Thank you so much! I woke up this morning and had twenty-two reviews waiting for me. That's the biggest response I have ever gotten to one chapter. Also, to a couple reviewers, if I made the chapters longer, there wouldn't be one every single day. Also, I picked Katie Bell because I wanted a bit of a shock factor. I didn't want Hermione's response to be `oh yeah. I thought those two had a thing'; Katie was off the grid. I also love the way Draco's developing. Contrary to popular belief, most authors will tell you that they don't consciously have any control over the way their characters behave. I know I certainly don't. They do what they want and I'm just one who types what they want me to. Keep reviewing, and don't forget to vote on August 15th.
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Hermione opened her eyes, saw that her face was buried in a decidedly male chest. Holding her breath, she wiggled away from Harry and sat up. A glance at the clock told her he wouldn't be up for hours. It was only seven on a Sunday morning. She liked to get up and do her reading, but the boys typically liked to sleep in.
She couldn't believe she'd slept with Harry. Not just once, but three times. She'd have just fallen asleep and he'd wake her up again, with either his hands or his mouth, and one time both. She was only seventeen! What had she been thinking?!
Hermione shook her head. There was nothing wrong with it. She loved him, and that was the most important thing. And with the war they were fighting and the life they lived, every day could be the day that one or all of them died. That meant it was important to pack as much living as possible into the time that they had. And, she'd be nineteen in a month. She was an adult as far as the Ministry was concerned.
Carefully, she eased out of the bed, grabbed her robe and wrapped it around herself. She thought about using her bathroom, but figured that the noise would wake Harry. So she brushed out her hair and put it back up, and carried her toothbrush and toothpaste downstairs.
She was crossing through the kitchen when she ran into Ginny and Luna. To her shock, the other two women were also carrying toothbrush and paste and heading for the powder room off the kitchen. Ginny moved first, clapping her hand over her mouth to stifle the giggles.
Hermione didn't really find anything funny about the situation. It was awkward, and if Ron found out his sister had slept with Draco, if Harry found out Ginny had slept with Draco, there would be bloodshed and possibly death by noon. But Hermione found herself giggling too.
Luna, who wasn't as loony as everyone typically thought she was, spoke. "Well, it would seem that all three of the guys in this house got lucky last night."
That made the other two women roar. Ginny grabbed the counter for support, managed to choke out a sentence. "If Draco was any indication, we all got pretty lucky too."
Hermione sat down in a kitchen chair and doubled over to try and control the laughter. "They're going to kill each other!"
"They'd be hypocrites." Luna said, managing to control the laughter.
"They're men!" Ginny moved to sit down, ended up sitting on Hermione. They tumbled backwards out of the chair and onto the floor. "Of course they're hypocrites!" she choked out. Hermione was laughing so hard that her stomach hurt and her eyes were watering. "We're going to wake them up!"
"Too late." Hermione sat up, her laugh having turned to hiccoughs. Draco and Ron had stumbled in from down the hall, and Harry was standing on the bottom step. All three men were wearing nothing more than boxer shorts. The situation was enough to make Ginny start giggling again. Draco reached down and heaved her to her feet.
"And just what the bloody hell is so funny?" Ron demanded. "What the hell are you doing here, Ginny? Don't you have your own bed to sleep in?" he looked at the couch. "Good Merlin, woman, why didn't you get a blanket out of the closet?"
Hermione buried her face in Harry's neck, helpless to do anything but laugh. She was embarrassed beyond all reason, and it was showing no sign of letting up. Harry patted her back, rather confused by the whole thing. Draco seemed to be the only one who knew exactly what was going on.
The man in question stretched and walked to the sink to pour himself a glass of water. "Because she didn't sleep on the couch. And Hermione, you may want to tie that robe a little tighter before we all get a great view of what Potter was seeing all night."
Hermione and Harry blushed, and Hermione cinched her robe tighter around her waist so that Harry briefly considered the possibility that she would just cut herself in half. When that didn't happen, he turned back to the other four inhabitants of the kitchen. Ron was either in disbelief, or much more daft than Harry had ever considered him to actually be.
"So where did Ginny sleep? On the floor, or with Harry and Hermione?"
Hermione giggled into her hands. That would have made the previous night into a very, very awkward situation instead of the beautiful one that it had been. "No, she didn't sleep with us."
"And if the noises I heard at about three o'clock this morning were any indication," Luna said, from the stove where she was competently scrambling eggs and frying bacon. She'd decided it was time for breakfast, and since no one else was, had also decided to cook it. "That would be a very good thing. And Ron, stop being stupid. She slept with Draco."
The kitchen exploded in a flurry of activity. Ron tackled Draco, Harry launched himself into the fray, really intent on separating the two, but not at all concerned if he threw a punch or two. Ginny shrieked and leapt onto a chair to avoid the mass of rolling bodies. And Luna stood calmly at the stove, buttering bread for toast. Hermione threw out her hands.
"Diffindo!"
The three men flew apart. Harry landed on the table, Ron crashed into the china cabinet, and Draco soared into the back of the couch. Hermione heard the sickening sound of all her best dishes shattering, some over Ron's head. Ginny stood and looked around, as if looking to make sure that they were still alive. Luna turned to face everyone else, not the least bit affected by the melee.
The toast popped up, and Luna smiled. "Breakfast!" she announced happily.
Hermione stepped off the stairs and took stock of the situation. Harry was laid flat across the table. Luna had just sat the carton of orange juice on one of his thighs, not seeming to notice what it was she was doing. Ron was groaning from the pile of shattered dishes, and nursing a bloody nose and busted lip. His eyes were already blooming in a wide array of color. Draco had managed to sit up, was breathing heavily, but seemed to have given more that he'd gotten. There was just a small cut at the edge of one eyebrow that Hermione imagined would turn into a scar that would drive witches crazy.
All in all, it was humorous. Three men in their underwear, three women wearing nothing more than bathrobes, and a bloody brawl complete with broken plates, a busted couch, and breakfast. Helpless, Hermione started to laugh again. It was so completely ridiculous that laugh was the only thing she could do. She'd never have believed it if someone had told her about what had just happened in her kitchen.
Harry lifted his head and glared at Hermione. "And just what the buggering hell is so damn funny?"
"This." She gestured. "Harry, Luna is serving breakfast off of your body, Draco's going to have a neat scar that all the women will love, Ron has a bloody nose, a fat lip and a black eye, Ginny's standing on top of a chair so that she doesn't get dragged into the fray and every dish I own just got busted over Ron's head."
Harry lay back down and laughed, knocking the orange juice off his thigh. "This shouldn't be funny." He looked at Luna, who was holding a plate of toast over his face. "Don't. Wait until I get up." He sat and let Hermione pull him to his feet. "What was the point of all this?"
Ginny answered as she stepped off the chair and sat in it. "Ron was mad that I slept with Draco, despite the fact that I am a fully grown witch."
Ron stirred. "I'm still going to kick your ass, Malfoy."
"Good luck with that." Draco said, managing to get to his feet. He joined Ginny at the table. Harry offered Ron a hand and pulled him up.
Hermione helped Luna set the table, thankful the other woman had gotten the correct number of dishes out before Ron had crashed into the cabinet. "Well. Let's eat."
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Harry was sweeping the remnants of the plates off of the floor. He'd been elected to do it because he was the only male who didn't need to be nurses and the women were dressing and getting ready for the day. He swept them into the dustpan and dumped it in the trash. He noticed a large chunk sticking out from beneath the cabinet and stooped down to retrieve it. His hand brushed the bottom, and he felt the edge of what appeared to be a door.
Hopeful that Hermione had spare dishes in the bottom portion, and that he, Ron and Draco wouldn't have to buy her new ones, he opened it. Nothing but dirt, dust and one old goblet left sitting in the corner of the bottom shelf. Still hopeful that there was a chance the goblet would help to appease Hermione, he picked it up and carried it to the sink.
"Hey Herms!"
Hermione came to the top of the stairs. "Yeah?"
"Did you know this goblet was under the china cabinet?"
Curious, Hermione walked downstairs, her hair still wet around her shoulders, wearing shorts and a camisole. Harry had brief thoughts about nipping at her shoulders before handing her the goblet he'd washed off. "No. Where did you find this?"
"In the bottom part of the china cabinet."
"The bottom part of the china cabinet?"
Harry walked over and opened the door. "Down here."
"I didn't know that was there. The cabinet was here when we moved in, remember?"
He didn't, but he wasn't going to tell her that. "Sure. So it belonged to the previous owner?"
"It would seem. This is old, Harry. Really old." Hermione went to her laptop computer, and started typing furiously. "Oh my God."
"What?" Harry went to look over her shoulder. "What is it?"
"This is a search engine that I helped the Ministry design to make searching records easier for all of us. I'm searching housing records so I can find out who lived her before us."
"Well, what's that have to do with anything?"
"The previous owner was Bellatrix Black. She moved out sixteen years ago and no one has lived here since. Everyone thought that when she went to prison the apartment was probably cursed or something. Harry, we think the fifth Horcrux is Helga Hufflepuff's goblet. This is a very old goblet left in Bellatrix's apartment, which is who we think had it in the first place. No one would have found it when they cleaned out the apartment, and she's probably forgotten about it, or thinks it's safe and sitting in some warehouse with the rest of her stuff."
Hermione took the goblet and went to the sink. She scrubbed until the engraving became visible. Harry's jaw dropped as it did so. "Can you test that for validity?"
"No, but Draco can. He wrote a recipe for a potion that will destroy the Horcruxes. Anything that isn't a Horcrux will come out intact. He wrote it before he came to us, and showed it to me last night after dinner. It should work. He's an excellent Potion master."
"Go get him then. We need to test this. If it is a Horcrux, we need to destroy it now."
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Draco worked on the potion without stopping all day. It took that much observation and supervision. Hermione was the only one allowed in the kitchen while he was working, as he knew she was the least likely to mess him up, and would be more help than hindrance. Even with her help for most of the afternoon, it was after nine o'clock when they finished. By that time, Ron and Harry had contacted the Weasleys, Harry's parents, Sirius and Lupin. They were all in the living room, waiting anxiously to find out if it would work or not.
Draco walked into the living room, pushing his cauldron. "It's done, but no one touch it. Granger, bring me that cup."
Hermione handed him the goblet and watched as he carefully lowered in into the bubbling pink potion. There was a strange hissing sound, and the bubbles sped up, steam increasing and the smell becoming worse. There was nothing pretty about it.
After a few minutes, Draco stuck his arm in and felt around. He searched for a full minute, then withdrew his arm, wiping the goop off of it. "It's gone. Congratulations, Potter. Five down, two to go."
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