Unofficial Portkey Archive

Where Does The Good Go?

By attica

Chapter Three: Dividing Lakeside Blues

"If I could tame all of my desires

Wait out the weather that howls in my brain

`Cause it seems it's always changing, the wind's indecision, the sorrowful rain." - Bright Eyes, Train Under Water.

Hermione was nowhere to be found before dinner. They'd looked everywhere: the library, the common room, the corridors, staircases, and even Moaning Myrtle's bathroom. They'd even asked around. No one knew where she was.

"That's odd. I wonder where she could possibly be," Harry breathed, looking around him. He swept the hair sticking to his forehead to the side, feeling the slight perspiration that clung on to his fingers when he did so.

Ron was clutching onto a suit of armor a few paces behind him. Finally, he caught up. His face was pink and there were diamonds of sweat forming at the base of his hairline. "Harry… dinner's in ten minutes. I'm starving; you're starving. Everyone's starving. So why don't we just go along to the Great Hall and I'll apologize to her afterwards?"

Harry could not disagree with him. His stomach was beginning to hurt from running all over the place with no rest looking for Hermione, and the hunger that was roaring from his stomach did not help matters, either. He was beginning to smell roast beef and he was almost a mile away from the Great Hall.

"All right," he said, finally giving in. "But when you see Hermione in the Great Hall, you've got to ask her to meet us in the common room."

"Yes, officer." Ron looked relieved as they finally turned around and started their way to the Great Hall. "Merlin, is it just me or is that girl always making us run after her?"

"No, it isn't just you. But where could she be?"

"I don't know. We looked inside the library twice. Maybe we could've tried pulling out each of the books and opening them, just to see if she had gotten sucked in and trapped. And, y'know, considering how much Hermione loves books - she probably wouldn't even have protested if such a thing did happen. She's a madwoman."

When they finally reached the Great Hall, all of the students had already filed in and started their supper.

The scent that pervaded Harry's nose as soon as he had stepped inside was mouthwatering and smelt so good that he was convinced it was almost lethal to his brain. He was so hungry it reminded him of when he had been back at the Dursleys'. He quickly sat down with Ron at their table, shoveling food onto their plates: mashed potatoes, roast beef, tarts, honeyed ham, and anything that made their stomachs lurch violently just at the sight of it.

"Good God," commented George in awe as he saw their plates. Fred, Seamus, and Dean were also sending them bewildered looks. "Where have you two been?"

"We've been looking all `round the castle for Hermione," said Ron, his mouth muffled by food. "But we thought we'd take a break."

"No kidding," snorted Fred. "I s'ppose looking for people really does make you hungry. By the end of this meal, you two are going to be looking like Crabbe and Goyle." George gave him a high-five.

Harry let out a dry laugh as Ron rolled his eyes, calling them a number of not-so-friendly names under his breath.

"So you two still haven't found Hermione?" inquired Ginny.

"Nope." Ron gave her a full view of roast beef, mashed potato, and ham inside his mouth as he said this.

Ginny cringed, looking away. "Ugh! Ronald!"

"So he's finally shown you what he's made of?" the twins commented.

Ron only shrugged, ignoring them, and continued to eat.

Harry was looking around at their table, looking for a head of familiar bush-like hair. "Hermione's not here, either."

"Maybe she's having tea with the troll that tried to kill her your first year," sniggered Fred.

"Would you two shut up?" Ron asked irritably. "You're like a broken record."

"Ohhh, are we making ickle Ronnikins angry?" they cooed. "Well, big bad prefect, why don't you show us who's boss?"

"Why don't you get a life?" he lashed out at the pair of them.

"When you get a brain," they answered in unison.

While Ron glowered, Ginny went on as if they weren't there at all.

"Yeah. She hasn't had much of an appetite these days, if you two had cared to notice," said Ginny, taking a bite of her tart. "She's real depressed about Crookshanks. Horrible what happened. Who would kill a cat? And by throwing it down the staircases? Brutal!"

"I don't know, Gin," said Fred. "Cats are awfully nasty. Especially Hermione's. Maybe it just went mad - and, you know, I wouldn't have doubted if that cat was suicidal."

"He," corrected Ginny. "And Crookshanks was not suicidal, Fred. It was murdered."

"Maybe it was self-defense," blurted out a defensive Ron.

Ginny looked at him with an odd look on her face. "From a cat? What? Was Crookshanks clawing them to death?"

Fred and George burst out laughing.

They then started to make cat-clawing noises and then lapsed into more hysterics, pounding the table and making their plates and goblets rattle and the rest of their housemates to look over.

"Well, I don't know!" exclaimed Ron. "I wasn't the one who did it! For Merlin's sakes, Ginny!"

Meanwhile, Ginny looked at him as if he had just glued a pair of Snape's knickers to his head.

"One point for Ginny, zero points for Ron," George said, looking ridiculously serious and acting like a sports commentator.

"You haven't seen her yet?" Harry asked Ginny. He was starting to get really worried. The last time she had chosen to miss out on supper was on Halloween and a troll had just happened to break in that day (just as Fred and George had managed to joke about, though to Harry it was no laughing matter). She would've almost been killed if he and Ron hadn't gone after her.

Ginny shook her head. "Did you two try the library?"

"Twice," answered Ron. He was still chewing, and bits of his food splattered all over Ginny's face.

Ginny, fed up with his lack of meal etiquette, started to yell at him whilst wiping her face off with a dinner napkin.

"Oooh," said Fred and George, smirking. "Four points for the screamer, two points for open-mouth chewer. But an A for effort."

Harry, taking one last look around the Great Hall, went back to his meal.

oooo

They went back to the common room after dinner along with the rest of Gryffindor House. The seventh years had just started a fire inside the hearth as they sat down on the couch.

"Why would Hermione miss supper?"

Ron let out a belch. "I don't know. You heard Ginny. `She hasn't had much of an appetite these days, if you two had cared to notice,'" he said in a high-pitched, awful imitation of his sister.

"Aren't you starting to get worried?" asked Harry.

"No. She disappears all the time. I wouldn't be surprised if she'd gotten herself some secret boyfriend."

Harry's eyes widened. "Boyfriend?" Somehow, the concept of Hermione and a boyfriend seemed very surreal to him. His head even felt a bit light and strangely disconnected when he thought of it. He'd just never… well, she did have that thing with Viktor, but he'd never thought she'd have a boyfriend. She'd endlessly insisted they were only friends, after all.

"Maybe. I don't know. You'd think she'd tell us that little insignificant detail but girls usually only tell that sort of personal stuff to other girls. And, see, if Hermione told Ginny, then Ginny would certainly tell me. Unless, o'course, she told Ginny not to tell us. So, in conclusion: I don't know."

Harry then remembered something. "She mentioned Ernie coming by at Crookshanks's funeral. D'you think-?"

Ron let out a loud snort before Harry could finish his sentence. "Ernie? Hermione? That's impossible, Harry. Think of how their children would be like!"

"Children?" Harry managed to choke out. Was it just him or were they discussing Hermione's possible love life at a very fast pace? Boyfriend, and now… children? It was a bit too much for him to drink it all in at the same time.

"I know, tell me about it. The horror, right? Ernie's almost just as bad as she is. They'll be like… I don't know if there's even a word for it yet. It's just too ghastly. Think of the horror and pain the future generations of Hogwarts students would have to endure with them!"

Harry swallowed down hard, his brows furrowed. He remembered Ernie was a bit on the fanatical side when it came to studies and academics, just as Hermione was. Was that what Hermione looked for in blokes?

It felt strange to be asking and pondering about such things. He'd never thought of Hermione this way before. To him, Hermione'd just been… Hermione. No-boyfriend Hermione, always-studying Hermione, snapping-and-scolding Hermione. It made his stomach almost cripple over with uneasiness.

"Yeah." He didn't know what else to say. He didn't think Ernie would be right for Hermione. They were too… perfect for each other.

"D'you reckon we should start looking for her again?" Harry asked absentmindedly, trying to shake away the thoughts of the Hufflepuff and Hermione.

"No need, mate. She's right here."

Surprised, Harry looked up at Ron and then trailed his eyes at where his gaze was directed. He watched as Hermione stepped in the common room from the portrait hole, holding something that looked like a Muggle shoebox in her hands.

Her face looked calm, but her eyes were a gentle pink around the edges. She was shivering as he looked down at her hands clutching the box. Her fingers were curled tightly around the edges but they were slightly quaking. Her hair looked windswept and face was flushed from the cold.

"Oy, Hermione!" Ron called out.

Hermione froze and looked over at the mention of her name. Her gaze was still and unmoving on Harry and Ron for a moment, as if she was trying to think something out, before she slowly made her way towards them.

She sat down on the chair in front of them, right in front of the fireplace. Harry watched her as she let out a steadying sigh.

"Harry, Ron," she acknowledged them. The fire sent beams of dancing lights; some shining off of her prefect's badge and some making a halo appear around her head. Harry felt his mouth to be quite dry when he noticed this. It was quite a remarkable sight.

"Where've you been, Hermione?" he finally asked in a quiet voice.

"Nowhere."

Ron rolled his eyes. "Exactly. So that's why we've been scurrying all over this massive castle and couldn't find you. We are such idiots."

Hermione was looking at Ron. Harry was surprised, as her eyes did not become fierce as she continued to look at him. Instead, her features were soft, compassionate, and understanding. She did not get even a tad bit upset from Ron's sarcastic remark, and while Harry was indeed grateful of that, he didn't recall her ever looking that way before. Not at Ron.

Only at him.

His heart lurched.

"I was at Hagrid's for a while."

Harry wanted to smack himself on the head. That's where they had forgotten to check! Hadgrid's hut! He looked at Ron and his expression told him that he was thinking the exact same thing.

"Oh. We sort of… didn't think to look there. But we did look everywhere else. The library, the corridors, the staircases, Moaning Myrtle's bathroom, the library-"

"Look," she finally sighed. "I know it wasn't fair to force you to go to Crookshanks's burial. I didn't check with you if you could. I… apologize." She almost looked like it hurt her to apologize, and Harry wondered why.

She was then silent, just looking at them both.

Ron had his mouth open. Harry refused the urge, though he was just as astonished at what had just happened. Hermione had never been the one to apologize so quickly before. Harry then knew that someone had told her about what had happened before Ron and Lavender. That had to be it. That look on her face… she sympathized with him, too.

But when her brown orbs finally met his, he noticed that the fire behind her caused a little light to flicker inside her eyes. He thought it to be extraordinary. He felt a little flip in his chest.

"I… I'm sorry, too, Hermione," Ron said, at last. He looked uneasy saying this to her and he glanced at Harry, asking him with his expression if it was really necessary for him to do this. Harry gave him a firm look, and he hesitantly continued. "I… I really didn't mean to yell at you like that, especially when Crookshanks had just… passed away. I was… upset."

Harry thought it was highly amusing that Ron looked slightly nauseous.

Hermione nodded, looking down at what she was holding on her lap.

Curious, Harry made up his mind to ask her what was in the shoebox. "What're you holding, Hermione?"

"It's a shoebox."

"Well, that's obvious," interjected Ron. "What's in it?"

"Crookshanks's things. I was going to dig a hole right beside his grave and bury it, but it was too cold. I figured I could do it tomorrow, after classes. It's going to start snowing soon, so I have to do it when I can."

They nodded. It was odd having nothing to talk about. It was tense and uncomfortable.

Harry looked at Ron, nudging him. Ron looked at him and Harry gave him a look, nodding his head towards Hermione.

`Tell her,' he mouthed. `Tell her now.'

Ron's eyes widened as he furiously shook his head, his mane of red hair flying along with the motion. `No.'

`Why not?'

`Because.'

Harry let out a silent breath of air, shaking his head in disapproval. He knew delaying telling someone the truth would only make things worse.

He looked at Ron pityingly.

He nudged him.

Ron looked over to him again, giving him a questioning look.

`I'll be sure to tell them to bury you right next to Crookshanks.'

At first, he wasn't certain Ron had gotten his message as he seemed confused, but he then scowled at him, and he knew he had read his lips just right.

oooo

It was getting chillier each morning. The skies outside were no longer even the faintest hint of blue but dulling over with rolling, nippy grays. Even the air outside had become frosty and was increasing in its drop in temperature every week.

In Transfiguration they had progressed onto the more difficult spells. They were first reading and studying about Transfiguring larger mammals, and then they were to go on to human Transfiguration towards the middle of the term. McGonagall had even warned them with a mischievous smile of the chaos and disorder that awaited them when the time came for the advanced spells. It had even seemed as if she was anticipating them with great excitement.

When Harry's curiosity finally got to him, he flipped ahead to the middle of the thick textbook and his eyes widened at the graphic pictures of the rather grotesque side affects of improper human Transfigurations. He shuddered visibly and immediately tossed it shut before Hermione and Ron asked him what he had seen.

"What is it?" Ron asked nosily. "Are there naked girls?"

Hermione gave him a fierce reprimanding look, huffing. She looked as if she wanted to slap him. "Honestly, Ronald. If you spent as much time at least attempting to study, you'd become clever enough that you wouldn't have to be filthy pervert. There are more productive, fulfilling, clean activities than thinking dirty thoughts. Like reading. At least it'll get you somewhere."

"If I did become more `clever,' I'd figure out a spell on how to make a girl's clothes fly off of her with a snap of my fingers," he snapped.

Harry knew that Ron had only said that to annoy her even more.

Hermione's eyes narrowed at him. "There are no naked girls in our textbooks. Get over it."

"In your textbooks," he corrected nastily. "You've always got to rain on a bloke's parade, haven't you, Hermione? Always trying to kill the excitement. Just because no one else but you get excited over books about on how to be boring - not that you need anymore tips. You're already as boring as it is!"

Harry looked bemusedly at Ron to the side of him. Where had that come from?

"You brainless little twit," she lashed out.

"Oh, I'm so frightened," he feigned to whimper. "What are you going to do - bore me to death? Oh, wait a minute - you already do!"

"There are moles in the ground who can come up with better comebacks than you, Ronald Weasley!"

"There are blank walls more interesting than you!"

"Will you two shut up?" shushed Harry, noticing how their eyes had just transformed into threatening, angry slits on their faces. Hermione looked surprised at his interruption while Ron scowled, leaning back on his chair. Harry watched McGonagall continue writing on the board on the corner of his eye. It was a miracle she hadn't heard them shooting insults at each other yet.

"Who died and made you a pacifist?" snorted Ron.

Harry paled. His fists impulsively clenched and he felt a burning inside his chest. A clear image of Sirius flashed inside his head at Ron's remark, making his muscles painfully tighten and his jaw clamp down in his mouth.

"If you would've just shut up about the naked girls," Hermione scolded, "we wouldn't have distracted Harry."

"Harry didn't get distracted by the naked girls - he likes naked girls! It's you who distracted him with your boring Holier-Than-Thou, Reading-Is-What-Makes-The-World-Go-Round babbling!"

The rest of their insult whispering shootout trailed on indistinctly to his ears. Anger and guilt flared throughout his whole body. Pain ripped through his upper body and his throat suddenly felt as if it had been twisted and knotted, restricting his breaths and cutting them up into sharp, ragged pants. There was a roaring inside his chest, so acidic and poisonous that he also felt as if his skull was set into a boiling cauldron.

Images flashed through his mind. They all brought forth pain, pain that he had tried so hard to erase…

"Would you two just shut up?" he suddenly bellowed. He felt something snap inside his hand.

He had forgotten they were still in class. He had forgotten they had been anywhere. All he knew was that he suddenly felt as if he was going to be sick and explode all at the same time. His skin was unbearably hot. There was an icy crawling inside his veins, an agonizing drilling inside his brain.

The class was silent, open-mouthed. Ron and Hermione were looking at him as if they had just been electrocuted or maybe deafened by his unexpected outburst.

His peers recovered after a second or two, as the Slytherins quickly started to snicker. Harry, still breathing heavily and feeling as if his heart was being brutally crushed underneath his lungs and ribs, hesitantly looked over to the front, where Professor McGonagall quickly composed herself from surprise and sternly looked over to him.

Her thin, arched eyebrows were drawn towards the middle of her forehead. "Mister Potter, is there a problem?" she asked, a cold and strict edge to her voice.

"No," he gulped. He quickly tried to settle the strangling feeling combing through him and wash away the lingering ache pulsing vociferously inside him. His hands felt cold and sweaty. "No problem at all."

His face did not heat up as he thought it would, as was usual when thirty pairs of eyes were attentively staring at him like a frighteningly alert guard dog. He was too miserable, too angry and too depressed to be embarrassed.

He had an abrupt urge to tell her that he wanted permission to head out of class to speak to Dumbledore and instead just head back to the dormitories or somewhere where he would not be bothered, but he swallowed it down.

The severe lines on her face softened only slightly. "Very well, then. Ten points from Gryffindor from the unnecessary class disruption."

She then finished with the directions on the board and called the class's attention.

"Please turn to page one hundred seventeen," she instructed them.

The sound of thirty students flipping through their books rustled through the room.

Harry felt Hermione and Ron fidget nervously beside him.

"Read through one hundred seventeen to one hundred nineteen and summarize the history, theories, side affects, and directives."

The class lapsed into a complete and concentrated silence once again.

Harry let out a shaky, silent sigh, ducking his head down to read. But it was just then he felt something warm and feathery tickle his palm. His head snapped up.

Hermione's big brown chestnut eyes pooled him. They were warm, apologetic and guilty and it flooded through his lungs. His anger towards her wavered.

He looked questioningly at her before he looked down, awkwardly very sensitive to the physical contact to his palm. He watched with furrowed brows as he watched her slender and dainty fingers tug at his enclosed fist, feeling their pleasant warmth against his suddenly chilly hand. He couldn't help but notice how soft they felt against his fingers, her full hand now caressing his, but still very, very confused at what she was doing.

"Hermione, what-" he whispered in his bewilderment, before he finally opened his hand and saw what she had been trying to tell him.

She plucked off the two separate pieces of his quill from his palm and held it up to him for a quick moment before setting them aside to probably throw them out when class ended. He noticed the firm indentation of them on his skin because of his past angry flare up of force.

Yet as he stared at the two broken pieces of his quill she had pushed to the side of the table beside a crumpled parchment, he felt a lasting tingling sensation on his palm that slowly began to creep up his arm, somehow making him want to shudder.

And strangely, in a good way.

"Oh," he mumbled, suddenly feeling very uneasy around her. He fished out another quill from his bookbag and began to work.

oooo

Harry had forgotten all about Crookshanks's death until he had heard Hermione talking about it to Hannah Abbott in Herbology.

"Off the staircase? That's awful!" the Hufflepuff girl gasped in horror.

Harry felt Ron beside him cringe.

Trying to tend to his assigned plant while Ron was trying to flip through their Herbology textbook to see exactly what it was they were trying to do, he saw Hermione's brown coils sway slightly as she shook her head.

"I know. Animal cruelty, that's what it is," she said with a bitter tone in her voice, though Harry still found himself dry-mouthed at the fact that she was still overwhelmingly sad over his death.

"I can't believe… who would do such a thing? Who could be so heartless and so malicious-?"

"All right, all right," Harry heard Ron say, halting the two girls' conversation. Harry looked up to see lines of annoyance tightened across his friend's face. "Will you two forget about the cat for a second? I can't concentrate and Harry and I are supposed to have completed step three by now - and, besides, if Crookshanks did happen to have nine lives like every other cat is supposed to, he wouldn't be buried in a hole in the ground right now."

Both girls gaped at him before Hermione shot him a look, tilting her chin up. But Harry had seen the hurt blanket over her eyes for a quick second and he felt pity for her.

"Is everyone else under the impression that cats have nine lives?" she asked him coldly. "Because then I'd be going to school with complete idiots."

"Oh, touché, Hermione," Ron retorted. "Your head's getting so big your brain's starting to feel real small. And that dead, shriveled up bush on your head doesn't help in covering it up, either - just makes it even bigger."

"Beats that peanut you call a brain."

"Oh, yeah, beaver?"

Harry sighed, closing his eyes in frustration. How had he been able to cope with them bickering before? Had it really been much worse than this? It was torture! They were driving him mad with their constant squabbling!

"Would you two give it a bloody rest?" he snapped.

They both quieted down, and the quiet chatter of the rest of the greenhouse filled Harry's ears.

Harry found Hermione looking at him. She looked even more miserable then before, and her eyes offered an evident apology.

Her lips were pulled together, looking quite hurt. "I'm… I'm sorry, Harry. I can't believe… I'm sorry for both times. In Transfiguration and now." Her eyes brightened slightly. "I'll buy you a new quill if you'd like - the sort that's made from strong plastic so it'll be harder to break. Or do you want the one that's made of rubber so it can bend?"

He almost found himself smiling at her predictability. He also discovered that it was now more difficult to be sore with her than it had been before, remembering his torching anger with her and Ron back in the start of fifth year. She meant her apology. She always did. Her eyes hid nothing.

He only then realized that that was what he liked about her. There were no secrets with Hermione - and he'd come to despise secrets from all of the upturning events. He could look into her eyes and know the exact truth.

He wondered if he always had the ability to read her this way, and if so, why had he just noticed it now?

She was still giving him a compromising look when Ron spoke up, as well.

"Yeah, mate… I'm sorry, too. I know I… shouldn't have said what I said." He sounded as if he knew he was the one at fault for Harry's outbreak of anger and the ten-point deduction. And Harry, while he had felt scorn for his friend for his unthinking remark, felt it slightly lessen. He knew Ronald had a quick tongue and let things slip out from his mouth before it could even be fully processed and considered in his brain, and he'd gotten fairly used to it…

… Except the topic of Sirius and his death was never something he could ever get used to. He knew this. Ron knew this. Hermione knew this. They all knew it. That's why they had made a silent vow not to talk about it unless completely and truly necessary.

"It's all right," Harry said weakly.

He suddenly felt exhausted, as if hearing them argue continuously with each other and thinking about Sirius's death and how much he missed him and wondering how things would have been now if he hadn't died had completely deflated his entire soul and sucked out all of his energy. All of those painful thoughts took a hard toll on him. It made his body hurt, his heart hurt, his brain hurt - his soul hurt.

He could sense Hermione beside him giving him a kind look as he felt her gently caress his arm in an attempt to comfort him. He could only stare at the bare spot on the table in front of him. He wished he could look up at her, but he felt that vast twisting knot inside his abdomen again.

"I'm sorry," she whispered again, and Harry didn't know whether she was sorry about their uncontrollable bickering or Sirius. He had a feeling she meant both.

The warmth radiating from her touch and the softness of her tender contact gradually vanished from his arm as his surreal dizziness was sluggishly drained from his system.

He shook it off and tried to moisten his mouth by swallowing, trying to help Ron locate the directions in their textbook.

Fifteen minutes later, there was restless shuffling and loud conversations as they cleaned up. Harry took off his weighty, worn-out protective overcoat and dragonhide gloves while Ron offered to hang it up on the racks. Catching a quick glance at the heavy skies from underneath the glass of the greenhouse, he then remembered that Hermione had told them she was going to head out to bury Crookshanks's belongings.

He looked around, catching Hermione lightly talking to Hannah again. He wanted to do something nice for her to maybe cheer her up, considering that Ron was still giving her a hard time about Crookshanks's death because he was still not too keen on being named her cat's murderer. Harry realized with a grim face that he was being overly sensitive and touchy about it, which was the cause of at least three of their spats this week. And the fact that Hermione had no clue and was confusing Ron's defensiveness and sensitivity for just cruelty made it all ten times worse.

Filing out of the greenhouse, Harry saw that Ron was preoccupied with talking to Seamus about a recent Chudley Cannons game. He also looked behind him and saw that Hermione was also preoccupied in conversing with Ernie Macmillan. Lost in the crowd, he sidestepped quickly and grabbed a stalk of small daisy-looking flowers from one of the pots. He tried to remember if it was poisonous in any way, but figured that it wasn't since his hand hadn't broken out in boils, rashes, or had started to burn from any invisible acid just yet. And, for further reassurance: it looked pretty harmless.

He stuffed it inside his robes and made his way out with the rest of the class.

The breeze was nippy when he stepped out into the grounds. He shivered, not recalling if it had been this cold before, but headed on. He recognized a small sitting figure of a girl with tangly brown curls with her back to him right beside Crookshanks's grave, just as he had expected.

He walked towards her, feeling an unsettling stir inside his stomach for a quick second. He passed it off as a side affect of the chilly weather as he approached her, the fine details of her brunette locks spilling down her back and her small movements becoming more focused in his vision.

He stood behind her for half a minute, not knowing what to do, before he kneeled down right next to her.

Hermione jumped, surprised at the sudden company. One of her hands - gloved and dirtied - went to her chest, trying to steady her breaths back to their regular pace again.

"Harry," she shakily said, still trying to overcome her shock, but said it with a smile. She looked pleased and delighted to see him, and Harry felt faint shivers shimmy up his body. "I wasn't expecting anyone to come over here."

"I just thought I'd stop by…" Harry said slowly, not having really planned out what he'd say. "… Further extend my condolences to Crookshanks."

Hermione smiled a soft smile, grateful. Her brown orbs faintly sparkled. "Well, thank you, Harry," she said quietly. "I'm certain Crookshanks is smiling down on us right now."

Harry nodded, inspecting the rather deep hole she had managed to dig for the box. He saw a small gardening spade in front of her.

"Are you sure this is wide enough?" he asked her, tilting his head to further scrutinize the cavity before them.

"Well… I don't really know," she answered hesitantly. "I made calculations, I measured… and it doesn't help I never was much of a gardener or a genius with a mini-shovel, at that."

"Here," he said, scooting closer to her and grabbing the shovel. Their bodies were pressed close to each other for a minute before she moved away a few inches, giving them some comfortable space. Harry felt a subdued flip in the midst of his chest. "Let me help you."

"S-sure," he heard Hermione say as he quickly started stabbing away at the edge of the hole, watching as the soil gave away and fell to the bottom of the gap. He continued to widen it before shoveling out the dirt and piling it onto the small mound she had already started.

When he was done, he raised his arm and wiped the sweat that had been forming above his brow. The stench of soil and the earth pervaded his nose.

"Well," he said, looking at the much bigger hole he had created. "I think it's certainly big enough now."

"You're quite right," laughed Hermione.

Harry only grinned boyishly as she thanked him and grabbed the box from her side. She carefully placed it inside, looking a tad bit sad as she did so. She sighed heavily, turning her head towards Harry, who then shifted his gaze towards her, as well.

She was looking at him with a calm look on her face. It was kind and serene - but that wasn't why Harry was suddenly feeling a rolling tumble inside his stomach. He couldn't understand why his mouth had been perfectly hydrated a few seconds before and was now very arid and dry. His stomach also felt very warm: a very foreign feeling he didn't finger ever getting used to.

A sad smile gently tugging at her lips, she turned back to the burial of Crookshanks's box and got a hold of the shovel, scooping the dirt back in.

After smoothing out the soil to make it look undisturbed, there was a peaceful silence between them. A bitter breeze came and went, and he noticed Hermione tremble for a swift second. He looked closer and also saw her cheeks a bit pink from the cold.

He rashly thought of taking off his robes and offering it to her, but he felt uneasy just as he was going to tug it off.

"I thought you had plans with Ron," she suddenly said, interrupting his vortex of spinning, whirling thoughts.

"What?" he blurted out. "Oh," he rapidly said afterwards, realizing how stupid he must've sounded. "Well… he and Seamus were rather engaged in a game of Wizard's Chess and Neville already started a betting pool going on who's going to beat who, so my plans were magically whisked away for the evening until their endless rounds of rematches are over."

"Ah," said Hermione, nodding her head in familiarity of the situation. "I see."

Harry then remembered that he had stolen flowers for Crookshanks's grave from the greenhouse. Panicked, he quickly reached inside his robes and felt petals all over his garments, before taking out a muddle of half-naked mini-daisies. He sighed disappointedly.

"I… brought these for Crookshanks," he said weakly, feeling like a fool. "But they didn't used to look like this, I assure you. I have proof," he said, taking his other hand and showing her the inside of his robes. Yellow petals adorned the dark inner-material as well as his sweater-vest.

Hermione giggled softly, taking the flowers from Harry's offering hand.

"Thanks, I…" She sobered abruptly.

Harry suddenly became alarmed, looking from her to the flowers. "What's wrong?"

"Aren't these poisonous?"

Harry's face paled in record time. "W-what?"

To his surprise and fortunate luck, Hermione laughed. Her eyes were adorably squinted in her amusement. "I apologize," she said, her peals of laughter momentarily dominating their conversation. "I was only joking. Thank you for the flowers. I saw you take them from the greenhouse."

Harry blushed, feeling his face catch on fire.

She set them down right beside the tiny headstone. "To be honest, I actually thought you were going to give them… I don't know, to a girl, perhaps." She smiled, but Harry could see that she was reddening, too.

He only flushed brighter, not knowing what to say to her comment. Instead, he opted to change the subject. "So," he said, trying to sound casual, "find out who threw Crookshanks down the stairs yet?"

Harry immediately regretted his poor choice in words, however, knowing that had sounded very ignorant. But what else could he have said? "Find out who killed Crookshanks yet?" wasn't a very appealing choice, either.

Shockingly, she didn't look as upset. She only looked contemplative.

"Actually… no. I was having second thoughts about it before you came. Maybe he did just fall," she shrugged. "I was just so upset and surprised that when I heard… I couldn't believe it. It was overwhelming. I needed a few hours to let it sink in."

Harry felt a bit solemn himself, talking to her about this. "I don't blame you. When-" he immediately stopped himself, knowing what he had been going to say. `When Sirius died,' he had been going to tell her. He felt that same fierce yet stifled feeling in his gut, churning around. It felt as if someone had just stabbed him in the chest with a dagger and was twisting it around, pushing it deeper, penetrating it through his lungs and heart.

Thankfully, she didn't ask him to go on. From the worried and understanding look she sent him, she knew exactly what he had been going to say.

They were silent for a few moments.

Her voice was almost a whisper when she spoke again. "What do you think, Harry?"

Harry was confused, knitting his brows together. "What do I think?" Hermione nodded. He swallowed hard. "What do I think…?" He remembered that they had been talking about whether Crookshanks had really been murdered or if he had just fallen. "I think… maybe a Slytherin did it."

He couldn't tell her that Ron did it. It was foolish enough that he told her that he thought someone had intentionally killed her cat. Hermione was clever - with Ron's constant defensiveness each time she brought up Crookshanks's death and with Harry even somewhat confirming something about it (he knew that she knew Ron told him almost everything), she would eventually figure it all out. She was that clever. It would have been creepy if he hadn't been so used to it by now.

She was softly frowning. "That's what Ron said. You two might be right." Or lying, Harry thought cynically. "But, I don't know. I don't want to just point my finger at any Slytherin who wanders about at night. I don't want to blindly accuse them solely because of their reputation." She said this a-matter-of-factly as usual because she knew for certain that it was morally correct, but she also sounded a tad bitter although he knew that she attempted to hide it. He wondered why.

Merlin, Harry thought. She was so good. Anyone would've settled for blaming the Slytherins.

"Although that forked-tongue Malfoy is really wearing on my last nerves," she sighed. Harry noticed she looked and sounded very exhausted.

"Why?" he asked, though he already knew Malfoy wore on everyone's nerves. He hadn't heard Malfoy insult her… unless he had caught her when she was alone. Harry gulped.

Though he knew Hermione could take care of herself, Malfoy had gotten incredibly nasty this year. He'd resorted to more physical threats than taunts and elementary teasing and bullying.

Her gaze stayed on the lackluster skies. She looked like her normal self but as she continued speaking, he could see that she was trying to conceal the fact that Malfoy had really bothered her. "Oh, you know, patrol."

"What about patrol?" he asked. He suddenly felt very protective of her.

She shook her head. "It's silly, Harry. There's no need to concern yourself with it - I don't even know why it bothers me. He's just an insufferable prat. All these years… and he only manages to get worse and worse. It astounds me, really."

"Yeah. He's roughened up since his father was sent off to Azkaban." Harry couldn't help but say the last part with a proud, triumphant smirk.

Hermione looked at him with cloudy eyes. "Yeah, but don't you think… don't you feel a bit… sorry for Malfoy, sometimes?" Harry saw the apparent strain on her face and knew that it had been rather hard for her to say that to him. "I mean-"

"Lucius Malfoy deserved to go to Azkaban," Harry said coldly. "He deserved worse, but he got lucky."

Hermione was silent. "I just hope… maybe there's hope for Draco. His father's gone. There's bound to be less pressure, right? I mean, he's incredibly intelligent and we could very well use him on our side-"

Harry snorted. He realized he was now glowering at the scenery before him. Anger was pounding in his veins. "Hermione, don't waste your time. Draco's going to be just like his father - a bastard. He's going to end up in Azkaban right along with him. And I think he's well on his way there."

He couldn't look at her - didn't want to, not right now, but he could sense her gaze on him. Her innocence and persistence to find "good" in even the worst people frustrated him at times. She even held a small flickering candle of hope for the most hopeless, the ones who were already guaranteed a place in the fiery pits of hell, and he just couldn't understand it.

She remained quiet this time.

They sat still for a while. Unspeaking, motionless. Another breeze tangled around their necks and through their hair, placing icy kisses underneath their robes. Harry then pressed his palms to the ground and helped himself up, brushing off his hands. He turned around, scanning their gloomy atmosphere, before he looked down on her.

"We'd better get back to the castle," he told her. "Ron might be looking for us, and we've got to study for that Herbology assessment."

"Yeah," she sighed. "I've got a prefect meeting. And I suppose Ron's forgotten all about it, so I've got to remind him to avoid the problem we had last time."

He held out his hand to her, and she took it, giving him a thankful look. She dusted off her robes before they made their way back to the castle.

"Harry?"

"Yeah?" He only noticed how close they were walking beside each other when her hand brushed against his, feeling a familiar velvet-like heat swish against his fingers.

"Thanks. For the flowers. For sitting out there with me and helping me. For… not being so cold."

Harry didn't quite understand what she had meant by "not being so cold," but there was a heavy weight that was forming inside his skull that told him otherwise. Suddenly, he felt ashamed.

"Yeah," he told her, only looking ahead. "No problem."

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