Love is hope: Life after fifth year (the last chapters)

A few months later...

***

Hermione was busy studying for her Care of Magical Creatures NEWT. A lot of time had past since the Ball, and things had happened. The weekend of the ball had been the start of attacks on Muggles; Voldemort used Dementors as well as his Death Eaters. Unlike a decade ago, the Ministry seemed to know much sooner when and where the attacks were taking place.

It was the big mystery on how they could know all that information, since no one would live long enough to be able to lie to Voldemort, well except for Snape, but he was a master at Occlumency. And Hermione didn’t believe for a second that only his information enabled the Aurors and the Order to be at the place of the attack in time to minimise the damage.

It seemed to rub Voldemort the wrong way though, because he started to employ really erratic tactics; one week nothing would happen, and just when they hoped Voldemort had found some other business to occupy his mind with, he struck full force, attacking several places over all England at once.

Soon the memory spells couldn’t contain those happenings from the Muggle world. They first believed it were actions from the IRA or another vindictive terrorist group, now they were guessing it was an obscure cult. Dumbledore had arranged for all families of Muggleborns to have security wards, and Hermione, worried out of her mind, had been permitted to be the Secret Keeper of her parents.

Since the spell didn’t hide them from Muggles, they could go their way as always, and Hermione was still able to contact them with Dante... But no other wizard could find them. She still felt very grateful that Dumbledore had let her do this, since it was by no means an easy spell...

The atmosphere at Hogwarts was tense. Already two Aurors had been killed, Kingsley Shacklebolt had been in and out of the Hospital more times then Hermione cared to count. Bill and Fleur had been attacked once, and they’d barely escaped alive; Fleur had returned to France after that. Hermione didn’t really know what was happening with Charlie, but Mrs. Weasley seemed oddly evasive about him in her letters to Ron and Ginny.

The twins were apparently very busy, not only with their blooming business but with Order tasks also. Hermione couldn’t imagine what the twins input could be, but she didn’t want to tempt them to reveal secrets that could be crucial. Mr. and Mrs. Weasley hadn’t been injured, yet, thank heavens.

Hagrid was walking around exceptionally grave. Though Grawp was still in the Forbidden Forest, it seemed to finally down on him that the little giant would not learn English, nor manners. Since Hagrid, too, was confined to the grounds, for the children’s safety against the dark forest, since the centaurs had made it quite clear that no one was to penetrate their forest, he had taken to melancholy nights, drinking his brew until he passed out.

Firenze was still staying in the school, teaching Divination ‘alongside’ Trelawney. They’d just put 2 hours in the week for Divination, one class with her, another with him. Firenze also had taken to help Madam Pomfrey in the Hospital Wing. Once, when Harry had been banged up after one of his matches, again, Firenze had given her a cryptic message. Later, with it, Hermione had found, without the help of Snape, how she could perfect the Wolfsbane potion, to be a painkiller, too. To make the combination of controlling the wolf’s mind and having a painless transformation, seemed impossible because of the incompatibility of the ingredients needed. But with a, in retrospect simple, change in the brewing method, the combination was harmless. This had as effect of making the potion near impossible to brew correctly, but the werewolf in question wouldn’t be so ill around the full moon.

Tonks was restless, and Lupins features were tenser than ever, despite the better potion. Hermione understood Tonks wanted to go out there more often to fight alongside her colleagues, but she was under strict orders to remain at Hogwarts to help ensure the students’ safety.

Hogsmead weekends had all been cancelled, and the Quidditch trainings were to be held with adult supervision at all times. Gryffindor had won both against Hufflepuff and Slytherin, and got the Cup again. Malfoy had been so angry, he’d snapped his broomstick over his knee, and had to be brought to the Hospital Wing to take care of the wound he’d inflicted on himself.

Speaking of Malfoy, he had contented himself to glares and sneers, and threatening glances, with an occasional warning to watch their backs. But otherwise he kept quiet. It really was quite unnerving. Hermione had even come to think that he was just playing mind games, making them believe he was up to something but just to make them paranoid. She only wished she could believe that theory, so that she could stop worrying.

Parkinson went her merry ordinary way. Not in the least inhibited by her prefect’s badge anymore, she didn’t spare her comments and horrid false rumours. She seemed to have gotten over her crush for Malfoy, since she wasn’t acting like his lapdog anymore. However, she had formed her own little group of Slytherin girl followers.

Rumour had it that there had been a horrible raw dividing the girls in the Slytherin House into two groups. But Slytherins kept their mouths tightly shut about the alleged rift between them. Anyway, the ringleaders would be Parkinson, versus the prefect, Rosalinda Rempinga. But details about what had been the cause or the motivation of the split were not available for truth-seekers.

Of course there had been casualties on the dark side also. Voldemort had finally caught up with Karkaroff, and his dead body had been sent to Durmstrang during lunchtime in their dining hall, creating quite a stir. They hadn’t heard or seen anything of Wormtail, but that was just fine for all of them. The Lestrange brothers had been killed during one of the first Muggle attacks.

Bellatrix, now the ‘Black Widow’, a nickname that seemed to be perfect for her, and Malfoy were the ringleaders of the Muggle attacks. Hermione was curious to know what Narcissa thought of the fact that her husband and her sister were in hiding together, alone... Rumour had it that they were also in charge of recruiting.

Most casualties on the dark side were the new wanna-be death eaters. Most were young, and hadn’t the Dark Mark yet, but were eager to prove themselves. They didn’t only perish at the hands of the Aurors, some were killed by Death Eaters themselves, or tortured into insanity, when they wanted out...

Harry was having a rough time, she knew he somehow felt responsible of Voldemort’s rebirth and that he should do something more then staying out of harm’s way and training students to duel. He studied with renewed vigour, and even Ron didn’t try to dissuade him to have more fun. On the contrary, Ron was studying as hard as possible too, even if he knew he wouldn’t be accepted into Auror training without a Potions NEWT. He and Neville consecrated their efforts on Herbology and Defence instead, so that they could be accepted in law enforcement anyway; after all, it weren’t just the Aurors working in that department.

Ginny went on as if nothing happened, it was her way of dealing, she was their ray of sunshine. Luna seemed to look for their company more often, especially Hermione’s. The girl had a way of growing on her, and Hermione was left guessing why the girl so obviously wanted *her* to accept her as she was. Especially when Luna was a girl who so didn’t care what people thought of her.

The trio was still the core, but was gradually becoming a group of six friends. For Hermione it made some things easier, like not talking about ‘the unmentionable’. The night after the kiss she’d shared with Harry, she had managed to convince herself that it had meant nothing to her, anyway. That resolve had been shattered the second she’d seen him the next morning. But they’d both avoided each other, and with the whirlwind of happenings outside the castle from that day on, they had managed to carry on as if nothing had happened.

This all worked well, as long as they weren’t left together alone. For all the years she had been sincerely baffled at the assumption of people that they would have feelings for each other, she now felt like Fortune’s fool. The more she tried to deny it to herself, the more it burned her. She tried to tell herself that there was no use pursuing these emotions, that it would ruin everything. Ron may have seemed fine with it, and maybe Harry did lo... like her that way, but the risk of loosing both their friendships over this was too enormous to even consider.

She thanked her lucky stars to have such a workload of studying to do, that she didn’t have enough time to ponder on the subject. She also embraced her Occlumency techniques to get some restful sleep at night. Though she knew Ginny was starting to guess what was happening with her, Hermione refused to talk about it, sensing it would make it more real if she did.

Hermione knew Harry and her had to talk about it sooner or later. She couldn’t keep that much inside for many more months, maybe years? Hermione thought about the Hogwarts’ saying: never tickle a dormant dragon... She felt as if that kiss had tickled the dragon awake, and she was now struggling to put him back to sleep. The only problem was, that even if she succeeded in making her feelings dormant, that that wasn’t enough, they’d still be there, they’d still exist...

Ron’s birthday had come and gone, and on special request he and some other students who were of age had gone to the Ministry to get their Apparating license. Harry had been studying to pass the test on his birthday. It nettled Hermione to no end that she wouldn’t be considered of age until September the next school year, while her boys would be doing magic all summer, or in Harry’s case the last half of the summer.

This last month, Voldemort had been remarkably quiet, almost as if he wanted to give the students a break during their exams. It worked out quite the opposite, since she was on edge to know what would come next. Of course she didn’t allow it to affect her work. They’d had their exams and the sixths years were now done. She was to appear in two hours before the NEWT inspectors, with the seventh years...

***

Ron was the only one of their year in the common room, waiting for her when she returned from her NEWTs. She was eager to know her results of the sixth year exams that were coming out that afternoon. Scanning the notice board, she saw most of her grades were satisfactory. She could have done better for Astrology and Ancient Runes, but decided to not let it bother her... too much.

Quickly looking at Ron and Harry’s scores, she was elated to see they had both done very well. Harry had just a passing note for Potions, but Hermione was inclined to believe he probably deserved more. Anyway, it didn’t matter that much, he was permitted to continue Potions next year, and would be tested before a neutral examinator for his NEWT. Harry’s Defence against Dark Arts note was slightly higher then hers, and Neville’s grade for Herbology came close second to hers. Ron didn’t really have peaks in one or the other subject, but his notes were quite high in every subject he’d taken this year.

Plopping down next to Ron, in front of the fire, she felt her muscles relax slowly, a bit painful. Ron asked her: “So it’s done? You’re not going to snap and shout anymore?”

Glaring at the red-head, she had to admit she was kind of a monster during the stressful exam period. But it wasn’t like she could really help it. Ignoring his remark she said:

“I see you and Harry did very well on your exams? Where is he anyway?”

“On another of his meetings with Dumbledore”

Hermione sighed at that, Harry knew a lot of what was going on, but he never betrayed Dumbledore’s trust. It was quite frustrating.

Ron continued: “What’s going on between you two, anyway? I mean, it’s been months now when I saw you two kiss, I thought I might as well go get my best man suit... And then/” He stopped abruptly.

“And then Harry decided it was too dangerous,” Ron looked at her, she shrugged, “So, I accidentally eavesdropped... So we just went on as if nothing happened. And it’s not like we’re both really deeply in love or anything, it was just a fluke, a reaction to everyone always assuming we were a couple”

“Gods, you two are such idiots! I’m out of here, going to find Luna. She may be convinced about some ludicrous ideas, but at least she honestly believes them. And is happy the way it is... That’s more then I can say for my two best friends”

Hermione was quite taken aback by that reaction; shouldn’t he be happy she wasn’t in love with Harry? Or like he said, that she convinced herself that she wasn’t? That brought her back to the greatest question of all: was she really in love with Harry James Potter? She had very strong feelings for him, and she knew she loved him dearly... But was she IN love with him? It seemed so silly. And at the same time it seemed not strong enough a description for what she felt for him...

Aimlessly she left the Gryffindor common room to wander around the castle. When she unwittingly passed the place of the Room of Requirement, she thought she desperately needed some answers, before she noticed a door already there. Unable to reign her curiosity, she opened the door. Only to find a dangerous scene. Before she could react, though, she heard someone yell *Obleviate!* just before her vision turned black.

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