmly tangled with his, Ron showing off his Hungarian Horntail battle scar to suitably impressed classmates, he thought 'so, this is how it's going to be'. He glanced at Hermione to find her watching him, her eyes full of fierce loyalty and compassionate understanding, and he remembered their late night words. 'It won't be the same when we go back.' No, it wasn't the same, but then, they'd known it wouldn't be. This was the new normal, and while it may improve or worsen day by day, wax and wane as teenage worlds did, if this was the baseline he could live with it.

Chapter Twenty four

Original Author Notes -

A/N: I thought I should comment on something here, because it really is my error. I know it might sound too outlandish to believe, but I completely forgot about prefects for fifth year. Totally slipped my mind. I write this because it only makes sense that at least Hermione would be madea prefect, but I didn't think of it. And since I'm already on page 370 of this story it's too late to go back and work that in. So forgive me thisoversight.

Also, another small note as there seems to be some confusion. This story took the HP verse in a completely different direction after fourth year. OotP has no bearing in VC; you may as well throw that book and HBP out the window as far as this fic is concerned.

"Trevor! You bloody little… get back here!"

"Oiy, Dean, crack the window if you're going to do that, mate! Christ, no more kidney pie for you!"

"So wasn't me, you daft prat. Ron did it."

"I did not!"

"Someone open the window!"

"Don't even think about it! It's the worse out there, remember? Ugh!"

"Harry! Come on, get going, it's nearly eight already!"

Harry pulled his pillow over his head, and pressed it to little avail over his nose, and tried to block out the sounds of his roommates. The morning of their first day of classes dawned like so many others over the years at Hogwarts. The brink of chaos, disarray, and a dash of rough and tumble lest anyone forget the room was shared by five young, boisterous boys.

Only a day, and already Harry longed a bit for the quiet, calm mornings at the Grangers'.

Last night, when students finally began to leak out of the common room and up to their beds in the wee hours of the morning, Harry and Hermione had been the last to go. They had stayed together on the couch, sitting side by side, until the crowd had thinned down to just them. The peace had been more than welcome, and Harry had finally felt able to relax, beyond the sight and judgment of everyone save Hermione. He'd lingered downstairs with her as long as he could, but finally her conscious got the better of her and she shoved him toward the boys' dorm and left for her own. After all, school began the next morning and she was the eternal student.

When Harry reached the room he'd shared with Dean Thomas, Seamus Finnegan, Neville Longbottom, and Ron for four years, he found the other boys having a small-scale version of the hubbub downstairs. A bag of Bertie Bottz's Every Flavor Beans was involved, and his companions were tasting and hooting and gagging and laughing like teenage boys. Like untroubled, safe teenage boys. They'd offered Harry what looked suspiciously like a rotten-egg-flavored bean, but Harry had begged off, claiming exhaustion, and as the little dorm room reunion raged on he changed into pajamas and crawled into his familiar bed.

And he listened. He lay on his side facing the window so they wouldn't see him awake, but Harry listened to his friends, his roommates of so long, being so normal in spite of everything. He wanted so desperately to join them, to cast off the weights that sobered him, but he couldn't. He couldn't pretend Voldemort hadn't returned or that Cedric wasn't dead. Maybe if he hadn't seen it himself it would be easier to pretend, to be like his friends and shove it out of his thoughts.

Then again, Hermione had never forgotten and she hadn't been witness to that horror. But when Harry thought about it, Hermione had rarely ever been a child, emotionally or psychologically, when it came down to the bare bones of an issue. There was a place inside her where she was and had always been at least thirty years old. And it had served her, and by association him, well.

Now, as last night, his roommates were ever the same as last year, making it sound so easy to go on business as usual. Harry felt a little heartsick with it all and hugged the pillow tighter over his head to block out the sound. He wanted to go home. To his wearied pang of surprise and longing, that place was his room in Hermione's house. His favorite patch of grass at Avalon. A bench under a tree in a muggle park.

"Harry, you better get a move on or you'll be late," Ron called from across the room. Footsteps marked Dean, Seamus, and Neville's departure from the dorm and journey down thestairs.

Harry pointedly ignored his friend's urging and relaxed in relief at the absence of the others. Their laughs and jeers had been a lance, every little joke and tease another part of a youth he could no longer claim. How they flaunted it without knowing their callous end.

Harry wouldn't have minded skipping breakfast entirely just to spare himself his roommates' behavior on a much larger scale, on a school-wide scale, but Ron's voice, this time much closer, refused him that luxury. "Harry? You all right?"

Harry grumbled and rolled on to his stomach, burrowing his head further under his pillow. Maybe if he came across stubborn and surly enough Ron would go away. He usually did. Ron didn't have that pugnacious stick to it that Hermione did. If he was rebuffed once, strongly enough, he usually withdrew.

"I know he doesn't expect to have a lie in."

Harry could have groaned. Hermione. There went all hope of being left to hide in the covers of his bed.

Ron seemed uncharacteristically flustered. "Wha? Oh, um… dunno, he won't get up. You imagine he's all right?"

A short silence then Harry's bed dipped with added weight. Hermione's voice was right above him. "He's fine." She didn't sound as stern or as put out as she might have taking from her manner at the door. Harry shivered just a little when a hand came to rest on the small of his back. He breathed out.

Suddenly, the day before him didn't seem quite so bad. He still clung to his pillow fiercely, but now more for the play of it. "Five more minutes," he pleaded, his voice muffled by his pillow.

Hermione snorted and Harry smiled into his mattress.

"Get your lazy arse out of bed and get down to breakfast." She patted him on the back, closer to his shoulders, and got off the bed. Harry was already primed to go along right after her, as though she'd transferred some form of kinetic energy into him with her tap, a reaction following an action.

Instead he grumbled but moved to obey. When he looked about the room after pulling out from under the cover of his pillow he saw Hermione leaving and Ron standing there looking at him with a decidedly queer look on his face.

"You heard her, to breakfast with us," Harry rolled out of bed and hurried to get dressed. Ron stared, puzzled, a few more moments then left to catch up with Hermione while Harry changed into his robes.

The Great Hall was packed by the time Harry arrived, still straightening his tie and combing his fingers through his hair. He spotted Hermione and Ron sitting together and made quickly for them. Ron had taken the spot next to Hermione, which left Harry to plop down on Ron's other side. If there had been a reaction to his arrival from all the rest in the Great Hall, Harry took great effort not to notice it.

Once Harry was seated, Hermione leaned forward to speak across Ron, "I won't have to train Crookshanks to wake you, will I?" The hint of a smile played across her lips, a twinkle in her soft brown eyes.

"And have that foul-tempered pest in our room every morning? No way," Ron retorted. Hermione gave Ron a scowl as Harry bit into a piece of toast and jam. Ron frowned at Hermione's sharp glare and cleared his throat. "Well, he's a mean one, he is. Don't fancy a bite and a scratch to start the day, do you, Harry?"

"Crookshanks likes me just fine, just you would need worry about getting bitten."

Ron grunted grumpily and tucked into his breakfast.

"Hi, Harry."

All three looked up to see Ginny sit down across from them. She had her long red hair twisted and pinned along the nape of her neck like the dragon- keepers again. Her blue eyes were fixed on Harry, as was her beaming smile, and Harry gave an uncertain, half-hearted semi-smile at the overt greeting from Ron's once-shy and tongue-tied sister. "Uh, hi, Ginny."

Ron frowned and grumbled, "Shouldn't you be sitting with your friends?"

Ginny took a piece of sausage off his plate, to his strangled protest. "Aren't you three my friends, too? Well, two of you in any case." She looked again at Harry… then slid a rather purposeful look in Hermione's direction. The two girls met gazes then backed off at a draw. "I wonder who the Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher will be this year. I didn't see anyone new at the feast last night, didyou?"

"No," Harry recalled, "I didn't."

"Maybe they're still trying to fill the position. It's always been a difficult one to staff," Hermione offered.

"Maybe they finally gave it to Snape," Ginny mused as she chewed.

Ron snorted. "And maybe Dumbledore decided to retire from being headmaster of Hogwarts and join the Chudley Cannons."

Harry smirked at the mental image.

The four of them resumed their breakfast only to be interrupted by Professor McGonagall moving down the Gryffindor table handing out class schedules.

When she reached their place at the table, Harry, Ron, Hermione, and Ginny put down their food to study their schedules. Ginny jumped up to scurry off and compare with her friends in her year. Harry, Hermione, and Ron perused their own.

"They've really cut down on Care of Magical Creatures," Hermione noted, "only twice a week. Poor Hagrid."

"Forget Care of Magical Creatures," Ron blurted, "you see this? Defense Against the Dark Arts every day and then twice on Tuesday and Friday?! That's Defense Against the Dark Arts seven times a week! What the bloody hell is up with that?"

Harry was studying the same double-course on his schedule in pensive silence. Hermione ended up voicing his own thoughts. "Maybe with You Know Who come back Dumbledore wants us to be better prepared for… anything."

Ron swallowed heavily and went tensely silent.

From a few places over at the Gryffindor table they heard Neville moan piteously. "Oh no! Extra Defense Against the Dark Arts and Potions every day of the week! And no Herbology! Oh, I'm going to fail!" He sounded truly distraught and the three exchanged sympathetic looks.

Hermione tucked her schedule into her pocket."Come on, we best go get our books forclass."

Harry and Ron, still boggling over their schedules for the year, followed Hermione out of the Great Hall.

Harry was sandwiched on a stool between his two best friends in the potion master's dungeon classroom waiting for the teacher to arrive. Harry was none to happy with the timing of this particular class, but Ron to his left was (predictably) far more vocal on the matter.

"This term's cursed already. Potions first thing right off." He slumped miserably over his dauntingly large Potions' text book, which smelled suspiciously of sweat of harpy and toad's breath. They all had the bitter smell, such that the boys in Harry's dorm tower had all decided to leave their Potions books outside on a conjured window ledge. When Ron sagged in dejection and it brought his nose nearer his book his face screwed and he shoved the malodorous tome aside, nearly off the table completely.

Harry rather agreed with Ron, but Hermione on his right leaned in and for a second he couldn't rightly remember why Potions was so wretched.

"Really, Ron, you oughtn't to complain so much, Potions is a really important subject to learn." Harry glanced at Hermione's insanely close face. With her leaning into his shoulder to talk across to Ron, he caught a whiff of her hair and there was the threatening of that stomach lurch he'd become quite prone to… although it seemed with the rather pungent smells in the Potions room the stomach lurch couldn't be brought to full strength by such a small hint of reprieve.

Ron scowled across at Hermione a split-second, then his face turned an odd color, his shifted up in his seat, and his voice was remarkably brought to heel when he answered, "I'm just saying it's a bad sign for the term, is all."

Harry left puzzling over Ron's odd behavioral shift to quip, "Nope, best save that for Trelawney." Ron smirked.

Hermione leaned back away withahuff."I cannot believe you two signed up for Divination again this term. You both know it is absoluterubbish."

Ron had something to say about that, too. "It's an easy course. You make up some dreams, fake some shapes in sludge at the bottom of a tea cup, come up with a few ways for Harry to die…" Ron stopped short and a sharp tension seemed to knife its way into the conversation.

Hermione gasped softly, and Harry could see she had momentarily stopped breathing. Harry felt it only as a coldness in his chest, a heavy, icy weight. And it had been so normal up until that moment.

"Sorry, mate," Ron said awkwardly.

Harry gave a lop-sided,half-asssmile."No worries. I imagine thisyear that's all we'll need to do to get top marks in that class. No doubt Trelawney's been working at it all summerholiday."

Ron gave a chuckle, but it was short and poorly faked. Hermione opened her Potions book and flipped through it for something else to focus on. With every page she turned a little breath of sweet, flowery smells wafted past Harry. He'd have to ask her what she did to her book to get rid of the awful odor.

The door to the classroom at their backs banged open and conversation in the room came to an absolute halt. Professor Snape, disagreeable and surly as ever, swept into the room, but rather than head straight for his desk at the front of the classroom, he stopped at the back row of tables and held out his hand. "Your Potions books."

The students on the back table, baffled, passed their smelly books over to the teacher. Snape took it, held it before him as though inspecting the cover, then gave it back with a sneer and glower. When he finished the last row he moved up one and did the same. Again, queer looks and uncertain obedience from the students.

When he reached the table where Harry, Hermione, and Ron sat they, too, gave Snape their books. When Snape held up Hermione's he snorted. "Well done, Miss Granger." Only Snape could manage to make a compliment sound so insincere and condescending. "I might have expected you would figure it out." With nary a further glance he returned the flowery bookto Hermione. When Harry reclaimed his own book he set it down and sat back from it as far as possible.

By the time Snape reached the front of the room he looked thoroughly disgusted. He turned to the class with a sour scan of the confused faces of his students.

"It would seem that among the lot of you Miss Granger was the only one who saw fit to actually do something effective about the horrible smells your books are emitting. They were made that way to test you, and I am not surprised to say all but one of you has failed the first assignment."

A murmur of disgruntled protest rose and fell just as quickly. Snape scowled at them and crossed his arms. "I will credit some of you with what appeared to be pathetic attempts at masking charms, smell inhibitors, and even dung bombs to try and overcome the stench. If you had only bothered to research in the books that were right in front of your affronted noses, you would have discovered the chapter detailing the daffodilis potion was entered into the book with the last ingredient missing. Miss Granger, since you were the only one who bothered to open your book and figure it out, would you tell your mentally challenged classmates what you did?"

Hermione glanced sideways at Harry with aguiltyshrug."I… the daffolidis potion in chapter twelve was missing the last ingredient, foxglove. I found the ingredient list for the daffodilis in the index, and it was complete there, but in the chapter where it was detailed how to combine the ingredients to complete the potion, foxglove was missing. I simply wrote in foxglove where it belonged and the book stopping smelling horrible and started smelling like flowers."

"Exactly." Snape looked particularly disappointed with his house students holding their noses to his left. "Five points to Gryffindor." Snape turned and marched to his blackboard.

Ron whispered under his breath, "I bet he pulled something doing that."

Harry smiled bitterly.

Hermione leaned in again to Harry and whispered, "I'm sorry, Harry, I would have told you had I known Professor Snape was going to…"

"Miss Granger," Snape interrupted smugly, "my rules have not changed from last term, no talking during class. Five points from Gryffindor,"

Hermione snapped her mouth shut and sat up straight.

Ron said even lower, "Well, it was nice while it lasted."

Hermione shot a look in Ron's direction but didn't dare speak again.

Harry sighed, and while Snape began to outline the objectives for their present term he flipped to chapter twelve and took up his quill, anxious to write in 'foxglove'.

Chapter Twenty Five

When Gryffindor's fifth year students filed into the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom, everyone was looking around eagerly for their new teacher. Since breakfast who would be the new Defense teacher had become an oft- mentioned topic of conversation. There were murmurs of curiosity and speculative glances when they found themselves the only ones in the classroom. The teacher had not yet arrived.

Harry, Hermione, and Ron were the last ones to enter the room. There was already a buzz of talk between the Gryffindors and Hufflepuffs who had preceded them. The three of them stopped just inside the door and gave each other looks.

"Well," Ron mused and leveled a measuring look at Hermione, "suppose Hermione has the right of it and we don't have a teacher for Defense yet?"

Hermione now seemed far less convinced of her own supposition. "They wouldn't schedule it for us if we weren't to have it, would they?" The class- full of students were moving around and chatting. Every once in a while a paper ball was launched across the room. There was no sign of a teacher to bring the class to heel.

"Maybe one of the other teachers is going to sub in until we do have a Defense teacher," Harry said as he repositioned his bag over his shoulder.

"Has the state of education degraded to the point where I have to teach you how to find your seats?" a coarse male voice intoned from close behind the three friends.

Harry turned and jumped back quickly when he came face to face with Mad- Eye Moody's mismatched eyes… one brown and squinty, the other magical, enlarged, and electric blue. Harry, in a split second, remembered watching that very face melt and bubble and contort to reveal Barty Crouch Junior. His right arm ached like a flash-fire, a hint of the way it had burned when last he stood facing this man. He heard Hermione suck in a breath and grab his arm. Ron scuttled away from Moody just as the rest of the classroom went deadlysilent.

Moody studied Harry through his normal brown eye while the magical one rolled to focus on Hermione, then Ron, then the rest of the classroom. The brown one stayed on Harry, and it seemed to look right through , recollecting himself, tried to stand unflinching before him, but this man had betrayed him. The last time he'd seen that face, it had been speaking of the Dark Lord's return and how much of a pleasure it would be to kill the nuisance that was Harry Potter.

Moody grunted like grumpy bear. "Sit down, all of you, and hold your tongues." Moody clumped past the three stock-still friends and headed for the head of the class. All the students milling around quickly found stools and obeyed the professor. Harry moved toward a table in the back, Hermione still attached to his arm, while Ron slunk over to a seat like a fearful dog.

At the blackboard Moody swung around and looked at the faces staring back at him. "I guess you're expecting some speech about how delightful it is to see all your smiling faces again."

No one was smiling. Moody was well aware of it.

"Well, you'll get no such thing. During the summer holiday I was working with the Aurors in the ministry on improving the obliviate memory spell and took one right between the eyes." Moody pointed shortly to his forehead and his magical eye whirled. "Wiped the entire last term from my memory, so I don't remember a single one of you. End of story. As such, we're starting fresh this year, because you're still a lot of sorry wet children to me. And if we repeat lessons from last year, you'd do well to impress me with everything you already learned. If you impress me enough, we'll move on to a different lesson. If you never impress me, then we'll be working thrice as hard to fix into your skulls how important Defense Against the Dark Artsis. Understood?"

A meek chorus of consents went up from the students. Harry only stared at the professor. It had finally settled into his mind that this was the real Mad- Eye, not Barty under the effect of the polyjuice potion, but it was still disquieting to look on him after last year's events. He still remembered Moody asking about the graveyard, about what it was like standing in the presence of Voldemort…

Hermione was still holding on to his arm, and it was a grounding touch that kept Harry from feeling completely out of sorts. Instead he merely felt like he'd just got a jinxed broom under control. It wasn't bucking under him anymore, but his brain was still rattled.

Moody paced back and forth in front of the class, his strides hitting the floor in an uneven 'thump, clomp'. "This year above all others your aptitude in Defense Against the Dark Arts will be crucial. With the return of Voldemort," a few gasps and whimpers went up around the room, "your ability to master the spells, counterspells, and defenses to protect yourself against dark magic may soon be tested.

Harry could almost see the ripple of fear that swept through the class in a wave of stiff spines.

"You'll be getting classroom instruction in Defense Against the Dark Arts every day. You can expect extensive, difficult homework assignments and even harder exams. I'll hear no belly-aching about the workload, because the application of what you will learn is far more harrowing an ordeal than any essay I can assign you.

"You'll also have practical Defense Against the Dark Arts twice a week. You will practice the techniques, spells, and principals discussed in class during these additional lessons until you're chanting them in your sleep. Also, the practicals will be led by a different professor each time. Every professor in the school will instruct you, whether you have their class or not. They will teach you how their subject of expertise can be made to work in defense against the dark arts. Any questions?"

A lone Hufflepuff raised a tremulous, uncertain hand. "Yes?" Moody asked sharply.

The girl dropped her hand quickly, glanced around, then said, "Professor… so it's… it's true that You Know Who has returned?"

"Dumbledore said as much end of term, didn't he?"

The girl swallowed. "Well, yes, he did, but… well, since then there's been not a word about it in the Daily Prophet, and my mum and dad said…"

Moody scoffed in derision. "The Daily Prophet. Are you taking your information from the greatest wizard of our time and your headmaster to boot or that rumor-mongering rag?" When the girl seemed to go pale at the rebuff Moody turned to the whole class in general. "First lesson in Defense Against the Dark Arts; never underestimate dark wizards or dark witches.

You want to stay on top of danger, believe the worst. It'll save your life sooner than allowlng yourself to be lulled by reassuring lies.

"And why hasn't there been word in the Daily Prophet about You Know Who or the ministry's efforts to fight him? I'll tell you, but first, answer this.

What do you have to do to get a copy of the Daily Prophet delivered to you every morning?"

A silence reigned before Seamus answered cautiously, "Subscribe and pay the delivery owl a knut?"

"Exactly! And what would a Death Eater have to do to get the Daily Prophet delivered to him every morning? The exact same thing. Easy as that. You want the Daily Prophet to detail every step of the ministry's war efforts against You Know Who? Why don't we just deliver our plans for defense and counterattack into the hands of You Know Who himself?"

"But they…" the girl from before sounded more and more like a mouse, "but the ministry is doing something, trying to kill You Know Who?"

"They are and have been since the end of the Triwizard Tournament." Moody whirled on the rest of the class, "And what have all of you done during the summer to prepare yourself to face this danger?"

Hermione's fingers dug deeper into Harry's bicep… his stronger, bigger bicep. Harry sat up straighter and he set aside his discomfort to attend to Moody as only someone who would not coddle them. These were the kinds of words only he and Hermione had braved to speak during the summer.

Until now, it had seemed they had been the only ones who realized what it meant. This was what he'd needed since last night… affirmation, acknowledgement, action.

Moody's magical eye rested on every student in turn, like an inquisitor judging their misdeeds. "You all were told the truth, you knew the threat… so what have you done, eh? Let no news be good news, let your parents assure you there was no reason to worry and wave you off to bed with akiss and a cookie? Well, worry. Worry a lot, because Voldemort is back." Moody scowled at them all, but Harry was oddly comforted by the gruff, blunt demeanor. "The last time You Know Who cut his swath of destruction through the magical world hundreds upon hundreds of witches and wizards died." Hermione's grip on Harry's arm became bruising. "My job is to hammer into your soft brains all I can, all I've learned from a career as an Auror dealing with dark magic every day, and maybe if you pay attention to what I tell you, and to what your other professors tell you, you'll live to see the death of Voldemort instead of falling before hiswrath."

A strange ferocity stirred in Harry at the words. He glanced at Hermione and saw a similar resolve, a similar stony determination, burning in her eyes.

They'd known every word from Moody's mouth before he'd spoken it, they'd vowed it already over the summer to one another. For the first time since returning to Hogwarts, they felt they'd found a place where that end could be served.

"Now open your books," Moody barked, and everyone jerked and hurried to do as bade.

Moody's class was sobering. He did not allow anyone to believe that You Know Who's return was a fairy tale or a lie. For the hour they were in his class it was irrefutable fact. No one had the nerve to challenge Mad-Eye, and by the end of class, when students were filing out to go to lunch, Harry noticed the looks his classmates were turning his way were different. They were too recently cowed and lashed by Moody to still blame Harry for their disquiet. Moody put it back on Voldemort, where it belonged, and Harry detected an immediate shift in his peers. The looks cast his way now were sorrowful… Harry had been forced to face that monster of a wizard, as he had once been at the dark wizard's wand as a baby. Some were scared… it was an immense thing for a then-fourteen-year-old boy to best the darkest wizard of their lives for a second time. It was one time more than most witches and wizards had the opportunity to do. Some students could not grapple with the idea that Harry had managed to survive. Others, though far fewer, seemed almost grateful to him. His escape meant there was warning of the danger simmering in the dark shadows of their world. They were allotted this time to prepare and study and work their asses off because Harry had brought them word of Voldemort's return. The memory of Cedric's death, his absence in the halls this term, was a final seal of veracity and reality on the issue. Maybe they could believe it a lie, but that left a student's body to explain. As long as they were under Moody's watch, it was useless to argue. It was Voldemort's doing, and given half the chancehe'd do it again to everyone in the room.

"Potter," Moody called before Harry and his friends could leave. Harry looked toward the professor, at Hermione and Ron, then ticked his head in silent direction and moved toward the front of the classroom. Hermione and Ron followed as the room emptied.

Moody was directing the erasers to clean the board and turned to Harry... and set a heavy scowl upon his face when he saw Hermione and Ron. With a flick of his wand the classroom door slammed shut and closed the four of them in alone together. Only then did the professor speak. "So I assume you two already know?" he spoke to Ron and Hermionedirectly.

Ron shrank back a little from Moody, but Hermione stood at Harry's side, chin up in a show of strength, and she said, "About Barty Crouch Junior? Yes, we do."

Moody grunted and sat down on the edge of his desk. "Dumbledore told me to expect as much from Potter to tell you two."

Harry was not about to apologize for that. "You lied."

Moody eyed Harry closely. It was almost hard for Harry to remember at all times that this gruff, surly Auror was not the same one he'd dealt with so extensively last year. Barty Junior had done his research on mannerisms and demeanor.

"I did. And do you know why?"

Harry hesitated. It was Hermione beside him who answered, "If the students found out about Barty Junior last year, if they knew it had been him and not you, they'd doubt you. They'd question you all the time, because they'd believed what they thought was you once, and it had been a lie."

Moody let out a dry, cackling bark of a laugh. "Well, now, Dumbledore told me to expect you to be sharp as a tack. You're right. And for that reason, they should continue to believe I was obliviated." Moody reached into his pocket and pulled out a flask. Harry's eyes went immediately to the container and he regarded it suspiciously. Last year, it had been polyjuice potion, the instrument of Barty's ruse that buffaloed them all.

Moody saw Harry's attentiveness. "I like your caution, Potter. Here," he handed the flask to him.

"Take a swallow, see if you turn into me."

Harry took the flask even as Hermione cast him a startled look. It was a fair bet that Moody was toting around a nip of alcohol, and for him to offer it to a student…

Harry met Moody eye to eye before putting the flask to his lips and tipping it back. A splash of firewhiskey slammed into the back of his throat and his eyes watered but he fought to keep from coughing. He swallowed and stoically handed the flask back.

Moody matched Harry's gaze, unblinking and steady. A moment of import passed wordlessly between them, thick and wrought with tension, butvery significant. And for Harry, necessary for him to ever trust Mad-Eyeagain.

Finally, Moody nodded, "Feeling yourself?"

Harry didn't glance down at himself but simply nodded. He knew he wouldn't need to look if it had been polyjuice potion. One didn't transform from drinking polyjuice potion without realizing it.

Moody had passed the test.

Moody took a swig himself and capped the flask, "Yeah, Dumbledore told me you three had taken polyjuice potion before. Gutsy. And for a trio of second years, too. I hope you lot will give me just as much grief, though I'll hardly call that kind of ingenuity 'grief'.

"I'll also expect you all to keep quiet about Barty Junior."

"We will," Hermione answered for them. Ron gave a wordless nod and Harry merely looked Moody straight in the eye.

Moody studied each of them, both with his normal eye and his magical one, then he grunted and rose from his desk. "I understand whenever there's trouble you three tend to be in the thick of it.

Moody turned a penetrating look on all of them. "I won't harp on you for that. Sometimes you find trouble," he glanced at Harry, "and sometimes trouble has a habit of finding you. Remember I'm here to teach you how to get yourselves out of trouble. I'm not a McGonagall or a Flitwick or even an Albus Dumbledore. I'm not here to tell you to hole up safe in your beds and pretend you can live your lives without coming across danger or that you should even try. Sometimes risk is inevitable, sometimes it's part of what makes life worthwhile. Just keep me in mind if you ever find yourself needing help getting out of danger, however you may have stumbled into it."

"We'll remember, Professor," Hermione answered.

"Then off to the Great Hall with you, students weak from hunger won't do any of your teachers a bit of good."

In the Gryffindor common room late that evening, Harry and Ron weresitting before the fire with their History of Magic homework in front of them. Harry was in the armchair to the side of the hearth while Ron was sitting in the middle of the couch directly across from the fireplace, his parchment on one side of him and his book on the other. In his lap were his notes from last year, woefully spotty and unhelpful but Ron was desperate enough to keep hunting for notes he had not taken. Both boys had their robes and ties draped over the back of the furniture, their collars unbuttoned and shirt sleeves rolled up to the elbows. It was getting late and their fellow Gryffindors were beginning to trudge up the stairs to their beds. Harry was halfway done with his History of Magic assignment, the paper's seemingly fated state since the beginning of summer. Ron, on the other hand, had not even started and was fretting over the hour. They had History of Magic first thing the next morning and their summer assignments would be due at the start of class.

"Bollocks," Ron whined as he flipped through his sparse notes furiously. "I just don't know, Harry, this is stupid anyway. Who needs History of Magic? What with You Know Who back, well, you'd think we could all focus on the present, right? So who needs history? This assignment is pointless."

Harry looked up from his partially-finished scroll. "Somehow I don't think a teacher who's a ghost will appreciate the suggestion that we should only worry about the present. Binns might take it a bit personally."

Ron grabbed at his hair and scowled viciously at his parchment. When he brought his hand away his hair was sticking up in wild orange tufts to match his frenzied state of mind. "I just can't be bothered to think about the house elf pandemic of 1284 with the dark wizard running around on the loose." He leaned about against the cushions of the couch and closed his eyes with a frustrated sigh. Harry shook his head and returned to his essay. He wasn't quite to the point of matching Ron's disgust with the assignment, but sleep was starting to look very appealing and he'd just as soon finish his work and get up to bed.

"Oh, Harry, really, and you had all summer…"

Harry looked up and saw Hermione standing near the far end of the couch. Her day robes had been shucked and she wore the pleated skirt and sweater set that went under her regular robes. In Harry's opinion, much nicer than her Hogwarts robes. She was frowning at Harry's last-minute homework with an expression as though she took Harry's failure to finish all his work on time as her own personalshort-coming.

At Hermione's voice, Ron jumped and sat up, his hair still a fright. "Her- Hermione… hey! You… you want to sit next to me?"

Hermione's face quirked strangely. "Umm… okay."

Ron hurriedly moved his book over to the other cushion, crushing his barely- begun History of Magic assignment and looking up at Hermione eagerly.

Hermione, with a quick, questioning look at Harry, sat down and folded her legs beneath her. She examined the scene before her, regarded Ron's rather frazzled if somewhat goofy appearance, and she seemed to address the greater need first.

"How's the homework coming along, Ron?"

Ron's face fell. "Oh, you have got to help me, Hermione. I'm sure to fail if you don't."

"Can't be all that bad, let me see what you've got so far."

Ron pulled his crumpled parchment from beneath his book and handed it to her. Hermione took it, looked at the paper, and her eyeswentwide.

"RON! All you have is yourname?!"

"I'm not smart like you!" Ron practically wailed.

"But you didn't work on this at all the entire summer?!"

"Well, no, I… did I mention there were dragons?"

"What has that got to do with…" Hermione stopped, visibly tried to calm herself, then she handed the paper with Ron's name written across the top. Harry had stopped his work to watch, unable to deny a combination of both amusement and empathy on Ron's behalf.

"Please, Hermione, you have to help me. You helped Harry!"

Hermione looked toward Harry, seemed on the verge of commenting on Harry's own unfinished work, then she stood abruptly from the couch and walked off, headed toward the girls' tower stairs. Ron watched her leave with undeniable panic in his eyes. "Where's she… hey, Hermione! You're… you're coming back, right? Hermione!" Ron turned to Harry. "She'll be right back, right?"

Harry shrugged.

Ron glowered at Harry's unconcern for Ron's perilous academic future. "It's not fair, you know, you had her helping you all summer with yours."

"Yeah, and you took the mickey out of her for it every chance you got, so don't go playing the innocent prat on that one." Harry hadn't expected his retort to be quite so harsh… he'd intended it teasingly. It hadn't come out that way.

Ron, too, seemed taken aback by Harry's brusque comment. He gaped at Harry a moment, then frowned angrily. "Are you on about that again?"

"Just forget it, Ron, I'm just worried about getting my own history assignment done here." A lie, Harry was only marginally worried about his homework, he could probably turn it in as is and scrape out a passing grade, but Ron would understand homework anxiety, and it just might kick them back into the same camp.

It seemed to work. "Oh, right, sorry. Real ugly what homework does to a bloke, isn't it?"

"Sure," Harry mumbled and wrote a few more lines on his scroll.

Hermione returned with the heavy black spells book Harry had come to know well clutched to her chest. When she neared the couch she pulled out a notebook that had been hidden from view, sandwiched between the large book and her chest. "Here, Ron," she sat down again beside him and handed him the notebook while she set the spells book in her lap. "You can use my notes from last year."

Ron grabbed the notebook as a drowning man would a flotation device. "Thank you, Hermione! You're the greatest, really, best friend a guy could ask for. A life-safer, this one, Harry." Ron turned to Harry on the last.

"Yep," Harry answered and winked at Hermione. Hermione blushed and quickly returned her attention to Ron.

"Now, I'll not be bailing you out like this again, so you best finish your homework before the last minute. And start paying attention in class, I mean it."

"I will, I promise. You're wonderful, Hermione." Ron began to trawl through pages and pages of History of Magic notes in Hermione's neat, precise handwriting.

Hermione looked across at Harry and glanced at his scroll unfurling on his lap. "What about you, Harry. Do you need any help?"

"No, I think I'll be all right finishing up. You've already helped me with most of it, anyway."

Hermione smiled, cast a sidelong look at a rabidly reading Ron, and as she sat there her expression grew serious. She ran her fingers absently over the spine of the book, the along the edges of the cover. After a pause she asked Harry, "Think you could spare a few minutes?"

Harry set his quill and parchment aside. "Yeah. What do you need?" Ron looked up from his hunt for information, curiosity mildly piqued.

Hermione was only too aware of Ron's attention to their conversation and it made her hesitate. She chewed on her bottom lip a second. "Could you come with me?"

"Want me to come along, too?" Ron asked merrily, in much better spirits after procuring Hermione's notes.

"No, Ron… you, um… you should work on that essay. Harry?" Hermione gathered the book close to her chest, stood, and gestured for him to follow. Harry got up from the armchair and moved after Hermione. Ron watched after them, a disconcerted expression on his face.

Hermione led Harry to a study table on the opposite end of the common room from the fireplace where Ron was sitting. She turned and sat down on the table, her feet perched on a chair and book in her lap, and Harry stood facing her expectantly. Hermione looked up at him, looked past him to where Ron was watching them both closely, and with a frown she reached forward and grabbed Harry's arm. She tugged. Harry, baffled but trusting, moved a step to the side to stand directly in front of Hermione. When he was blocking Ron's sight of whatever Hermione would do, she let Harry's arm go, withdrew her wand, and cast a silencio around the two ofthem.

Only when that was done did Hermione speak to the reason she had pulled him aside. Then she leaned fractionally closer, despite the silencio, "I need to give you this." She slipped her hand between the pages of the heavy book and withdrew a small piece of paper. Harry took it and read one of the longer spells he'd seen, penned in Hermione's well-familiar hand.

"You'll need to study this," Hermione whispered, leaning in even closer to lower her voice, even if it wasn't really necessary. She leaned so close Harry could smell that damnably lovely shampoo of hers, and her words left brushes of warm air on his hands. "This is the incantation you'll have to say for the change."

Harry glanced down at the parchment. "Well, couldn't I just read it over a few times then take this with me when we… you know?"

Hermione shook her head. "It needs to be learned. You have to know this by rote, because this is the same spell, the latter half of it anyway, that will change you back. It has to be readily recalled even when you're mind has become that of your animagus form. If it's not set strongly in your mind, well… might be a spot of trouble turning into a human again. Once you've made the change the first time your body learns how to do it, you know, once it's been shown how, but the first time each way you have to know the incantation."

"Right, got it. Very important. I'll learn it." Harry started to slip it into his pocket but stopped short and remembered Ron a few feet away, quite possibly watching them.

"Um… Hermione?"

Hermione looked up at him, her face shadowed and softened from the low lighting of the room."Yes?"

"Err… uh, Ron. He might… well, what if he asks why you needed me?"

Hermione's mouth opened a moment, her lips hanging slightly parted as she thought, then she flushed ever so faintly and looked back down at the book in her hands. "Well, I suppose…" she opened the book again and began to flip through the pages. The book readily fell open where a bookmark had been placed. When Hermione pulled it from the pages, Harry realized it was not actually a bookmark. Hermione took out a wizard picture. Even upside down, Harry recognized the photo he'd seen on Hermione's bureau… him and her at the Yule Ball lastterm.

He blinked, surprised, and looked up at Hermione's face. She was looking down at the picture, tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, and blushed. It painted her face with warmth and vulnerability, an oddly provocative combination that made Harry's insides squirm. Not quite a stomach flip, but a kissing cousin. "I went to Colin this afternoon after classes, while you and Ron were down at the Quidditch pitch having a bit of fun… I wanted to see if he still had the negative of this picture. I wanted another copy to keep at school." Hermione seemed to almost reluctantly extend it toward him, "Here… you can tell Ron I thought you might be embarrassed if I gave it to you in front of him."

Harry took the picture and looked down at their likenesses, still as full of smiles and still looking as suspiciously the couple with their arms around one another as they had in Hermione's room. Harry looked surreptitiously at Hermione. "You were going to, what, just have this on your nightstand?" It made him feel a little… tingly in the stomach to think of Hermione having their picture just out on her nightstand like that. Her roommates would see it.

Hermione bit her lip. "Oh, well… I hadn't thought to that part yet, I just knew… well, it's really about the only picture of just us, you know, and I wanted… I thought..." Hermione looked on the borderline of mortified.

"Well, it is a good picture of us," he said, sparing her the embarrassment. Hermione sighed. "It really is."

Harry looked a moment at the photograph, him and Hermione smiling and happy on the steps of Hogwarts main hall. It was the way he'd want to remember them, if and when times got hard. And this year, it seemed those hard times would be soon upon them. In a second, he realized he wanted to have the picture for real, not just slip it back to Hermione when Ron wasn't looking. "May I actually keep it?" he asked. "I could ask Colin to make you another one."

Hermione smiled up at him, and she didn't look as reluctant as he'd expected her to considering the trouble she'd gone to to get it. "Of course you can. I'll bother Colin about another one, you needn't worry about it."

Harry smiled back at her.

"Thanks."

Hermione nodded, closed the book, and stood. Harry moved back half a step but not as far as he could have. When Hermione rose from the table she was brought to stand inches from Harry. The height difference became all the more obvious.

"Well, I'll be off to bed. If you're sure you don't need any help with yourhomework?"

Harry shook his head. "No, I'm almost done, I can take care of the rest on my own."

Hermione nodded, "Then good night, Harry."

"Night, Mione."

Hermione smiled at him, radiant and private all at once, and with a parting flick of her wand she neutralized the silencio and walked off. Harry watched her go then turned back to Ron and the fire. He slipped both picture and spell into his slacks pocket and returned to his friend.

Ron was watching Harry critically. Harry took up his homework again and set to the last of his essay, paying no heed to Ron's pointed stare.

"Well?" Ron asked.

Harry looked up and met Ron's narrowed eyes."What?"

Ron looked toward the girls' dorm. "What was all that about, then?" "Oh, Hermione had something she wanted to give me."

"What was it?" Ron asked quickly.

Harry had prepared the cover story on his way back to the fire, but the stern tone in Ron's voice woke a reciprocal bristle in Harry. "Maybe it was private, did you think of that?"

Ron's brow furrowed. "What could Hermione have to give you that she couldn't show me?"

Harry matched Ron's glower. It felt an awful lot like the first half of last term, when Ron had believed Harry put his name in the Goblet of unnerved Harry and made him more than a bit annoyed with Ron.

"If it was something she didn't want to show you, then it wouldn't be any of your business, would it?" Despite his words, Harry fished into his pocket and pulled out the picture of him and Hermione.

"But since you're so curious, that's what she wanted to give me." Harry tossed it toward Ron. Ron scrambled to catch the picture and looked down at it. His expression went from angry to something else… unreadable and from the looks of it quite nearly painful.

"She wanted me to have it, but after the fiasco between you two at the Yule Ball she thought maybe it would make you feel uncomfortable to be reminded of that stupid dance. Since she ended up in tears because of you and all."

Ron gulped and hung his head. When he returned the photograph, he was visibly brought down a notch. Harry reclaimed the picture and watched Ron's reaction closely, not sure why he'd lashed out but feeling the response from Ron would be important.

Ron rubbed his hands over his face. "Sorry," he muttered, "guess this assignment's making us both a little cross."

"Yeah, guess so."

"Maybe I should just throw in the towel and call it a night." Ron moved to put away his things, Hermione's notes included.

"No, finish," Harry packed away his own things, "Hermione will have a fit if you don't finish that essay now that she's helped you out on it. I'm done anyway." He could throw together a two or three sentence ending on his essay in the morning and manage a pass on the assignment. It seemed a small price to pay to keep the peace with Ron.

Ron sighed but seemed resigned to Harry's recommendation. "Suppose you're right. I'll see you in the morning, Harry."

"Night," Harry said and trudged up the stairs to the dorm room, leaving Ron alone by the fire sweating over his History of Magic homework.