The Sense

Note: Thanks for the reviews. Found some typos, and I will work on that. I've decided, though, that this will end up being a series of maybe 3 stories. Trust me, unless you want a load of crap crammed to the brim with insane plot, it's best I spread it thin. Anyway, I hope you enjoy this chapter and please review. The better I get, the better a story you get to read. It's really a win-win situation here.

Hedwig left, leaving Harry and Hermione standing opposite each other trying to find something, anything, to do with their hands. Who invented these damn appendages, anyway? Hermione had never experienced anything so awkward in her entire life. And that was including when she was 14 and accidentally walked in on her father in the bathroom buck-naked.

"Th-thanks, Harry." Hermione stammered, desperate to break the silence.

"No problem." Harry said uncertainly. Hermione could tell he was still anxious. She could tell it strongly. "So, are you...okay? No headaches or anything?"

"Well, a little." Hermione was then assaulted by the classic Harry "its all my fault" feeling. "Harry, it's not your fault. Stop beating yourself up about it. I'm fine." Hermione thought for a moment. "If it's anyone's fault, it's the wizard who invented Quidditch in the first place. Honestly, how bored does one have to be to charm a bunch of balls to fly around and chase them on a broomstick?"

Harry smiled slowly. He was easing up. "I still feel like dirt though. I have to make it up to you. I will make it up to you."

"Don't be silly. You are not dirt. I should know, I just had my face driven into it a little while ago."

He grinned in spite of himself. The pleasant emotion was back. "Oh, and I wanted to tell you. Dumbledore is coming tomorrow. Order meeting, as well as to start my Occlumency lessons again."

Wonderful. That information beforehand could have spared me a very embarrassing discovery of me talking to an owl.

"Hey, you got a little something on your..." Harry pointed at a streak of dirt halfway between her shoulder and her neck. "Here, I got it." He pulled a rumpled tissue out of his pocket and started gently wiping away the dirt. Hermione was nearly getting drunk off the feelings coming from Harry. She needed to learn how to control this, before she did something embarrassing and stupid like flutter her eyes at him.

"I-I..." Hermione forced herself to say something. "Harry Potter, is that a USED tissue!?"

"What? No, why would I - " Harry inspected the tissue and unrolled it. "Oh..."

Hermione felt Harry's embarrassment. It was like heat coming from a furnace.

"HARRY POTTER, you did NOT just touch me with a used tissue!"

"Uh,,,"

"HARRY!"

~*~

"She was talking to Hedwig?"

"Yeah."

"You do that all the time."

"No, I mean...its was like she was answering her. Like they were having a full 2-sided conversation." Harry shifted uncomfortably.

"Always knew she was mental."

"She's not mental, Ron! I think the fall hurt her more than she's letting on." Harry lay in his sleeping bag on Ron's floor, staring up at their ceiling. They had turned in early, right after supper, so Harry could tell Ron about how strange Hermione had been acting. Throughout dinner Hermione kept flinching or looking nauseous. Several times he had caught Hermione squeezing her eyes shut as if trying to will some kind of pain away. Tonks, who had stayed for supper, noticed it too.

"Hermione? Are you all right?" Tonks had peered at Hermione past Harry and Fred, who were sitting in between them at the table.

"Yes." Hermione had obviously lied. Her face was glistening with sweat. "Um, I'm not feeling well. May I be excused...?" She hadn't waited for an answer. Instead she got up and practically sprinted upstairs, rubbing at her forehead.

"Well, then what do you think is wrong with her, then?" Ron asked tiredly. It was becoming evident that Harry wasn't sleepy. Thus Ron would be up as long as he was.

"No idea. But it's up to us to find out."

"There you go again. Sounding like a bloody hero." Ron moaned. "'It's up to us to find out. Nyah.'" Ron squealed in a high-pitched voice. Harry awarded him with a mouth full of pillow. "Must be cabin fever. No one's tried to kill you for a whole ruddy year and now you're itching to have an adventure."

~*~

"You're doing very well, Harry. Very well indeed." Dumbledore's eyes twinkled. He was pleased with the progress Harry had made in Occlumency on the first day. "I was only able to sort through about 3 of your memories this time around."

"Yeah...yeah, thanks." Harry mumbled wearily. His lessons with Snape in fifth year were nowhere near this tiring but then again he had not been trying anywhere near as hard. It was much easier to work with Dumbledore. Especially outside of school and the stress of classes.

"I think we are finished for this afternoon, but remember to clear your thoughts every night. Someday you will be able to do this unconsciously, but for now you're going to have to make an effort. It is very serious that you do this, I suspect you've noticed the lack of activity from Voldemort and his followers?"

Harry nodded.

"Then you already know that the longer they lay dormant, the worse their plan is. You need to protect yourself, Harry."

Harry nodded again noiselessly. It never left him that if he had learned his Occlumency in the first place, his friends would have never almost have been killed and Sirius might still be...He shut his eyes trying to squeeze the thoughts out of his brain. He was responsible now not just for himself, but for everyone close to him. He knew that now, and he vowed to never ever make that mistake again.

"Ah, Miss Granger. Thank you for coming."

Harry swiveled around to see Hermione standing at the door, looking quite ill.

"Harry..." Hermione started. She had seen all that Harry was thinking and it pained her. "You can't - "

"Harry, would you mind leaving Miss Granger and I for a moment? We have something to discuss." Dumbledore smiled serenely.

Harry looked back and forth between Hermione and Dumbledore. "Oh, yeah...okay then." He walked passed Hermione at the door and met her eyes. "See you later."

"Y-yeah..." Harry left.

"Good afternoon Miss Granger. I believe you wanted to talk to me about...a gift?" Dumbledore retrieved her crumpled letter from his robes and flattened it out.

"Gift? GIFT!? Professor, I can't even look people anymore! Can't be near too many people! Even Harry! I can't even look Harry in the eyes without my head nearly exploding!! Do you know what he's feeling? Do you!? It's been over a year since we went to the Ministry and he still - " Hermione breathed hard, shocked at how she had addressed her Headmaster. "I mean, Professor..."

"It's quite alright, Miss Granger." He sat in a chair and beckoned Hermione to sit in the one facing him. "You sustained an injury to the head, am I correct?"

"Yes Professor."

"And you think your gift stemmed from this injury?"

"Professor, it is NOT a gift."

"Why do you think so?"

"I can't be with anyone anymore! I have to avoid everyone I know because their emotions put so much pressure on my mind that I can't take it! Ron is convinced I've gone mental and Mrs. Weasley is convinced I'm ill and she wants to take me to a Wizarding Clinic! Harry wont stop following me around, he is dedicated to finding out what's wrong with me. But every time he comes near me I feel his worry and it nearly makes me seizure on the spot! Not to mention Ron has got some VERY naughty thoughts going on in that daft head of his."

"So why not tell them?"

Hermione looked down at her feet. "Who would want to be near me if they know I can read their minds."

"I see."

"Oh please, Professor, please don't tell anyone - "

"Miss Granger I have no intention whatsoever of revealing your secret to anyone." Dumbledore assured her.

Hermione calmed her breath. "Professor...can you help me?"

"Of course." Dumbledore stated. "It will be hard work but I am very familiar with your work ethic, so I have the utmost confidence in you. But first you must understand what exactly is happening to you." He took a small bag from his pocket and held it out to Hermione. "Lemon drop?"

"Um, no thank you, Professor."

"Very well then." Dumbledore took one for himself and returned the package back to his robes. "To Muggles your gift is usually called Extrasensory Perception, or ESP - "

"Muggles? Muggles can do this too? I thought they were just frauds."

"They are." Dumbledore seemed to laugh with his eyes. "Muggles claim to have ESP but they either set up their proof, or make very good educated guesses. ESP is a gift that requires magical blood."

"That's a shame. My mother's friend has invested lots of money in the Psychic Friends hotline." Hermione made a face.

"Well, some true wizards with the gift like to profit on it by selling their services to the Muggle and Wizarding world."

"Professor, it really is not a gif - "

"In the wizarding world it is simply and most commonly called The Sense."

Hermione gave up on trying to convince Dumbledore that it wasn't a gift. Instead she relaxed herself and paid rapt attention.

"The Sense, as you know, provides the Sensor the power to hear or feel the thoughts and emotions. The closer in proximity the subject is, the stronger the Sense. And as you may already know, it is not only humans you can sense."

Hermione nodded. Crookshanks and Hedwig. Magical creatures.

"The Sense cannot be acquired through any natural means. The Sensor is born with it."

Hermione looked puzzled. "But Professor, I've never felt it before. Only after my accident."

"It usually surfaces in a young witch or wizard's later adolescence, shortly after puberty. The fall had nothing to do with it, it was going to happen to you regardless."

"Oh." This revelation did not matter to her so much. What she really wanted was to stop The bloody Sense. "Is there a way to..."

"Disable it? No." Hermione's shoulders sagged. "But there are ways to control it. But learning to control your gift will be as difficult if not more so than Occlumency."

This information did not look very promising. Hermione knew how hard Harry had worked on Occlumency and how after several months he was still unable to master it. And Harry was one of the strongest wizards she had ever known.

"So, would you be willing to study these methods of control?" Dumbledore asked. He had a slightly annoying habit of asking questions he already knew the answers to.

"Yes, Professor. Thank you."

"It really is no problem, Miss Granger. It will actually please me to work with another Sensor. Our kind are not very common, you know."

Hermione nodded and smiled. Then his words sunk in and she stared.

"Professor, you mean to say that you - "

"Well I don't suppose you noticed that you were not getting any of my emotions?"

Hermione stared. It was true, she hadn't been feeling anything from Dumbledore. She hadn't even noticed.

"How - "

"Sensors cannot read other sensors." Dumbledore explained, his eyes twinkling. "I didn't know for sure you were one until you walked into the room earlier and I felt nothing from you."

"So...but you can stand it? All the feelings. It's not painful."

"I have practiced control enough so that I am not reading someone's mind at every given moment like you are right now. I have my morals as do you. And believe me, I know how uncomfortable it is. Especially around Mr. Weasley." Dumbledore winked.

For the first time in a long time Hermione grinned a genuinely happy grin.

----Other Note: I graduate tomorrow, and then I'm going on vacation for a little bit. Don't expect and update for a little over a week. Sorry.