Unofficial Portkey Archive

I really still own nothing....
Chapter 11: Hell if I know...

***************************Hogwarts*************************************
August 1, 1997
10:30 am

Luna had not left Ron's side ever since her nightmares had driven her back into the realm of the wakened. Her normal, slightly detached expression had settled back over her face and actions an hour later, but she still wanted him close. Even to the point of demanding that he stand in the women's restroom, his back turned of course, while she went, just so she could see he was still there.

Ron had humored her...and even put up with the taunts of Myrtle as she blew raspberries at him and splashed him with water from the sink.

The pair of them were sitting on the castle steps looking out onto the lawn, with almost identically happy expressions as Luna went on about some belief that Scrimgeour was using his new position to ease the way for the fifth Grindylow uprising. Luna was sitting between his legs, a step lower than him, leaning back into his chest as they sat in the peaceful morning air, both trying to decompress more than anything after last night.

Ron who couldn't for the life of him, remember just when the first four Grindylow uprisings had occurred or exactly why a water demon, who never set foot on land, would be interested in the arid uplands, just nodded at seemingly appropriate times, and Luna beamed up at him. She quickly progressed into a discourse on Demiguise farming when Ron suddenly realized two things...for some reason it was much easier listening to Luna ramble on about some random fact than Hermione. This was of course putting aside the whole if she were insane or not question, but then again he wasn't always too sure about Harry or Hermione's sanities in the first place either. And the second, as he caught an odd look out of the corner of his eye...he wasn't too sure that she wasn't putting him on. He turned to confront her with a twinkle dancing in his eye, when a familiar head of long, red hair appeared coming up the path from Hogsmeade.

"RON." Ginny screamed as she came up to the stairs. She gave Luna an odd look as the blond was leaning rather possessively on her brother. "Where's Harry...was he hurt last night, why didn't he come to the Burrow with you?" Her words came out in a rush.

Ron glanced down at Luna, and for the first time that he could remember besides the occasional trio moment, he knew the sensation of having a conversion in a glimpse, just like Harry and Hermione had for years. "Hermione needed help...her parents needed help Ginny, I sent him there with her." Ron settled back slightly, "Now as to where he is...bloody hell if I know, he's probably out brooding somewhere." His eyebrow fought to twitch and only a contest of will kept it under control. "It is kind of annoying when he does that really, gets on my nerves sometimes frankly."

"Yeah" Ginny replied absently as she looked around the lawns for a sign of Harry. "It did annoy me last year..." She gave Ron a calculating look, and smiled slightly, "Of course he does snog superbly...."

"Ginevra..." Ron howled, "You do..."

"What Ronniekins... mum doesn't know what I do, and don't you go telling her." She glanced at Luna, a brief hummingbird flicker of a glance, "or I may tell her, just what you and Hermione were up to..."

Ginny left with a huge smile on her face as Luna stood up abruptly and let out a small hiss at Ron. She scampered out of sight, and Luna fell directly back down to her previous position sitting with Ron. "Luna, we, ah..."

Luna smiled slightly and reached up, pulling his lips down to meet hers, letting go after a moment, "all is as it should be Ronald. I am happy, and she has already lost...and far more than she might think. Friends are a commodity that one cannot afford to spend frivolously...you have taught me that."

***********************Grimmauld Place******************
August 2, 1997
10:20 pm

Harry. Hermione sent softly as she appeared next to him on the roof outlook, and sat down. Harry didn't speak as she felt for his hand, and intertwined their fingers. Out in the distance the lights of the London traffic flickered about like mad, grounded fireflies. Are you ok, baby?

Did you know? Harry replied as he leaned his head back against the rough, red brick chimney. He took a deep breath, no of course you didn't. I'm just tired of it Hermione...I don't care if it were my birthday, they should have fucking told me.

If they had...what would you have done Harry?

Harry frowned; I don't know...he just should have told me...would you have, even considering what we were planning on doing later? Hermione sighed and lowered her head to his shoulder, remembering absently the last time they were on this roof.

Yes, She replied after a moment's consideration, I would have, you deserved; we deserved to know. Her eyes narrowed slightly, and I would have damn sure told us that Tom broke his minions out of Azkaban. Honestly, this whole lets not tell the targets who is shooting at them shyte is getting old.

Welcome to my world Hermione, Harry replied bitterly, why do you put up with me, I mope, I rage...

Because I love you. She glanced over at troubled emerald eyes, it's a two edged sword, love, the good and the bad. And that I know you better than anyone else...I know that no matter how much you hate them, you didn't wish them dead.

But is it bad that I don't feel a fucking thing...I at least felt sick when I heard about Percy and he was a traitorous arsehole of a git, She shivered as the winds picked up slightly and Harry pulled her into his side. I just feel like I should feel something, for Petunia at least, she was mum's only sister. Hermione shifted around until she was on his lap, with her head cradled on his shoulder. That I should feel guilty for the thoughts that you are engaging in me, when I should be mourning them.

They died because of me, Hermione Harry replied exasperatedly. Me. Snape and his butt munching little friends tortured them to find me.

And they would have given you up if they had known Harry. Hermione replied reasonably. Those aren't the actions of those who love you, or even like you. Ron or I or any of the Weasleys would have died before we ever surrendered you...just like you would do for us.

Just it, you're tired of other people sacrificing themselves for you? Hermione finished for him, and received a small glare in exchange. Harry sighed and dropped his eyes apologetically as he shrugged his shoulders. Hermione gave him a small grin as she kissed him and settled back into his lap, her head on his shoulder as they watched the night go by, filled with Muggles about their business, totally unaware of what their guardians suffered in their stead.

***********************Hogwarts ************************

August 10, 1997
10:00 am

Ten days had passed since the long night marking Harry's majority. A whipsaw of emotions that had driven those effected by the events of that night to their knees. Percy had been buried in a funeral attended by only the family, Harry, Hermione, Luna, Remus, Tonks and Minerva. No others of the Order had shown, on that blustery day as he was laid into the Weasley family gravesite.

Roger Granger was doing better; the five stunners had briefly stopped his heart before it fitfully restarted again. He was currently sitting in Poppy's infirmary, where he, Jane and Poppy were having daily discussions on the differences and similarities of Muggle and Magical medicines. Poppy did repair his bum knee while she was at it, and curiously asked him, why he just hadn't had Hermione do this? It was easy enough for her.

Charlie still lingered on the cusp of life and death at St. Mungo's, as no one seemed to know exactly what the curse was that Percy had hit him with. The best current guess was that he had panicked and mistakenly altered a stunner with disastrous effects.

All of this had driven the trio even harder into the fight...Ron, Harry and Hermione had spent every waking hour over the last ten days, training or reading. Or else, in the case of one disastrous effort to find a clue of the whereabouts of the Hufflepuff cup, had ended up in a running battle with several Death Eaters for almost three hours before they managed to escape around the Death Eater's anti-Apparation charms.

Hermione was still limping slightly from the night of that battle four days ago. She paused as she entered the Hospital Wing to find Jane and Roger busy sitting up together reading through a first year Transfiguration book. Neither one of them mentioned the limp, or the raging fight they had heard between Harry and Hermione as soon as they got back about the battle. Harry's entire back had been burnt from where the Death Eaters had set fire to the shack the trio had been hiding in, and he had shielded Hermione at the cost of his own skin. No, Hermione's parents had just stood back, while Harry and Hermione had raged at each other across the room, watching with odd, little smiles as small objects shattered randomly and Poppy lost several windows to random magical releases. The stumbling, half-begging apologies that each had stumbled over the other's words a half hour later had more than convinced them of the two's real feelings.

"Hey mum, dad." Hermione said softly as she sat down next to her father. He smiled up at her and nodded as he sat his book down and took her hand for a minute. "How are you doing?"

"I'm fine sweetheart" Roger replied as Hermione bent down to kiss his cheek, "Where's Harry?" A small little knowing glance passed between her parents as she glanced up and to her left. A small, glowing orb hovered over the top of Roger's bed, softly pulsing at about sixty beats a minute. An IV containing a clear, yellow potion dripped into his arm, rebuilding the nerves damaged by the multiple stunners to his heart the night of the attack.

"Umm..." She paused, considering for a moment, "Seventh floor I believe...maybe the Room of Requirement, he and Lupin were going to work on animating objects." She looked at her mother, "ready to go on your tour mum?"

"Sure honey." Jane leaned back down over the bed and kissed her husband with enough energy to embarrass her daughter thoroughly.

"MUM!"

Jane grinned evilly, "what, dear...you made your father and I watch as you snogged your boyfriend the other day..." She crooked an eyebrow, "was the make up any good?" Hermione sputtered as Jane went on airily, "Your father and I are married dear."

"We, uhhh..." Jane just laughed and stood up, kissing Roger on the cheek once more as Hermione mutely followed her. Hermione took a breath as they left the Hospital wing, "what do you want to see?"

"Let me see what you saw over the last six years." They passed the back of the clock tower and glanced out onto the grounds. Hagrid was herding several Thestrals about, evidentially getting them ready to pull the coaches in a few weeks time. Jane frowned as she saw them, she knew what the reptilian horses meant, and she knew what the accepting look in Hermione's eyes meant as well. Normally Muggles could not see magical creatures, the Ministry spent a great deal of time, using charms and disillusionments to hide the existence of things like Thestrals, and the pair of Unicorns the two women could see emerging from the edge of the Forbidden Forest. However, most of those charms were predicated on one crucial factor...that the Muggles not believe in magic. Hermione's parents knew better of course.

Hermione began at the Great Hall, Jane had eaten here since her arrival but, her daughter's descriptions gave it new life, as Hermione portrayed Halloween feasts with giant pumpkins floating past, innumerable meals eaten by the side of her friends, and a few eaten alone as they were one or all feuding for some reason. Jane could see the long lines of first years filing in to take their place under the Sorting Hat and she could feel her daughter's joy as she related how the hat had placed her with that black-haired boy from the train in Gryffindor over the stodgy intellectuals of Ravenclaw. That was at least how scared eleven-year-old eyes had seen it, as was described by a more experienced seventeen-year-old throat. Hermione grew quiet as she pointed out Dumbledore's golden throne on the teacher's dais, she smiled after a minute, but Jane could tell the smile was forced.

They continued on to a dark, dank dungeon where Hermione related long hours of toiling under a hated taskmaster, one that in the end had proven to be what he had portrayed himself to be all those years, their enemy. Jane laughed as Hermione grabbed a small bottle from one of the shelves, and using a dropper dropped five drops on a large rat, that she attracted from the corner of the room. The rat turned colors and started dancing.

They next went up to McGonagall's classroom, now Tonks', where Hermione related their first day, of Harry and Ron showing up late, and McGonagall berating them for it. Hermione smiled as she easily transfigured an errant quill into a white lily and gave it to Jane. She shuffled her feet slightly and thrust her hands into the front pockets of the khaki cargo shorts she was wearing, and shrugged her shoulders slightly.

Hermione next led the way to the DADA classroom, where Jane looked up, slack jawed at the skeleton of a Dragon and watched as Hermione tossed up a handful of wood blocks and shot them out of the sky before they hit the ground. Hermione's knee buckled slightly as she twisted with the target.

Jane's hand shot out with the mother's instinct to comfort a child, but stopped at a look as Hermione bent down and adjusted a elastic bandage around her knee. "I'm ok, Mum" Hermione snapped testily, "It's just a sprain, Poppy thought it better to let it heal on its own than use magic, just in case there was some remaining difficulty from the talisman." Jane did not speak of the problem, not now; she just followed Hermione as she led them up the stairs. She showed her, the room where Fluffy had been, and the trapdoor, the trio had fallen through to lead them through their first real brush with the darkness.

"Let's go to Gryffindor Tower, mum, then I'll show you the Head's quarters." They climbed the many stairs to the seventh floor corridor, and paused outside of the Fat Lady. The pink-clad woman turned in her portrait.

"I recognize you, Miss Granger," She began happily, after forcing the two of them to listen to a particularly bad aria, "But I have not met your sister before, did she go to Beuxbatons?"

Hermione giggled, as Jane preened not so subtly, "No, my lady," she chuckled slightly, "this is my mother...may we pass?"

"Yes, Head Granger" and with that, the portrait swung open to reveal the hole through the wall that led to the slightly decrepit Gryffindor Common Room. The room was curiously quiet as the pair of them entered and looked around. No one was home, right now, a little under three weeks until school restarted. No books cluttered the worn study tables, no errant pets scampered under foot, and no giggling of girls or raucous cries of laughter from the boys at some dirty joke sounded in the circular room.

Hermione spun around the room slowly, "This is home, mum, at least while I'm here for the last six years." She walked over to the fireplace and looked down into it, longingly, "I remember this is where I think I really knew I was in love with Harry." Hermione said softly as Jane hung on her words, afraid to say something that would close her back up. "Unfortunately...my brain decided I couldn't really be...he was just a friend. I watched him try desperately to go save Sirius, I remember that that was the first real fight we ever had..." Hermione frowned a bit as her arms hugged herself, stretching out the design on the Muggle 'Stones t-shirt she was wearing. "I mean we had fought before...but this was the first time that I knew his whole heart was in it...because he was scared, scared out of his wits. To this day I still don't think Ron or Ginny or anyone else that went to the Ministry knew how much Harry was scared at that moment. Of loosing Sirius, and then when I thought Umbridge was..."

Hermione broke off with small smile and waved towards the portrait hole, "Let's go see the Head's quarters shall we? We can get there from here, but it's cooler this way." Hermione led her back out of the hole, down the hall a bit and tapped on a particular brick. A soft grinding sound accompanied moving stones, as an archway appeared where only a blank wall had been before.

Hermione smiled as she ushered Jane into her new home. Jane smiled appreciatively as she looked around the circular room and ohhed and awed at the appropriate times as Hermione showed her the sumptuous bathroom and the amenities of the common room. "So Hermione," she asked as she turned to catch Hermione's eyes, "Which one is your room?"

"Oh that one, mum." Hermione replied easily as she pointed to the right hand room. She started to move towards it, but stopped as she realized Jane hadn't moved.

Jane smiled crookedly, "No dear, which one really, is your room?" Hermione bit her lip slightly but wheeled on her heel to open the door to Harry's bedroom, which had become, by a mutually unspoken agreement, their bedroom. Hermione silently led her mother into a room, that was immediately obvious to a woman who had been married for over twenty years, that two people slept in.

Unlike the perfectly kept and immaculate room that Jane knew without looking would have been what they found in the other bedroom, this one showed signs of two lives intertwined everywhere she looked. A haphazard stack of dirty laundry was in an open bin in the corner, tops of Hermione's clustered in with boxers of Harry's. A large desk in one corner held stacks of papers, framed pictures of the Trio, Harry and Hermione alone, the old one of Harry's parents dancing together in the snow, and one of her and Roger at their twentieth wedding anniversary. Jane walked slowly around the room, smiling to herself as she saw the unmade bed, the Quidditch jersey with "POTTER" written across the back tossed on top of a four-foot high stack of books. Crookshanks opened one eye at them, and then closed it again as he sunned in the window.

Hermione watched her mother nervously, waiting for a lecture, but none came. "Just promise me one thing honey." Jane said finally.

"Yeah mum?"

"Both of you survive this...I want to have grandchildren to spoil someday." Hermione laughed as she hugged her mother and sat down in the couch, gesturing her mother to join her as she flicked a wand and two hot cups of tea appeared. They both sat back, fixing their tea as they liked. Jane watched her daughter as she sat, relaxed, yet tense at the same time. "I don't want to pry..." She began softly.

"Yes?" Hermione replied with a sudden sense of unease.

Jane took a slow sip of tea before setting the china cup back down on a coaster on the coffee table and sitting back slowly. "How is your...situation with Ginny?"

Hermione scowled as her eyes glittered dangerously, her voice was flat and hard, "We agreed, Harry, Ron and I that we were going to just let it slide, to not do anything. And that hopefully she would get the hint, but she hasn't yet. She has shown up here three times since the first, wanting to come and just 'visit'." Hermione's slightly snarling tone wasn't lost on Jane. "She even jumped him in the hall that first day right in front of me. Of course she doesn't know, no one does, but still..."

"Harry hasn't been encouraging..." Jane asked softly.

Hermione laughed bitterly, "oh Merlin, no. In fact the poor dear runs and hides when she comes. Keeps thinking she will get the hint that he's busy every time she asks, but so far she hasn't. She seems to have this obsession that she just won't drop. She even basically told Ron that he should have abandoned me to go to the Burrow after her..." Hermione blew a wayward lock of hair from her face as she got up and started to draw her hair back into a tail. "Can you find your way back mum, Harry Ron and I have training with Tonks and Remus." Jane nodded as she watched Hermione strip off the t-shirt she had on to replace it with a plain one, and slipped on a pair of BDU pants to replace the shorts she had had on. She left as Hermione picked up her wand from the couch and slipped it into a sheath on her thigh.

4:25 pm

"WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU CALL THAT WEASLEY?" Lupin roared in Ron's ear as another spell shot off into the distance scaring some squirrels at the edge of the trees. Lupin flicked his wand in the direction of several floating, bobbing outlines of man shaped targets. They froze as he turned to the trio. All three of them looked exhausted, Hermione's injured knee was trembling slightly as she stood at a quasi-attention as Lupin berated them. Behind him Tonks was pacing, shaking her head as she looked out at the targets that Ron was supposed to be servicing. The fact that they had been alternating running laps around the lake, followed by trying to hit targets out at several hundred yards that refused to stay still had absolutely nothing to do with it of course.

The trio had started out doing extremely well at the task but after the tenth lap around the lake the task had gotten more difficult. Hermione glared up at Lupin as he paused in front of her. "AND WHAT THE HELL DO YOU THINK YOU ARE DOING GRANGER? THINK THIS IS A GAME? I WOULD THINK THAT UNLIKE THESE IDIOTS, YOU WOULD BE THE ONE WHO WOULD REALIZE IT WAS NOT." Hermione barely kept herself from flinging a rude gesture at the Lycan as he turned on his heel. "Drop and give me twenty, now DAMN IT!" Lupin snapped, at the trio dropped to a forward leaning position, a position that Hermione had learned rapidly and Ron and Harry had been all too familiar with from Quidditch punishments. They started to bob them out as Lupin walked back to where Tonks was standing with her arms crossed, glaring for effect.

"Well what do you think love?" Lupin asked softly to Tonks with his back to the three teens. Hermione and Harry got done at almost the same instant and paused, panting slightly. She glanced over at Harry and they shared exhausted grins.

"I SAW THAT GRANGER, TWENTY MORE." Tonks snapped, the teens groaned and started again. She replied out of the side of her mouth, her lips moving not at all, "Honestly, besides the fact that we are punishing them for letting their exhaustion not allow them to hit targets at three times the regulation range distance," she snorted softly, "you know that they will kill us in our sleep someday, right Remus?"

"As long as they are alive to do so, I'll die happy, I could face James, Lily and Sirius with a clear conscious then." Remus replied seriously. He stepped away from Tonks. "Ok, you're done for the day, go." He announced almost kindly. He closed his eyes tiredly as he watched Harry and Ron help Hermione back toward the castle; she was too tired to even fight them. "I'd do anything to let them just be kids Nymph, to screw around like we did in school, but I can't. And if I didn't drive them this hard, they'd drive themselves even harder." He took look back towards the castle and sat down on a large bolder that demarked the edge of the clearing they had been using. He looked up as she dropped next to him and turned so her back was leaning against his side. "Any word on..."

"I think Mad-Eye is about to crumble." Tonks replied, knowing what he was asking. "He always supported Harry, he was one of the ones along with Sirius that thought Harry should have known everything a couple of years ago. He saw what happened at the Burrow, and at the Grangers. And I think he knows that this is Harry's war to win...Kingsley is set in his ways though, and Molly is campaigning behind the scenes with her usual let the adults handle it line, or at least that's the vibe I'm getting. I think that Mad-Eye was...scared, when Albus died, and if Harry were to be killed he'd see it as a personal failure to his friend. That's really why this hide, Harry, hide thought of his came to the fore."

"Yeah. So did you get your lesson plans done for the next year...Professor Tonks?" Lupin laughed as she rolled her eyes. He got up and took her hand, pulling her easily to her feet as they headed back towards the castle.

"I did, Professor Lupin..." she stopped and looked worriedly around, "Do you think that Minerva has told him yet?"

Lupin frowned and ran his hands through his hair and messing it up thoroughly, "No...there are still targets along with the forest surviving downrange. I fully expect an explosion when he hears about this...she did torture him and get away with it."

"He won't back down to her ever again Remus, none of them will. All three of them are of age; she could find herself under the Code Duello quickly. It's only because the students realize that it is suicide to take on a Professor that it hasn't happened in two hundred years here. Heck it's been fifty or so since the last actual sanctioned honor duel between students here. But they can take anyone here, one on one, and they know it."

"I was a bit surprised that she didn't find herself tricked into challenging Hermione...she was sixteen then, she could have accepted it." Remus replied absently as they passed under the arch into the stone courtyard.

"Hermione was panicked Remus, love can do that to you." Tonks replied with a shrug as they entered through the front doors of the castle. Flitch was off to one side mopping something, growling at anyone who came near as Mrs. Norris looked on. "All things considered she did pretty good that night."

"Yeah, I'm waiting for this little explosion I think." Remus glanced in the general direction of the Headmistress' office.

************************Headmistress' Office**************************

"Albus, I will not have that woman in my school..." Minerva's blur was almost incomprehensible in her fury as she paced back and forth in her office, shaking a dull green parchment marked with the official seal of the Ministry. A large tin of biscuits fell to the floor as she slammed her fist on the massive desk. Dumbledore looked on impassively from his portrait, waiting. "She will not walk in that door as long as I am still Headmistress..."

"Calm, Minerva, calm." Dumbledore replied serenely. "Let her come, she will find no succor in this school, not this time." He smiled and paced within the confines of his frame. "Let Scrimgeour send his spies, she will learn nothing here."

McGonagall paced to the window where she could see, Harry basically carrying Hermione back to the castle, with Ron acting as both their guard Wyvern and helper. Old gray eyes closed behind square-framed lenses as she thought of what the presence of that person here, once again would mean to them. She knew what the presence of that person would mean to this school, her old house, and more importantly to the three just now entering the castle. "Harry will never let her dominate him again. Not in the slightest. And if were to hurt one of the other two...I shudder to think of the consequences."

"So," Dumbledore replied after a moment's contemplation, "when are you going to tell them?" McGonagall shrugged and looked back out the window without answering.

**********************Hogwarts Library******************************

9:45 pm

"So Remus?" Hermione began, and paused as she yawned hugely. She closed her eyes for a moment, before looking up at him exhaustedly. She glanced over at Harry, who was passed out face down, in the third volume of Animation, Deanimation Magic. She absently reached out and rubbed his neck softly, as there was no one else here to see them. No one that didn't already know, anyway. Ron had wandered off two hours ago to go work with Tonks on advanced shielding charms with Luna following along. Somehow, even though Harry so far steadfastedly refused to let her in on exactly what they were doing, about what they were looking for when they had left the castle several days ago and came back wounded, Hermione strongly suspected that the odd Ravenclaw had a pretty good idea, and it could only help the DA in the long run if she learned a bit more combat magic. "How are the Inferi animated again?"

Lupin looked over at Harry pointedly. He watched with a small grin as Hermione's fingers slipped forward to play absently with the hairs on the back of Harry's neck. "Do you want the simple or technical answer?" Lupin watched as Crookshanks sauntered in and hopped up on the table, an accomplishment that both of them knew Madame Pince wouldn't allow him during the school year.

"He's not stupid Remus." Hermione growled softly, her eyes glinting darkly. "He might not have always applied himself..."

Remus raised his hands defensively, "I know Hermione...I know, anyone with his parents would have to be a truly odd combination to not be bright, scarily so. In fact?"

"Yeah, he might just be smart as me." Hermione snorted, "He had to work hard to hide it though. I wonder what Snivellus is thinking right now about the 'spoiled, useless son of James Potter'...who handed him his arse..." Hermione's other hand, the one not busy with Harry's hair clenched as thoughts of that night ten days ago passed. She lowered her eyes to the table and examined the wood grain minutely. She glanced up to find Remus' kind eyes watching her, "is it wrong to hate him so much Remus?" She glanced over at Harry and watched him squirm in his sleep. Hermione forced herself to be calmer, before looking back at Lupin. "I used to berate Harry for hating him so much...no that's not right, I loathed Snape. Probably as much as Harry did, I just never let him get to me like Harry did. But now...he's killed Dumbledore, he tried to kill my parents and me, and...he's tried to kill Harry, again." Hermione laughed darkly, "is it weird that him trying to kill me, really doesn't bother me all that much, but when..."

Lupin shook his head, "Not at all...in fact that only makes sense. Just proves you are a Gryffindor lass." He smiled slightly as an old memory flitted across his mind, "what was that old quote of Godric's that Sirius used to have written in his DADA book...oh yeah, 'kill me, that's just annoying, look at my friend oddly, I'll wear your guts for garters.'"

Hermione laughed, and stared at him goggle eyed. "Honestly, Remus...is that for real?"

"Who knows?" Lupin admitted, "but Sirius liked it. As to your original question before we got distracted with thoughts of philosophy, or at least what us fellow Gryffindors would consider philosophy; it's a complicated process actually. The bodies used have to be older than one year, but less than five since they died. The reanimation is a an ancient spell, one that I think Voldemort borrowed from somewhere else during the last war...it basically reanimates them, much like one would animate a statue."

"How does he control them?" Hermione asked with a small frown as she started to scratch notes on a piece of parchment, she pulled it to her lips and sucked on it to get the ink flowing."

"Two ways we think...Harry would be glad to know Lily worked on this a bit, before she got distracted, with him. Um, if I remember correctly, she thought that he had tied a modified Mobilocorpus charm to move them, with some sort of Imperius charm to give them his will. Since they are dead, they have no wills of their own, so they are effortless to dominate."

"What about the ones like Harry found in the cave, Riddle wasn't there to control them."

"No," Lupin agreed, "in that case, we think that he enchants an object with a...quasi-sentience for lack of a better term, that gives them a will. That approach has weaknesses though, in that they can only do a singular task, such as defending a site, and that at a very instinctual level."

"So," Hermione mused, if I were to...." Her hand left Harry's hair as her quill suddenly flew across the parchment, leaving behind a long, complicated Arithmatic equation. Lupin watched with a slightly dumbfounded look as she muttered a spell and a pair of books shot out of the restricted section, and fell open on the table before her. The pages of the books turned themselves as her eyes scanned back and forth between them. Occasionally she would scratch out a term and replace it with another. After another ten minutes of Lupin watching, slightly dumbfounded, and another four books, Hermione sat back with a pleased expression and went back to scratching Harry's scalp absently.

"Can you check this please Remus...I made an assumption in the fifth line, I used the standard decay rate of enchantments on inanimate objects with a thirty percent margin, but I think it should work, even if he's controlling them directly." Hermione shrugged slightly and looked a tad touch guilty as she took a sip of the coffee at he elbow that Pince would have skinned her for if she caught her with it, near her precious books.

"Ummm" He replied after a long moment, "It looks good, as rusty as my Arithmancy is...you know this is beyond NEWT level math right?" Hermione shrugged, "I guess the incantation would be, what...Imperatum dispersium inferati de flagratto? What's the last term for? Cutting the link?" Hermione nodded. "Well we'll see what happens then, won't we?"

Hermione stood up and stretched, her spine popping softly as she twisted. "Has Harry talked to you about the DA? He's thinking of restarting it and handing off the day to day training to Neville or---Ginny" Lupin didn't comment, "We would almost like to have Luna, running it...she has more training than those two actually since she's sat in on some of them here, but too many people think she's mental." Hermione shrugged.

Lupin carefully hid a grin as he remembered a time, not too long ago, that Hermione would have been one of those very people, but that was before betrayals and revelations innumerable. "A bit, yes. I would like to integrate the training with my classwork...but I guess that is not possible, is it?"

"No, its not, not any longer. Neither Harry or I will trust anyone, not really, except Ron, and Luna...I guess." Hermione suddenly looked as if she didn't know if she wanted to laugh or cry at that. "A few others; that I suppose we will give parts of the puzzle to, such as Neville, and the rest of the Weasleys. But as of now, the six people and one portrait that know for sure about the quest is it."

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