1. Act I - Influence

All's right with the world

Act I: Influence

The year's at the spring
And day's at the morn;
Morning's at seven;
The hill-side's dew-pearled
The lark's on the wing;
The snail's on the thorn;
God's in his Heaven -
All's right with the world!

-- From "Pippa Passes" by Robert Browning.

22-year-old Harry Potter looked up from his monitor when he heard the sound of keys jingling. From the angle he was in, sitting in front of the living room workstation, he could see the main door clearly. He took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes; after a day and a night of watching the computer screen virtually nonstop, he was suffering from a blinding headache. He took a deep breath and leaned back in his chair, at the very moment the door opened.

Without his glasses he couldn't see very well who it was, but he'd recognize that tall, red-headed blur everywhere: it was his best friend and roommate, Ron Weasley, carrying two large pizza boxes and what seemed to be a Blockbuster bag.

"We're having a movie night?" Harry asked, as Ron walked past him to put the food in the kitchen.

"Yep," Ron answered, coming back to the living room, stopping to stand behind Harry. "Special treat for no-life losers like us, who have no date for this lovely Friday night." With a sigh, he wobbled away from Harry and let himself fall dramatically over the couch.

"As long as it isn't porn," Harry chuckled, fumbling around the desk for his glasses, which seemed to be avoiding him. "Hermione would strangle you."

"Not this time!" Ron quipped, raising his pointer finger as if he were giving a speech. "Just a couple of safe, PG-13 comedies." He seemed to rethink his last statement when Harry turned around in his chair to mock-glare at him. "Ok, maybe not so PG-13... but nothing that would put my life at risk, I assure you." Ron took his first good look at Harry and frowned. "Oy, mate, you look like Mrs. Simmons' rhottweiler dragged you around the neighborhood a good couple of times... What's up? Cyberworld becoming Cyberhell?"

Harry had gotten a degree in Computer Programming barely a year before and was currently working in a small software company, designing custom programs and database systems for other small companies. Due to the nature of his job, he didn't actually need to be present at the company except for a couple of days a week, so he often worked at home, spending hours and hours in front of the computer. This caused his roommates to worry about him constantly, and they kept asking him if he was ok, if he had eaten, how many hours he had slept...

Now Harry sighed, turning off the screen and getting up from the chair. "Nah, nothing that big," he explained, while he stretched his legs. "Remember that software I had to have ready for Wednesday? It won't execute properly, so there must be a logic error somewhere. And I've been checking the code for hours, but I can't find anything..."

Ron held up a hand to stop him before he could go on and on about his little ones and zeros. "Let us pretend I understood that."

Harry glared at him. "I'm guessing your day was great."

Ron grinned. "Yep." Grabbing a cushion from the other end of the couch and fixed it under his head. "Got tickets AND transportation to the Manchester/West Ham match next week. You're free next Saturday, right?"

Ronald, 23, had decided very early that his future was in administration. He majored in business management and had gotten a job pretty easily at a very successful local PR agency. He escalated in the hierarchy of the company fairly quickly (to this day he insisted it was his irresistible good looks what had landed him the position he currently occupied), and now he was assistant to the Sales Manager. He loved his job, especially because his direct superior was like a hundred years old. This was good for him for three reasons: First, it meant that his boss was on the verge of retirement, which meant Ron would of course be the best option to replace him after he left. Second, the guy knew virtually EVERYONE, which meant that Ron got to meet all kinds of important people. And lastly, since his boss was old and didn't like to go out, that meant that all the free stuff he was given, like tickets to events or free meals at fancy restaurants, went to Ron. Could life get any better than that?

"Sure, this thing should be done by then," Harry answered, pointing to the computer. "Oh, by the way, Ginny called you. Said to tell you to call her back as soon as possible."

Ron groaned. "Great! Now that she talked to you I can't ignore her anymore."

Harry arched an eyebrow, curious. "Why are you ignoring your sister?"

"Because she keeps trying to set me up on dates with the ugliest women in London!" the redhead exclaimed desperately. "And she won't take no for an answer!"

"That's because she knows no pretty woman in a right state of mind would date you," Harry replied in a chipper tone, barely keeping from bursting out in laughter.

Ron sat up and glared at his best friend. "Yes, Harry, that was so funny, I'm sure I'll still be laughing about it next week. Next time, leave the comic relief to me, ok?" He stood up and scratched his head, messing up his hair. "And speaking about beauty queens, where's Hermione? Still held hostage in the literary world?"

Their mutual female best friend and third roommate, Hermione granger, also 23 years old, was a woman made for studying. She had entered med school a few years back with the intention of becoming a cardiologist, but she had changed her mind somewhere down the road and was now doing her postgraduate studies in Criminal Psychiatry. She also had minors in History and in Literature, and had gone through several French courses. Ron often joked that Hermione had simply studied everything there was to study. She also worked part-time at a small, cozy bookstore about fifteen minutes from their flat. She often came home after the boys did because of that.

No longer than two seconds after Ron spoke, the sound of keys was heard again and the door opened, revealing their bushy-haired best friend. She was a little startled when she looked up and saw the boys looking expectantly up at her. She was thinking so hard, she hadn't noticed they were there.

"Hi, guys," she greeted them with a smile. "Why are we all in the living room?" she asked, dropping her keys in her bag.

"Movie night!" Ron exclaimed, brilliantly smiling. "Come now," he said, walking up to her and taking her bag and a huge book from her hands. "Forget about Freud for a night, let's just have some fun..."

Hermione sighed. She had wanted to review a little. She had a big exam coming up soon and she didn't feel prepared. But what girl could resist the puppy-eyed looks her two best friends were giving her? "Ok, I'll watch the movies with you. Do we have dinner?"

"Pizza, Ron't treat," Harry answered, immediately walking towards the kitchen to get the food.

"Hey, I never said you didn't have to pay your share!" Ron yelled back to him. He put one of the movies in the DVD player and sat down on the couch again, remote control in hand, stretching his legs to the other side of the seat.

"You're not eating pizza on the couch, Ron," Hermione warned him in a hard tone, from the love seat.

"Yes, I am," Ron threw back, looking at the TV. "You sound more and more like my mother each day, Hermy."

"See, that's what living with you for so long does to us," Hermione replied, standing up when Harry called her to help with the drinks.

They walked out, Harry handing Ron one of the two pizza boxes and a glass filled with Coke. He took his own glass of 7up from Hermione's hand and sat down on the floor, against the love seat, Hermione beside him sipping water from her glass quietly, looking up at the screen. He opened the pizza box that was between them and each grabbed a slice as the cast started appearing on the screen.

She closed the door when she saw his unruly mop of black hair over the pillow, the steady rise and fall of the sheet over his torso meaning that he was sleeping deeply. With a sigh of relief and a smile she continued on her way to the kitchen.

Every day that Harry didn't have to go to work, Hermione would take a peek into his room on her way out, just to check if he was asleep. He had gotten into the habit of staying awake all night sometimes, and it was slowly taking its toll on him. Ron and Hermione would constantly tell him that the lack of sleep would eventually affect his health, and he would usually excuse himself by saying that he had assignments to finish that couldn't wait, but they knew better: it was the nightmares that kept him from sleeping.

Feeling happy that the nightmares seemed to be coming less and less frequently, she walked into the kitchen, where Ron, who was the unofficial cook of the house, was making breakfast.

When the trio moved in, there was a small struggle when they sat down to divide the house chores. Harry had claimed that, after his disastrous childhood, he'd never cook anything, not even be caught dead near a stove, ever again. And Hermione, as smart as she was, didn't seem to be able to cook anything that wouldn't dissolve a bar of metal at contact. Therefore, the task fell onto a very reluctant Ron. In the end, he found out that he was actually quite good at it. Harry and Hermione figured it was a Weasley thing; after all, Molly Weasley, Ron's mother, always made exquisite food.

She sat down at the table and greeted Ron as he put some scrambled eggs and a muffin onto her plate. He did the same for his own plate and sat down, and they both ate silently for a few minutes.

"Say, Hermy, what are we going to do for Harry's birthday?" he asked after a while, with his mouth full of food.

Hermione rolled her eyes at his lack of manners. Would he ever grow up? "I don't know. I was thinking maybe we could go out to a fancy restaurant for dinner or go to an amusement park, you know he loves those. Do you think we should ask him what he wants?"

"Nah. I think this year we should surprise him," Ron said with a grin, giving Hermione his plate so she could wash it. "You know, tell him we'll both be working until late that day and then come back and kidnap him..."

The phone rang and Ron grimaced. It rang a couple more times and Hermione asked if he planned on answering sometime this century. As soon as he heard the beep of the answering machine, he knew who was calling and he knew he didn't want to answer.

Hullo! This is the Big Wanker residence. If you're a friend or family, call back later. If you're calling Harry, make sure you understand binary code, cuz it's the only language he understands. If you're calling Hermione... oh, wait, who would call her? Books don't speak. And if you're part of the Ron Weasley fan club, leave your name, phone number and a physical description after the beep, and you'll surely get a call back. Ron! What an awful message! Change that right no- *beep!*

"Ronald Bilius Weasley! I know you're there! Pick up the phone!"

Hearing his sister's angry voice, Ron turned to Hermione with a "Dearest Best Friend of mine! Help me out, that's what friends are for!" expression. "Hermy, PLEASE," he begged, "could you pick up the phone and tell Gin I'm in- I don't know- Nepal? Or just somewhere far away? I'll even do the dishes for you. Please?"

Hermione glared at him. She didn't like lying, much less to one of her best friends. Ron gave her the puppy-eyed look again. "You know I'd do the same for you."

"I'd never ask you to do anything like this," she grudgingly muttered, but walked towards the phone to pick it up before Ginny's angry tirade could continue.

"...and I know you're always there at this hour, so come on, dammit! Pick the phone up! It's URGENT, you idiot!"

"Ginny?"

"Hermione? Oh, hi. Give the phone to Ron, will you?"

Hermione rolled her eyes. "Sorry, Ginny, but at the moment Ron must be relieving his agonizing bladder somewhere. Let's hope it's not all over his bed. Again." With another glare she turned to Ron, who had his back to her, as he was washing the dishes, but she saw his ears had gone red. "I'll tell him you called."

Ginny sighed on the other end of the line. "It's not like he'd call me back." Hermione could almost see her annoyed expression. "Listen, it doesn't matter. You'll do. I'll tell you, God knows I should've told Harry when I spoke to him..."

"No, Ginny, I'm sorry," Hermione interrupted her. "I can't talk right now. I'm running late as it is, and if your brother would just HURRY UP," she yelled at Ron, who had stopped washing to listen to the phone conversation, "maybe I'd get to class on time. I'll call you tonight and you can tell me, ok?"

"But Hermio-"

"Bye, Ginny." She hung up.

She turned to Ron, who was drying his hands. "Ready?"

"You forgot all about Nepal, did you?" he muttered, giving her the evil eye. She just smiled at him, innocently.

The area where they lived was rather secluded; there were no main streets nearby. Neither of the two boys were too keen on letting Hermione walk to the bus station alone, so Ron, being the only one of the three who owned a car (a rather old, cheap car, but he seemed to love it more than he did his mother) dropped her off at the station every morning so she could go to her classes. Harry accompanied them whenever he had to go to work. After her classes, one of Hermione's classmates would usually drop her off at the library, and after work she walked home, since it was closer.

That day, though, they seemed to be having bad luck. Two cars had crashed right in the middle of the road a few blocks away from them, and it had caused a huge traffic jam.

"I'm going to be late," Ron whined, rolling down his window to see if there was any progress.

"I was going to be late half an hour ago," Hermione replied, annoyed. "Honestly, Ron, I'd get there faster if I walk."

"Nonsense," Ron quipped. "I have to pass by the station anyway, and if I have to be stuck here, you have to be stuck here too." For effect, he stuck his tongue out at her and she rolled her eyes in response. "I still don't get why you even bother going to that class. You'll only be there like fifteen minutes, and anyway, you already know more than your professor does. You should come with me, do whatever you want for a couple of hours, and then we'll have lunch, and I'll drop you off on time for your next class."

"I'm not skipping class," Hermione stated firmly, for the umpteenth time since they stepped out of their flat. "Mr. Ungermeyer will understand why I'm late."

After a few seconds of silence Hermione turned the radio on. Ron, never a big fan of that kind of music, laid back in his seat and closed his eyes. "I really wish I could fly right now."

Hermione kept her face towards their front, but looked at him out of the corner of her eye. "I thought you adored your car?"

Ron sighed. "I do. But really, there are so much better methods of transportation..."

"Not for you, there aren't," Hermione replied in an odd tone. Ron sighed again.

Some time later, they finally made it to the station. Ron dropped her there and drove off, not without telling her to "skip the goddamn class" once again. She consistently ignored the comment and said goodbye. So there she sat, in a bench at the bus station, waiting for her bus. She had taken a book out of her bag and was reading it without a care in the world.

She was reading a particularly interesting part when she felt a sort of itch on the back of her neck, like when one has the feeling someone's watching him/her. She marked the page she was reading and looked around, but found that nobody was looking back at her.

Chalking it up to paranoia, she continued reading.

When Harry woke up, it was almost noon. He felt much more relaxed than he'd had the previous day. That was the best night's sleep he'd had in quite a few days, he thought with a smile as he made his way to the kitchen.

Someone had come into his bedroom last night or that morning and had wrapped a blanket over him, and he was pretty sure it had been Hermione. She had that habit. Ron also did it sometimes (not that he'd ever admit it since he was a "manly man" and all that), but Harry knew it wasn't him this time around. Some days Harry would come home so tired that he'd forget about his glasses and fall asleep with them on; whenever Ron went in to check on him, he'd take them off his face and, for some bizarre reason that Harry was sure only made sense in Ron's warped mind, he'd put them on the bed beside Harry's pillow. And Harry moved so much while in bed, the glasses would end up on the floor, more often than not broken. He'd had to buy new glasses twice that year, and he kept telling Ron not to do that anymore but he kept doing it.

Anyway, the point was that that morning he'd found his glasses neatly positioned on his bedside table, and that's how he knew it was Hermione who had checked on him that morning. It struck him as funny that he knew his friends so well that he could distinguish them by something as simple as where they put his glasses.

Rummaging through the kitchen for something to eat, he found that Ron had left him his breakfast inside the microwave. There was a note taped to the thing that said "EAT IT! -H & R" in big bold letters, underlined, and with a little doodle of... Harry thought it was him (it had the scar, but those glasses were WAY too big...) on the top right corner. Surely Ron's idea of fun in the morning.

Harry didn't know whether to laugh or sigh. On one hand, it was wonderful that his friends loved him so much that they constantly worried about him. On the other hand, they were starting to act like mother hens and it unnerved him. He had enough of that with Ron's mother and he didn't need three surrogate mothers.

Deciding that he should just smile and take it easy, he finished eating, washed his plate and went upstairs to take a very relaxing shower before going back to work.

He never heard the phone ringing.

Hermione waved goodbye to her last customer (Mrs. Hubert, an old lady who came into the bookstore every night asking Hermione to read to her poodle, Pookie-- she swore it was the only way to lull it to sleep) and proceeded to put everything in order so she could go home. Her boss was out of town for the week, so it was up to her to take care of things and lock up.

She sighed as she put the books kids usually took out in the correct order on the shelves. It had been an unusually busy day. She always complained to Ron and Harry that young people these days didn't appreciate the wonders of books and reading (she was sure her boys had memorized the speech by then, since Ron would start to mimic her behind her back when she so much as murmured something along the lines of "kids these days" and Harry immediately wound up rolling on the floor, laughing his head off like a hyena), but today, she couldn't be happier. A large number of kids and teenagers had come to the store that day and they looked so genuinely happy to be in a bookstore that it made Hermione feel warm and fuzzy inside. She figured it had something to do with the recent publishing of the third Larry Stutter book, Larry Stutter and the Evil Overlord from Outer Space (EOOS for short). Granted, it wasn't the most interesting piece of literature, but the kids loved it and it was the first step towards bigger things.

Unfortunately, more kids reading meant more work for her. There was a reading of Chapter 1 of the Larry book that afternoon... 20 kids had come to hear it, all laughing and yelling and making noise at the same time; she'd had to force her voice and now her throat was sore. She'd had to count and recount and recount the books to make sure nothing was amiss, and let us not speak ever again of the moment she thought they had run out of copies while surrounded by five squealing 15-years-old Larry fan girls. It was NOT pretty.

And besides all that, she still couldn't shake off the feeling that someone was watching her.

She knew it was silly; she worked in a store, of course people would look at her. Yet, she found herself looking over her shoulder every five seconds to reassure herself that nothing suspicious was going on. And even at that very moment she was feeling weird, even if she'd been alone in the store after dark countless times. Deciding to go with her instincts instead of her mind for once (definitely Ron and Harry's influence), she finished everything quickly and walked out. Waving goodbye to Ivan, the security guard, she locked all the doors and began the journey through the few blocks that separated her from her flat.

Ron looked up from the stove and snuck a glance towards the living room where Harry was, yet again, sitting in front of his computer. And the redhead couldn't help himself; he snorted.

He was worried about Hermione too, but Harry was taking "worry" to new levels. He wasn't even pretending to be working anymore, he was just flat out staring at the door, arms crossed, frown in place. Ron blamed Hermione, though; she was rubbing off too much on them. That was something he loved about bickering constantly with her: he always had an excuse to get away from her at least for a few hours until things had cooled down and they could apologize. He did appreciate her, but he didn't want to end up with all her bad (well, most were good but he wouldn't ever tell her that) habits. And if there was a habit in Hermione "Worrywart" Granger, it was worrying, of course. And now Harry was doing a great impersonation of her when she went into that "mode." It was just too hilarious.

The whole thing had started because Hermione was late. Not that she'd never been late, but she'd usually call if things at the store were too hectic. They hadn't heard from her so far, and since Harry had issues, he'd immediately jumped to the conclusion that something had to have happened to her. Ron hoped that was not the case. She'd probably stayed reading some book and lost track of time. Yeah, that sounded like Hermione.

He lowered the flame of the sauce he was preparing and went out to sit on the couch, a few feet away from Harry. "So, is the database working now?"

Harry blinked and dragged his eyes to his best friend. It took him a few seconds to understand what Ron was talking about; then, he looked at the screen in front of him, and back to Ron. His best friend had to smile; poor Harry looked like a cartoon when he did that. "I... don't really know, actually," Harry finally admitted, blinking some more.

Ron smirked. "Harry, she's just a little late. And here you are, waiting at the door like a puppy waiting for its owner with his slippers on its mouth. Give it a rest."

Harry glared at him. "I resent that. And it is VERY late. Do you know the kind of stuff that can happen to her out there? You should be worried too!"

"Come off it, Harry. It's just..." He took a look at his wristwatch and that shut him up.

Maybe he was being heavily influenced by Hermione, as well, because he was starting to think it was very late, too.

Hermione quickened her pace, looking all around her every few seconds. London seemed to be creepier than usual that night. It was the new moon, so everything was dark, not to mention the fact that the light from the posts kept flickering annoyingly. Not a soul was in the streets. Thank god it was summer, she thought; if there had been fog, it would've been the perfect setting for a horror movie. And her flat had never felt so far away from the bookstore as that day, either.

She thought she heard something as she was walking past a dark alley. She stopped for a second but then caught herself and continued walking. She was sure it was just her imagination playing tricks on her, and anyway, in the remote possibility that there WAS something in that alley, she wasn't going to stop like those silly girls did in psycho-killer movies; that'd be suicide.

She felt a huge wave of relief when she saw that she was getting close to the flat. She slowed down a little, taking deep breaths and hoping that Harry and Ron hadn't had dinner without her.

That's when she heard footsteps behind her.

She suppressed a scream. There was no way her imagination could make it sound so real. This was actually happening.

She took off into a run.

The person who was following her did, too.

Her heart beating fast, she kept telling herself to run faster and faster. She was very close; she could almost see the corner she had to take a turn in to get home. And then she'd be safe.

She contemplated for a second how she would open the door as fast as possible, but the she noticed that she could no longer hear anyone behind her. Thinking she'd lost the person, she realized that she'd run so much, her legs couldn't carry her anymore. She couldn't help it, she had to slow down.

She should've known. It had been long, but not that long.

Suddenly the person was beside her, grabbing her forcefully, her scream muffled by a hand covering her mouth.

She tried kicking and biting to get herself free, but even if she was no damsel in distress, she was not trained in self-defense either; at least not in the way she needed at the moment. It was a man, she recognized when he repeatedly told her to shut up. It went on that way for a few seconds, but it was his final "Shut up, Granger!" that made her blood run cold.

She unconsciously stopped moving and he took his chance; he grabbed her roughly by her arm and turned her around to look at him.

Hermione found herself face to face with a pair of steely gray eyes she thought she'd never see again.

author's notes--

hi everyone! it's been the longest time since i've written any HP fics in english. this idea came to me one day and i thought it was pretty original, so i thought i'd write it. BUT! i'll leave it at one chapter for a while. i'm too busy with my classes and i've already got too many unfinished fanfics pending, so i'll deal with those first and then i'll come back to this. hopefully no one will come up with a similar plot before i can complete it. so basically, here you have the first chapter as a teaser; i hope you're liking it so far!

BTW, i'm sorry if most of this seems overly sarcastic... calculus has fried my brain cells, you see, and when i'm stressed, i become overly sarcastic. just ask my friends, i think they've wanted to shoot me everytime i open my mouth these last few weeks. same goes for the abstract description-- i'm weird like that, i always have to have abstract descriptions. and titles. and chapter titles.

also, this hasn't been betaed, and as english is not my mother language and i screw it up from time to time, you might've found a couple of awful mistakes... i'm sorry! i'll correct all of those later when i come back and edit this. please comment! reviews help me de-stress! ^_^

edited on aug 21st, 2007 to adjust the characters' ages so they will comply with the latest canon, after reading HP&DH. sorry guys, it's not a new chapter but i promise i'm working on it as i type this.

2. Act II - Unwell

All's right with the world

Act II: Unwell

All day staring at the ceiling,
Makin' friends with shadows on my wall.
All night hearing voices telling me
that I should get some sleep,
because tomorrow might be good for something.
Hold on... Feeling like I'm headed for a...
breakdown... and I don't know why.

-- From "Unwell" by Matchbox 20.

They both jumped off their chairs as they heard the telephone ring. Ron, as he had the longest legs, got there first. "Where the bloody hell are you?!" he exclaimed, without bothering to check who was on the other side of the phone line.

He heard a gasp and then the response: "In my bloody house, you rude dunderhead!"

Ron flinched. "Sorry, Gin. I thought you were Hermione." He turned to see Harry roll his eyes, move a hand through his hair and go back to sit in front of the door. "What is it?"

"I need to tell you something, it's important... wait. Hermione's not there? Did something happen to her?"

He sighed. "We don't know. She hasn't come back, and she hasn't called us."

Ginny tried to sound calming, but couldn't keep the worry out of her voice. "I'm sure she's fine. Probably got held back at the bookstore. She'll be there soon." Clearing her throat, she started the conversation she had originally wanted to have with her brother. "Ron, you will not believe who came by my office yesterday--"

But Ron couldn't hear what Ginny had to say as Harry jumped off his chair again and with an air of determination walked towards the door. "I'm going to look for her," he said, and Ron had to cut short his conversation with his sister.

"I can't talk now, Gin. Harry's gone to get her and someone's gotta be his voice of reason now that Hermione's not here. I'll call you back."

"No, Ron, hear me out--" But it was no use. He had already hung up.

He had let go of her torso and was now holding her jaw painfully. It hurt, but at this point she was more angry and confused than scared.

"What are you doing here?!" she spat at him, with difficulty. "You're not supposed to be here! You can't!"

She was flailing her arms around, trying to get out of his grasp. He covered her mouth with his hand and shoved her roughly against a wall, causing her to groan and then glare at him, pulling at his hold. "I told you to shut up!" he exclaimed, completely unfazed by her stare; matching it, even. To his displeasure she didn't stop moving, or quit her muffled yelling, so he had to lean into her ear to get his message across. "Listen to me," he whispered, but still the sound was rough and hurried. "Bloody listen to me! You're going to tell Potter--" Hermione stopped struggling when she heard her friend's name, and quieted down. Of course he had come to do something to Harry...

"Tell Potter he must go back."

Her eyes widened. Of all the things she'd been expecting him to say, that was definitely not one. Insults, perhaps; threats, for sure... but not that.

He quickly let go of her and ran off, but she was still too stunned to react. She later concluded that there would have been no point in going after him anyway, he could get away easily. So she stood there for a while, trying to control her heartbeat, his last words reverberating in her mind.

She quickly decided to go back home, not quite sure of what she would tell her two best friends, but simply wanting to get out of the darkness as fast as she could. She hugged herself and hurried down the sidewalk.

She hadn't even walked two blocks, when she heard her name being called. She looked around, to make sure that it wasn't him coming back, but when she finally figured who had called her, she found herself wrapped tightly in someone's arms.

"Thank the heavens! Are you okay?" Ron had gotten to her first, if only because he had longer legs. Harry was beside them half a second later, prying her from Ron's arms and hugging her himself without giving her a moment to breathe.

Ron's mood seemingly shifted then, and he started yelling at her, much like she had seen his mother do to him when he got into trouble, or was it Hermione herself who had rubbed off on him, with her constant nagging during their almost thirteen years of friendship? "What the hell were you thinking, Hermione?! Do you know what time it is?! You know you should go directly from the bookstore to our flat, not stay dallying around some dark alley?! Are you trying to get yourself killed?! We were worried sick about you, you know?!"

She was going to explain, but Ron's tirade went on and she couldn't get a word in edgewise. Then again, her face was pressed to Harry's neck and he held her there, so she couldn't really say anything. He kept moving his hands up to her face, fingers through her hair, down her back or up her arms, almost like he was caressing her; however, his touch was steady and with enough pressure that she would guess he was just checking if she was hurt anywhere. When he grabbed her by the shoulders and pressed her tightly to him, she was sure. "Don't ever do that to me again," he whispered in her ear, his voice shaking with the emphasis he put on his words.

Harry had a couple of choice words to say to her as well, and Hermione briefly wondered if this is how they felt when she openly worried about them and then nagged them to the ground about every little thing. Ron even mentioned it ("Hah! It's like payback. But don't make it a habit, now"), but really, she couldn't be annoyed at them. Not when she still had his words going around in her mind.

Soon enough they had brought her back to their flat, and the adrenaline rush seemed to be winding down. As soon as they crossed the threshold, Ron threw an arm around her shoulder and grinned. "Bet it feels good being home, huh?" She nodded distractedly and went to sit on the couch, putting her face in her hands. She had a terrible headache, and the suspicion that it was only going to get worse.

She heard her two friends go about their business again as she thought about how to tell them. Finally she took a deep breath and looked up. Ron had gone into the kitchen, and Harry sat in front of his computer again, to finish the work on the database.

"I just saw Draco Malfoy."

Harry's head snapped back towards her and he gave her a confused and disbelieving look. A crash was heard from the kitchen almost at the same time.

"That's not possible."

"WHAT!"

Harry got up from his seat and sat beside her. "He can't be here...! Are you sure, Hermione?" From his tone she could tell that he was trying to figure out how it was possible; Hermione wouldn't joke about something like this, after all. Hermione nodded at him as she heard Ron come out of the kitchen. He obviously hadn't bothered to pick up whatever it was he had broken.

"He didn't do anything to you, did he?!" Ron walked up to her, eyes blazing. Once he heard the name, a switch went off in his head and he didn't even entertain the idea that Hermione could be mistaken. "That bastard didn't touch you?! I swear to God, if he touched one hair on your head, Hermione...!"

"Ron, it's fine! I'm fine," she assured him, grabbing his clenched fists with enough strength to bring his indignation down. It seemed to work, and she stared at both her boys for a heartbeat. Did she really want to tell them about this? It would complicate everything, that was for sure. But she couldn't just lie to them... Harry was muttering something and Ron was looking at her expectantly. They knew her too well, they'd immediately see that she was hiding something.

"He had a message for you, Harry," she looked at her dark-haired friend straight in the eye. "He said you must go back."

Both boys tensed up immediately, Ron more in apprehension than anything else. Harry's expression went dark that very moment. He looked down, with his best friends' gazes roaming over the shadows on his face. Everything went completely quiet, for the longest time. Ron and Hermione let him be... waiting. It was all up to him. He would always have the last word.

"No."

He stood up, stood there for half a second, then turned around and locked himself in his room. His friends watched him go, not one glance spared towards one another. Ron mutely went back to the kitchen to pick up the pieces of broken glass. Hermione laid down on the couch, closing her eyes, wishing her headache away.

And that was it.

As he waited for the last function script of the database he was working on to compile and run, he took a look at the time, and discovered that he'd been 23 years old for the last thirteen minutes.

He took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes. His head hurt. Was he supposed to feel any different? The blur that had become his monitor couldn't give him an answer. The room was dark and quiet, and he was not comfortable in the position he was sitting. Ron and Hermione had gone to bed, saying they had stuff to do at work early. And Harry was left to start his twenty-fourth year of life with a weary disposition.

As much as people thought he was an angsty character, he was actually feeling more angry than anything. He'd been irritable all week, snapping at everybody, to the point that his co-workers had all but pushed him out the door on Wednesday, and told him to work exclusively from home until he was finished with this latest project. Ron and Hermione were walking on eggshells around him, with awkward silences galore, though he did know they were planning something to cheer him up on his birthday (he'd believe it of Hermione, but the last time Ron had gone to work on a Sunday as he claimed he would today, it was because a friend of his from work had promised to buy him lunch).

He couldn't help it, though. He'd thought he'd left all of it behind; he didn't want anything to do with it, he thought he'd finally be able to have a normal life... he didn't need any of it, all he needed was his friends and a purpose and he had all of that here. He had no desire to go back there, and be miserable. Why did that message come? Why now, when things were finally looking up? When the whole mess had happened, he'd swore to himself never to think about it again, and now he was forced to remember it, and he hated that. And it wasn't like he could do it anyway, go back, even if he had wanted to; it was just impossible. And it was no incentive that the request had come from Malfoy; Harry would sooner stick his hand into a pool full of piranhas than do anything that slimy git told him to. He shouldn't even have come anywhere near them, Malfoy... yet there he was, again trying to goad Harry into something that he had no desire whatsoever to do. Well, he wouldn't get the better of him, not at all. Harry was staying put.

His jaw set tightly, he all but slammed a CD into his laser drive. He really had to stop going around the whole thing, because he didn't want to hurt his friends in any way when they put whatever birthday plans they had in action today. It was bad enough that he'd have to fake being perfectly fine while he was really boiling inside. They had some sort of unspoken pact about it. Ron had seemed perfectly fine with forgetting the message ever came, but Harry still caught him looking at him and Hermione from time to time, like expecting someone to bring it up and being prepared to divert that someone from the topic as quickly as he could. Hermione had been on the edge of saying something to him more than once, but she always caught herself before the shaky words could come out of her mouth, like she was expecting him to blow up in her face at the slightest sound. Now that he thought about it, he'd seen Ron giving Hermione 'Don't!' looks once or twice. He didn't blame them, it wouldn't be the first time he took out his frustrations on them, and he wanted to forget about this so badly that he wouldn't feel guilty at all for giving them the silent treatment if they ever came out with it.

He was glad they hadn't mentioned it, though. It did help. But still, he didn't feel much better and by now the database was done, so he wouldn't be able to submerge himself in his work for a while. He had to go by his office tomorrow to drop off the CD and that was it: no more work, no more distraction. But he just wanted to forget back there ever existed.

He needed something quick.

Hermione tried to be "stealthy" as she opened the door just a bit after noon; she imagined Ron had somehow kept Harry in his room so they could surprise him with amusement park tickets. However, it was for naught: Ron was sitting in the living room fiddling with their DVR, which he still couldn't figure out. And Harry himself was slung over the couch, one arm covering his eyes as if in pain.

"What's going on?" she asked, leaving her bag by the door. "Aren't you two supposed to be..." she trailed off, sharing a significant look with Ron, but not wanting to give the secret away.

Ron shrugged, more interested in pressing buttons in the recorder. "We were, until this git here decided to start the party without us."

Hermione frowned. What did that mean? She moved closer to Harry, inspecting him closely, as a doctor would. She saw and heard that he was groaning very lightly. "Is he... drunk?!"

Ron nodded his head enthusiastically. "Yep! Completely pissed. Tried to watch one of the friendly matches on the telly a while ago and he kept squinting at it and asking me what happened to their brooms." His eyebrows rose so high as he emphasized that last word that they were lost under his fringe and he conveyed through his stare the point he was trying to make: either there was something really wrong, or his friend had gone completely barmy.

Hermione frowned reproachfully at Harry, even though he couldn't see her. "It's barely noon."

Ron shrugged again, and gave her somewhat of a sheepish smile. "Yes, well, he's your problem now. I was just waiting for you to get here so I could go and get something to eat," he told her, getting up from his seat and stretching a bit. "You want anything?"

She nodded, moving closer to Harry and poking him without any mercy. "Can you get me a caff� macchiato? I didn't have any coffee this morning." Harry groaned louder at her treatment. "And stop by the pharmacist's to buy some aspirin. There's none left."

As Ron left she prodded Harry again, getting the same response. "Well, sorry, birthday boy, but you brought this upon yourself. Now scoot over, I want to put my legs up."

Harry whined and whined but moved anyway. Hermione occupied the side of the couch he'd vacated and promptly stretched her legs up on the coffee table; then she turned to take a look at his face, but didn't have time to move further as he was already leaning towards her. To her surprise, he resumed the position he'd been in, only this time his head rested on her lap and his arm lay on the arm of the couch, instead of over his face.

He'd caught her off-base, certainly. Harry had never been a touchy-feely person; in fact, Ron wasn't either. They usually froze whenever she gave them any type of affectionate physical contact. She didn't get it at first, and it frustrated her a bit, but with time she just found it amusing, how it seemed like they just hadn't grown out of the "girls have cooties" phase around her. Not that she'd ever tell them that-- they would blow a gasket from that affront to their masculinity-- but she did think it whenever she hugged Ron and he started squirming like she was Molly Weasley the second, embarrassing him in front of his schoolmates; or when Harry froze like a deer in the headlights if they touched in any way that wasn't due to a life-threatening situation. That's why she was careful to keep physical contact to a minimum, she didn't want to send them running to the hills. Bad enough that they couldn't figure her out because she thought like a girl, imagine if she started acting like one all the time! She'd always feel a little offended, perhaps even insecure, due to that, but she'd learned that in a way she was the same-- boys will be boys, they were from Mars and she was from Venus, but all the distance didn't matter because she loved them to death anyway.

That's why she knew they'd really been terrified when that... encounter occurred. Malfoy had turned their relative calm around in a second that night, it seemed. The work of an adrenaline rush worked wonders for breaking down the barriers of the ego. And Harry laying his head on her lap was an unprecedented event. But then again, he very rarely drank, too.

"Are you alright?" she asked him, noting that his eyes were a bit glazed over.

"Th'room's spinnin'..." he muttered, looking straight at her, and straight past her as well. He didn't have his glasses on and that, plus the alcohol, made her think that he was probably seeing her as a big, bushy-haired blur.

"Yes, impairment of equilibrioception is a common effect of intoxication," she replied in her old "know-it-all" tone, which made Harry cringe. She pushed his hair out of his eyes, noticing that he was sweating. She sighed. "Whatever made you think this was a good idea, Harry?"

He didn't reply, just closed his eyes and moved his head to the side, so she drew her hand back. He might have murmured something but she didn't quite catch it. They both stayed in silence for a while, until Hermione turned on the telly. There was a football game on, and Ron had probably been trying to record it with the DVR, so she might as well have it on in the background so she could tell him the result.

"'M'never goin' back," he said after a while, startling her. She'd thought he was asleep. She looked down to see he was shaking his head, but he stopped after a couple of times; it surely made him even dizzier. He opened his eyes, more focused this time, and looked at her. "Not 'fter what they... 'm jus' not. We're fine, we don' need 'em. We're gooood here, we're 'appy. 'N I don' care what tha' slimy bastard says, 'e's settin' us up, I don' trust 'im an'm n'doin' anythin' that came from 'im..."

Hermione frowned at him as he started playing with a curl of her hair, stretching and releasing it like a spring. She and Ron had figured that Malfoy's visit was what was weighing in Harry's mind that week, but they'd thought it was more the fact that Malfoy had ambushed her than anything else. They hadn't really thought that he'd given any thought to Malfoy's words other than to dismiss them immediately. "Harry, you--"

"No, 'rmione, 'e should'a kept 'is mouth shhhut. I di'n need t'... I didn' wan't' hear that... I didn' wan' think 'bout it, 't hurts... ev'ry time I think 'bout it, I hurt... 'cause I wan' go back, so badly wan' go back, 'rmione... b't I won't. They don' want me, 'rmione, they don' want me..." He hid his head in Hermione's torso, his nose pressed against her belly, muffling his already slurred words. "Malfoy's messin' us up, 's true. An' they don' des'rve us anyway. Bast'rds. We're bett'r 'ff alone, ar'n' we? We stayin' 'ere, 'cause 'm right, I know 'm right. An' Ron'll second me in this... an' you... I won' letcha convin... convincince me tha' it migh' be better if I go back... nope, we're stayin', you're stayin' righ' 'ere, w'me..."

And the surprises continued. Hermione knew that even if they'd been friends for well over a decade, she wasn't, and would never be, the one either of the boys went to when they needed to talk feelings. There were four reasons for that, or so she'd gathered over the years: first, blokes just don't talk about their feelings; it's just not manly. It didn't do to have a warm and fuzzy conversation when the whole point was to be rugged and virile, or whatever that meant. Second, they were deathly afraid that she'd point out there was another side to the coin when they were inexorably convinced that there was no way anybody else could think differently than they did. Never mind that she mostly did it for their own good, this still tended to make them mad. Third, telling her stuff usually ended up with them spending countless hours reading, which was not their idea of fun. And fourth, despite their fourteen-years-long friendship, Ron still held on to his belief that she was mental; and Harry, while he was nicer about it, tended to side with Ron most of the time.

So she definitely had not been expecting any deep confessions from Harry. The boys only really went to her when they had a puzzle to solve that they couldn't figure out. And what's more, Harry just wasn't an open person. He generally preferred to bottle his feelings inside until they quite literally blew up. And while she believed that was very unhealthy, there was no way to break him of the habit... it was due to the way he was raised; if she had to apply her knowledge to his case, she would conclude that he was afraid people would think he was weak, strange or insufficient in some way and would decide to stay away from him. It broke her heart, because he'd gone through such psychological abuse in the most crucial stage of his life, he'd suffered so much and had to do it alone, and he still felt that he had to deal with everything alone. So he could only tell her these things when he was extremely drunk.

"Harry, have you-- been thinking about this all week? Ron and I have been worr--"

"But it do'sn' matter 'cause, y'know, I don' wann' talk 'bout it..."

She couldn't help but chuckle, looking down at his unkempt mop of hair as he rested against her. At least he wouldn't have to struggle to deny ever having this conversation with her, because he just wouldn't remember it at all.

He mumbled that he was sleepy, and she decided to take up the football match again. She wondered what was taking Ron so long.

"Oy, 'rmione...?"

"Hmm?" she looked down to see that he had rejoined the land of the living. He looked rather adorable, she thought, his hazy gaze framed by furrowed brows, like he was genuinely confused about some grand mystery.

"How come you an' I never happen'd...?"

It took her a few seconds to understand what he meant. And when she did, she had to admit, it made her pause. She had the standard reply on the tip of her tongue, the one she gave everybody who wondered how she could be close friends with a guy and not have any sort of tension between them. She wanted to tell him how the very notion was ridiculous. But then it slashed her mind that it was Harry who had asked that question. Harry, who was the party involved and who she'd thought had never given any passing thought to that crazy idea. Their relationship as it was... it was just the way it was, they were best friends and it was inconceivable for them to look at each other in any other way. Was he thinking about it...? The thought had never really crossed her mind.

But... why hadn't she ever thought about it?

It wasn't as if Harry disgusted her in anyway. He didn't have any kind of infectious disease she needed to get away from or anything. They were not incompatible. They were very good friends, they thought alike in most cases, and they cared for each other very much. He was a wonderful person, easily the best person she knew, save perhaps for her own father. He was sweet, funny, and he gave his all for the people he loved. He was incredibly brave. He had the most gorgeous smile she had ever seen, it made her melt in a second. Had a nasty temper at times, and could be a bit single-minded, but she could deal with it. He tended to look at the forest, and not the trees. He got distracted easily and didn't like doing homework, but she didn't have to worry about that anymore because they were out of school. He had an unyielding sense of honor, but if his loved ones were in danger, the ends justified the means. He was a natural leader, and inspired such confidence in others as well. He was stubborn as a mule, but he put as much effort into his every enterprise. He was a bit melodramatic, and oftentimes thought everything was about him, but that's what she was at his side for, to bring him back to reality. And he came with a lot of baggage, but that only made her care about him even more. It made her want to fix him.

And if she had to be truthful about it, after being best friends with Harry and Ron for so long, she'd developed a bit of a crush on both of them. Really early, she began, unconsciously, thinking of both of them as her boys. That possessiveness came out of her at very random times, like making her feel a bit jealous of their girlfriends or making her react strongly when she felt they could get hurt in any way. They were certainly attractive men, and great to be with. But it didn't have anything to do with that, she'd just always thought it was normal to feel a little flutter in her stomach when she thought about her green-eyed friend. She spent so much time with him-- and Ron-- and they'd gone through so much together, that it was only natural.

Then again, she and Ron had their Thing... Ron, who was the sweetest man she had ever known, who tried so hard to impress everyone, to make a name of himself. Ron, who was loud and larger than life, always ready for a good one-liner and who could easily light up every situation. He had a bit of an inferiority complex, grew resentful easily and caved under stage fright, but he was the most loyal friend any person could ever ask for. He dug up every excuse in the book to get out of doing chores, and when he was hungry, everything else was unimportant, but he was the quickest to defend her honor if needed. It took him an eternity to finally figure out that she was female, but she didn't hold any grudges against him for that. He felt everything intensely; if he loved you, he would do so very strongly, but he was terribly embarrassed to say it. If he hated you, that was it for life, and nothing anyone said or did could change it. And he drove her up the walls most of the time, but she couldn't ever live without him. Their relationship was never clearly defined, but they'd made it work, they'd been very happy, even if they still bickered constantly, and he still made her cry because he suffered from chronic foot-in-mouth disease, and they couldn't understand each other because he was an insensitive prat and she was a bloody girl, and that was just the way they worked.

It had been good while it lasted, until they realized there just wasn't any difference. Apart from the newfound physical intimacy, they were still Ron and Hermione, best friends. It was the way they were supposed to be. She knew that now, because they had tried something different, and it turned out to be just the same. Her feelings had not faded, she still loved him every bit as she did at the beginning, as she did when they were together. She just realized now that it wasn't what that kind of love was supposed to be.

Was that the same thing that had happened with Harry? Had the way things turned out with Ron incapacitated her from checking the possibility of her and Harry?

It made her feel a little embarrassed, actually. Logical, intellectual Hermione, who prided herself in seeing things from every angle, had left a variable hanging for years.

Harry had been the center of her world for a really long time. He was a soul screaming for help, she couldn't help but focus every minute-- that she wasn't focusing on her studies-- on him. He gave her a true purpose, he made her feel needed. It wasn't like he was her reason for living or anything cheesy like that; she was at all times still very much an individual, and she had her schoolwork, and there was a bit of having fun thrown somewhere in there too, but it was more of a subtle shift: without her realizing it, he had come to lead her priorities, like in the grand scheme of things he was more important than anything else, than her even. At one point she did grow tired of it, maybe a little resentful that her life was always about Harry, and other things started coming first on her list, like her by then obvious relationship with Ron; but the world came crashing quickly on the three of them and they were back to their usual dynamics soon enough. She easily fell back into her role of Harry's right hand girl, building her happiness on his happiness, watching out for him. And maybe, just maybe... she hadn't realized until now just how easy it was to fit in that niche. She'd always chalked it up to maternal instinct on her part, but... was it really? It shouldn't be this easy to choose to dedicate your life completely to one person.

Was this what everybody else saw, was this why they all wondered? Had she been so immersed in her campaign to prove to the world that the relationship between a man and a woman who were this close could be perfectly platonic, that she never noticed?

Harry was the most important person in her life. Not more than Ron, or her parents, just... just different.

She'd never noticed.

She looked down at him. His eyes were closed, his breathing even and one of his arms held her lightly by her waist, like she was a giant teddy bear, or a comfort blanket. His nose tickled her belly and she could feel that soft tremble down her back-- the one she didn't feel with Ron anymore.

Well, this was perfect. He was out cold, he wouldn't remember any of this, and she wouldn't be able to stop thinking about it.

Honestly, the things Harry got her into.

Ron should have known Hermione wouldn't be able to keep her mouth shut.

Oh no, because when she got an idea, that one, it was like an itch that she couldn't leave unscratched. How the conversation had gone from dinner plans to Malfoy's message, he didn't know. Silly, too, since Harry had been less moody the past couple of days and Ron had thought they could just skip over the whole thing without much problem; but no, Hermione couldn't let it go and of course, Harry's lid went off and the H-bomb blew up right then and there. And now he was so engrossed in his ranting that Ron couldn't even get a word in edgewise.

"You just HAD to mention it, didn't you?" he muttered. Not that any of them paid him any attention.

"--Why you suddenly trust something that came out of HIS mouth!" Harry stared at her like she had stood up and stabbed him in the heart.

"I don't, I'm just saying that it's fishy, maybe we should look further into it, he must have had a reason to risk it--"

She tried to make him see, but he couldn't. His mind was made up. "Yes, it is! Because there's just no way, and you know it! I don't know why you bring this up now, I thought we'd agreed on this!"

"No, we haven't. We've never discussed--"

"Oh, that's good. Now you're telling me, what, that I forced you into this or something?!"

She gaped at him. "Harry, stop putting words in my mouth, you know very well that's not what I meant--"

The doorbell rang then, and Ron jumped out of his seat like he was on a sinking ship and had just heard the "all men to the lifeboats" alarm. It really shook him whenever Harry and Hermione had an argument, not necessarily because they never fought, because they did: they were at odds more often than people thought, especially when Harry let his righteous anger go to his head and Hermione felt he was being obtuse. No, their arguments rattled him because they were so deep. They always left him feeling a bit gobsmacked, even if he tried his best to take a stand. So he clung to the sound of the doorbell like a lifeline, not even thinking that it was probably not the best time to entertain guests.

His sister's face across the threshold reminded him of it.

"Oh, Gin, listen, now isn't the best time--"

"Sorry, Ron, this is life or death," she told him, the phrase barely discernible under Harry's dulcet tones, and she easily pushed him aside and let herself in. He frowned. Should she be able to do that? He was bigger AND stronger than her. He just stared at her, a bit open-mouthed because she reminded him so much of their mother at the moment, as she walked up to the feuding pair with a resolute stride.

"--Have to accept that maybe we acted a little rashly--"

"--If you want to go back so badly, go! Don't stay on MY account! You're smart, you'll figure something out! Just leave me out of this! I don't want to hear this and I am NOT. GOING. BACK."

"You... might want to rethink that, Harry," Ginny's voice interrupted their already fragmented conversation.

"Oh, for God's--" Harry was about to say something else, but then it seemed like it clicked in his brain that it wasn't Hermione the one who had spoken. He turned to Ginny, still angry, but very confused as to her presence there. Hermione was also looking at her, half relieved that someone seemed to be backing her up, and half curious about where this was coming from. "What? Ginny?"

The three of them looked at her expectantly, but she didn't volunteer any more information, or not immediately, at least. Ron was so intent in hearing an explanation that she didn't even notice that someone else had gotten out of Ginny's car. He only noticed when she walked up to him and greeted him. "Hello, Ronald."

His head whipped around incredibly fast, and his eyes were wide, but she showed no reaction to that. Her expression was every bit as dreamy and nonpresent as it had been the last time he'd seen her, years ago. Her long, disarrayed blond hair hung about her, and she looked as unaffected as if it were perfectly normal for her to have turned up on their doorstep.

"You should close your mouth, Ronald. Certain kinds of mozzies like the human organism so much, they will reproduce in your stomach. That's not a very good thing, see."

There was no way in hell she could be there, standing in front of him. Then again, she wasn't looking much like a hallucination.

author's note--

this goes to prove that my word can't be trusted. i said this would be paused until after i finished all my other fanfics, and the moment inspiration strikes guess what i write? anyway, i hope you liked it. forgive me if it feels a bit rushed, the last three scenes were written in just as many days and that is usually not good for the pace of a fanfic. it's supposed to be that way, however, because i don't expect this to be very long, probably five or six chapters total.

ignore my bringing in freud up there, hermione's psychiatry degree crept up on me. and forgive me if i used too many big words on ron's POV, i was apparently possessed by a dictionary last night.

PMS!harry! recognize him? i'm trying to stick to canon with this one, so i want to get their personalities down as well as i can. and i know, you don't give two flying twits about canon, but hey, i actually liked HBP. so sue me.

it seems i always leave you hanging with a visit from a blonde, grey-eyed person, doesn't it? you all know who this particular visitor is, though, i'm sure of that. this chapter was chock full of clues as to the plot. keep telling me your theories, i love them, and i'll do my best to reply to all of you this time 'round. it'll probably be your last chance, too, because there's a good possibility you might get the whole story of what the hell's going on in the next chapter. i think. i might be wrong, i've had to alter my original plans twice already, due to OotP and HBP being published, so don't take this as a promise. if you liked it, or if you hated it, i don't care, please review!