Love is hope: Life after sixth year

I wrote that summary after all. It’s quite extended, that way, it’s a great mind-refresher on what you’ve been reading in those 24 chapters, and for the readers who can’t be bothered with the first fic, and only want to read about seventh year… This is what happened in:

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Love is Hope: Life after fifth year

The summary

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It starts with Hermione pondering over anticipating her OWL results and Harry’s behaviour through fifth year. She especially worries about how he’s dealing with the loss of Harry. Aside from that she also questions her own usefulness. She had always tried to compensate her insecurities with learning as much as she could. Finding joy and security in knowledge had not been enough since she’s been best friends with Harry and Ron, though…

She especially condemns herself for her foolishness right before Dolohov injured her at the end of the last year. Hermione tries to reunite the knowledge of war bringing pain and destruction, with the feelings she keeps under wrap. Losing Sirius has been tough on her, and the constant worry she felt for Harry only intensified…

When she receives her OWL results things are about to change for her that summer. Though she promised to stay at her parents house, since they haven’t seen her much, she isn’t as safe there anymore, despite the wards and other protection the Order put around her house. Skeeter had disguised her revenge on Hermione by writing a complementary piece in the Daily Prophet about ‘the smartest witch of the century’, besting a long-lost student Tom Riddle in the OWLs. The article is dripping of sarcasm and full of ‘disguised’ hints on her relationship with The Boy Who Lived.

Though there hasn’t been solid proof of her life being in danger by Voldemort, he had tried to bait Harry before with one of his loved ones. Even if the Dark Wizard was under the impression the prophecy was lost, there was no way of knowing he’d use the real thing this time to lure Harry out of safety. Even if only a select group of people really knew who Tom Riddle was, Voldemort’s pride and hate towards Muggles couldn’t be cast aside as none existent worrisome facts.

This is how Dumbledore comes to their house in Muggle disguise to discuss this danger without worrying her parents too much. They decide to spread the word that the Grangers are on vacation abroad while in fact visiting the English countryside. Everyone, neighbours, Hermione’s friends, except those in the Order, will have no idea that she is still very much on the island, where it much easier to protect her. Dumbledore realises immediately why Hermione chooses that particular area to visit, and gives his sort of silent agreement.

After a lot of planning, Hermione sneaks away for a day, when her parents participate on a nature-walk. On a rented bike, together with Crookshanks, she makes her way to a town called Little-Whining… Surprising Harry, they first talk about mostly OWLs and future academical decisions, until they are driven in a children’s playhouse in the park by pelting rain.

There, things get a little more intimate (not in that way!) and the topic veers to Sirius and the Department of Mysteries. In a dramatic climax Hermione slaps Harry when he cruelly taunts her about wanting to console him, and they share a cry. When Harry confesses his attempt at throwing an Unforgivable and his worries about repercussions, Hermione sets him straight on the fact that a curse like that can’t be performed at first try, and one of the reasons that makes it Unforgivable is the intended emotion behind it to succeed. Last of all she surprises herself with the unacceptable blurt-out that it had just been Bellatrix Lestrange…

After the emotional stuff calms down, Hermione learns that the Muggle-disguised Dumbledore is a regular visitor at Privet Drive this year. How the old Professor manages to free his time like that this summer is a mystery to Hermione, but she’s grateful Harry doesn’t have to learn Occlumency from Snape anymore…

After Hermione has heard everything Harry can tell her about Occlumency, and they’ve gone through Hermione’s snack, they exit the playground and are ‘attacked’ by Dudley and his gang. Hermione defends herself physically, to Harry’s displeasure, and Tonks’ joy, who reveals herself to be Harry’s guard. Before she leaves she gives Harry some notes she had been collecting on anything and everything that could be useful in any situation…

After her visit to Harry, Hermione gets to go home, to leave for the Weasleys. McGonagall was her escort, and she brought a compromise for Hermione. Since Hermione didn’t really want to drop any classes, but she couldn’t combine all the advanced courses with being prefect, she had been at a loss to decide. So when the opportunity presented itself, she grabbed it: she would have to give up prefect duties for sixth year, and have a double course in CoMC, so that in seventh year, she could still be a candidate for the Head Girl position, and have a normal, but full schedule…

Luna had stayed with the Weasleys before her, as Ginny’s friend, which had made Ron mope around (being the only male in the house besides his father, who wasn’t home much to begin with…) Luna was on a vacation with her dad now, and the Weasleys were still digesting the news Percy had sprang on them.

After he’d been sacked and blamed by Fudge, he’d gotten a new job: personal assistant for the Galfadus family. He was engaged to Gertruda, the only daughter of his new boss, but warned his parents and older brothers that they were not invited to the wedding, since the presence of blood-traitors would upset the Galfadus family... As if that wasn’t enough he had filed a case to obtain custody over his youngest brother and sister, under the pretext that they were in peril staying with their parents, because of the association with the Potter boy, and the Order, and also because they rich enough to support them properly. So he felt obligated to secure his siblings’ well-being now that he had the means to do it.

On Harry’s 16^th birthday, Voldemort prepares a cruel gift: 16 newborn Muggles (all born the same day Harry was) had been kissed by Dementors. Despite all of them wanting to get to Harry, he was to stay with the Dursleys, and Ron and Ginny couldn’t get to the Grimmauld Place since that could be playing into Percy’s case… Meanwhile Hermione gets a letter from Krum, reminding her that she hasn’t written since a while, and that she would be safer with him in Bulgaria. Realising she doesn’t like the tone he’s taking in his letters, she sends him a short and polite note that she’s too busy…

When it’s clear Harry’s at the Order’s Headquarters, Hermione gets packed to join him, leaving a slightly peeved Ron behind. Remus is there as ‘guardian’ for Harry, and because of the full moon approaching. Some fools were targeting werewolves as followers of the Dark Lord. Tonks is there, because she’s been hit by a faulty curse, and has to wait for the effects to wear off. This makes her even more clumsy, and act a little as if she were drunk…

Hermione learns then that the Grimmauld Place wasn’t just left to Harry through Sirius’ will; the house itself has accepted Harry as master when Phineas Nigellus alerted ‘the house’ of him being a Parselmouth… Kreacher was ordered by the former Slytherin Headmaster to put a very strong impermeable bulb around the portrait of Sirius’ mother and then to go behead himself…

Though Remus and Harry are doing their best to be teasing pricks, Hermione and Tonks see through their charade and take matters in their own hands. Hermione occupies Harry’s mind with studying, Tonks, however, has been having a much more intense reaction from Remus at her tries to get him to talk about Sirius… Not that she seemed to complaining…

Hermione’s summer continues mostly helping Harry with his potions, at which he’s becoming quite good. Remus and Tonks have a secret ‘affair’ going on, and only Hermione seems to be the one to know, but she knows how to keep a secret. At the Ministry, things keep getting worse, and though Dumbledore didn’t want a change in Minister (that would destabilise the government), the Wizengamot sees it to be imperative. So the Head of Law Enforcement, Madam Bones, is the ‘temporary’ Minister, before elections can be organised.

After this change, a series of court cases are handled, including the demand for custody Percy filed for Ron and Ginny. Hermione is called as a character witness by Percy, since he believes she wouldn’t lie, and would involuntarily slander his parents. When Hermione doesn’t fall for that, Galfadus, who is on the Wizengamot, tries to prove the danger of being friends with Harry Potter, and that by allowing that friendship, Mr. And Mrs. Weasley are bad parents… Again Hermione proves her worth by telling what’s in her heart.

After that case is dismissed, the Weasleys can come and stay at the Grimmauld Place, too. Study sessions with Harry become limited to only one very ambitious project Hermione has embarked on. Because Snape has his hands full since a lot of Death Eaters have been imprisoned again, Remus has had to transform again, every month. Wolfsbane potion is rumoured to be one of the most difficult potions to make, and has the draw-back that it can not be stored… But Hermione is determined to find a way around that… With a bit of help from Harry, she succeeds to get the most tricky part of the potion stored up, so that Tonks would only have to do the finishing touches every month…

The captured Death Eaters are also put through a swift trial, with Neville, Luna, Ginny, Ron, Harry and Hermione’s testimonies… Lastly Umbridge is stripped from al her privileges after her trial. The rest of the summer is spend studying for Hermione, and Harry mostly running of with Ron. They found out she gave her prefect badge in favour of more classes, and Harry, Ron and Ginny are now the prefects for Gryffindor.

The last night at Grimmauld Place, Ginny found out where the boys ran off to, and with the Invisibility Cloak she takes Hermione to see the place. It’s an old Duelling Dungeon of the Black family, transformed in a “boys’ lay-out”, with adventure novels and a brand new flying motorcycle. Later Hermione finds that it was a present from Sirius for Harry’s sixteenth birthday. Browsing the books Hermione finds another ‘interesting’ gift from Sirius, and then the girls are surprised by the arrival of the boys. Harry is dressed in leather trousers with an untucked white shirt and Hermione is struck at how sexy he looks…

The next day it’s back to Hogwarts. Since Hermione isn’t a prefect anymore, she makes her way to the compartments alone. She is stopped by Cho, who delights in reading an announcement from Witch Weekly that Viktor Krum is engaged to a Bulgarian belle. It states she was dumped by Krum because of how she defended her so-called friendship with Harry to the Wizengamot. Along with other ‘niceties’, her amount of OWLs is used against her to insinuate she binds the famous wizards to her with other ‘charms’ than her none-existent beauty…

A little later she rescues Luna from Pansy’s clutches. The Slytherin was saying that the only way Looney could get her Ronald was to kill the Mudblood. Hermione finds the idea that Ron would have a crush on her ludicrous. After the Gryffindor prefects are back, Draco makes his yearly welcoming entrance. After the train ride, the people who’ve seen the ‘veil’ at the Ministry find out they can see the thestrals (the veil is ‘Death’), and after the Welcoming Feast Remus and Tonks are introduced as the DADA teachers…

Classes start with the rumour mill on high because of the Witch Weekly article. Harry stays calm through a lesson of constant taunting from Snape, and Ron wants to get to the bottom of why Hermione never told him she was dumped by Krum. Some weeks into the term, the news of the escape of the Death Eaters reaches them, and it’s then that Ron and Hermione confront Harry about why he doesn’t tell them what’s going on, when he so clearly knows…

Hermione and Ron have no choice but to let it slide, though Hermione figures the only reason Harry would be let in on Order businesses is because he can do Occlumency. In her obsession to learn that too, she abuses the pass Hagrid gave her for the Restricted Section, to read up as much as possible. After the first new DA- club meeting on a Saturday afternoon, she is called to Dumbledore’s office. As a ‘punishment’ for her activities, she is to help Harry become a better Occlumens, by letting him practise Legilimency on her…

When she suspects Harry is taking it easy on her, Hermione gets angry at him. She wants him to do his best, since it is important, and when they return to the common room, her irritation with Harry gets out of hand, and she yells at him for not telling her about Dobby and the hats she knitted last year. Hermione had know since the end of fifth year when a drunk Winky had thrown it in her face…

The next day is the first Quidditch match, against Ravenclaw, with Marietta as new Seeker. After some risky moves Harry rescues her from crashing, and catches the snitch afterwards. The Griffondor’s victory doesn’t help Harry and Hermione, though: a strange irritated tension weighs on their friendship. It comes to a boiling point when after a new Legilimency session Harry finds out she has been to the Black Duelling Dungeon and seen him riding the flying motorcycle.

An oblivious Ron tries to cheer Hermione up by taking her to Hogsmead, and they have a great time. On the way back, though, Ron takes a chance and plants one on an unsuspecting Hermione. After a little bit of drama, Ginny convinces Hermione to talk to Ron, and Ron shows a rare bit of maturity by admitting they aren’t meant to be. After that the tension seems to lift gradually between the trio, although Hermione isn’t sure about how much Harry knows about what transpired between her and Ron.

As the year progresses, it’s time for Christmas Break, and they’re all off to the Grimmauld Place. By accident Harry, Ron and Ginny find out about Tonks and Remus, too, but they agree to keep it secret. As a surprise to Hermione, her parents have been allowed to come to the Grimmauld Place. Everything went rather smoothly with the two Muggles getting to know more about their daughter’s world, except for a rather awkward meeting with Snape. The ex-DE was disgusted by the presence of Muggles. A strange raw magic coming from an angry Harry, who somehow channelled Hermione’s angry powers too, made Snape shake hands with her father anyway, and something strange transpired between Harry and her Professor.

The rest of the Break was spend studying (for Hermione) and teaching the guys to dance. After finding out they couldn’t go stag because they were prefects and would have to open the ball with their dates, they agreed to go Ron-Hermione, and Harry-Ginny, and go their separate ways afterwards… And that’s exactly what they did. Ginny went off with Dean and Seamus, Ron even danced several dances with Luna (who came as Neville’s escort). Harry and Hermione mostly dance out of politeness with friends, and keep to their table for most of the night. They share only the last dance, and some strange feelings come to surface.

A day later, after her first real Occlumency lesson with Harry, they come back to the common room with all their guards down, and inhibitions lost. To Hermione it feels like the solution to an Arithmency problem: so obvious in retrospect… The soft kiss between Harry and Hermione is interrupted by Ron, and Hermione flees to her room, but overhears their conversation. Ron doesn’t seem mad, but Harry seems to regret kissing her, because of the danger it could bring her.

Despite the hurt it brings her, and the logical reasoning that she already is a target to Voldemort, Hermione decides to avoid Harry and spare him the effort of rejecting her. They have a strange dynamic for the rest of the second term: the trio growing closer to Neville and Luna, creating a group of six friends with Ginny. It’s almost too easy for Harry and Hermione to avoid each other. Even during the Occlumency lessons they’re in the presence of Dumbledore.

Around them the world shifts slowly into a great second war, the Ministry trying to put a stop to the many Muggle raids has a lot of casualties. Especially new recruits who haven’t even received the Dark Mark are lost… Hermione has been granted permission to be the Secret Keeper for her parents, who are now invisible to all magical beings except their daughter… Pansy, having lost her prefect badge when Cho denounced her as a peace-offering to Hermione, revels in her ‘evil ways’ but doesn’t act like she’s great chums with Draco anymore. Malfoy Junior is acting darker then usual ever since his father got out of prison and is on the run.

With a cryptic message from Firenze, Hermione is able to perfect the Wolfsbane Potion, which enables Remus to have less painful transformations… Exams creep up on them and Hermione passes her NEWT for Care of Magical Creatures. After a conversation with Ron, in which she confesses having eavesdropped on the conversation months ago between him and Harry, after the revealing kiss Harry and her shared, Hermione sets off around the corridors, thinking about what Ron told her. Oblivious to her surroundings, since she was examining her feelings for Harry, and how she had been lying to herself for a long time, she sees the door to the room of Requirement too late.

Witnessing something she shouldn’t have seen she gets hit by a Memory spell, and as Fortune likes to play with people, it reduces her memory to just after the kiss she and Harry shared, erasing the decision of burying her feelings for Harry from her mind. She was found by Grawp, left to die in the Forbidden Forest. The Memory Charm proves to be not perfect, since Hermione seems remember everything she learned academically those couple of months.

Dumbledore then decides Harry should try to break it with Legilimency, since he knows Hermione’s defences for her mind best… After getting frustrated at each other, and confessing something that shouldn’t get confessed in anger, they share a second kiss, totally opposite from their first. With the high emotions of frustration, anger, despair, and all-round passion flying around, Harry manages to break the Memory Charm without damaging her mind.

After passing out, Hermione finds herself in the Hospital Wing, remembering everything. But she isn’t sure if Harry recognised the voice who called out the Memory Charm. The scene she witnessed was Nott Junior talking to Bellartix’ head in a hearth on the Floo… But Malfoy Junior had been out of sight, guarding… Wanting to warn Dumbledore about Malfoy’s involvement, she sneaks out of bed, only to be ‘captured’ by Draco himself…

Dragging her off-grounds to the Shrieking Shack through the special passage, he’s free to call for reinforcements to Apparate in. Dolohov, Bellatrix and Malfoy Senior appear and start punishing Draco for his inability to shut up the Mudblood, then they turn on Hermione. Before they can finish her off, though, her five friends burst in, and Crookshanks catches the Killing Curse meant for her. A battle ensues. Neville takes out Bellatrix, losing his life in the process. Wormtail, Crabbe and Goyle Sr. arrive, and McGonagall, Tonks and werewolf!Remus.

Duelling stops when Malfoy Jr. regains conscious, and kills his own father in blind hatred and betrayal. Remus has been pierced by the sliver hand from Wormtail, and the wolf had bitten the traitor lethally. Dumbledore appears and saves the day. Crookshank seems to have nine lives, since he’s quite alive after getting hit with the Adava and Neville has chosen to be a ghost.

After all that, more drama comes to light. It seemed that in the middle of interrogating Nott Jr. (Harry had recognised him from Hermione’s mind) Dumbledore had been called away on important Ministry business. Madam Bones had been murdered. It seemed that after fifth year, Dumbledore had known the DE scars were too powerful, and that Voldemort was going to get his captured minions back anyway, so he planted smart tracking charms on those DE’s. Voldemort had just found out about them and organised the attack on Bones as punishment for the months of frustration of failed raids.

Ginny had been transported to the Grimmauld Place immediately, since the only candidate to be Minister had been Galfadus, and he’s still after custody for her through Percy (Ron was of age now), no one can tell exactly why… Luna was to stay at the Grimmauld Place now, too, and she and Ron seem to get closer (friends, for now). The relationship between Tonks and Remus is not as secret anymore, and creates a certain tension…

Harry and Hermione have a special moment on the train ride back, before she has to go with her parents, but they unconsciously make a decision to keep everything under wraps for safety reasons. The love Hermione allows herself to unleash at last, fuels the Hope that everything will turn out alright…

xxx

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