If Fate Had Rules

For the first eleven years of her life, Hermione Granger had been a perfect student in every sense of the word. Not only did she have top grades, but she had a strong desire to follow the rules and to see to it that others followed them as well. If the rules were there for their own good, then what reason should anyone have to break them?

There were others, of course, who felt the same way as Hermione. There was Percy Weasley, who had always liked to follow the authority figures. There was Minerva McGonagall, who expected every school rule to be followed to the letter, and there were several Ravenclaws who agreed that the rules should be followed at all costs.

There were others, like Fred and George Weasley, who broke the rules simply because they could. They didn't see a good reason to follow all of the laws set down by the school board, and to prove that they disliked these rules, they broke them. After all, in the infamous words of the legendary Marauders, rules were made to be broken.

And then, there were people like Harry Potter.

Very few people, Hermione realized, lived like Harry did. The only other person she could think of who behaved like Harry was Albus Dumbledore, the late Headmaster of the school. He had often let Harry get away with breaking or bending the rules, and had even on occasion encouraged the trio to break them.

Usually, Harry only broke the rules if it was necessary. Whether it was to save someone's life or reputation, Harry always had a good motive behind his rule-breaking. From the way Hermione saw it, if Harry always had a logical reason to break the rules, then it wasn't really breaking them. Just creating new ones.

But on that last night at Hogwarts in their sixth year, when Hermione couldn't sleep and had decided to stay up late reading to unwind, Harry Potter came down the stairs from the boys dorms carrying his invisibility cloak.

To Hermione, this didn't make any sense. They had already solved this year's mystery, and as far as she knew there was no logical reason for Harry to be wandering the corridors in the dead of the night.

“Harry? Where are you off to now?”

“Just for a short walk.” He answered quietly, his eyes sad.

“Is that really such a smart thing to do, with Voldemort out and about and attacks only increasing and…” She didn't finish because she knew she didn't need to. Dumbledore was dead, and while there was no getting around it, saying it would only hurt Harry.

“And I no longer have Dumbledore's protection.” He finished for her, his voice sad but casual. “I know. But I really need some time to think, and I can't just lay there listening to Ron's snores anymore.” The two of them shared a smile at Ron's expense, then Hermione closed her book and rose from the couch.

“Then let me come too. I can't sleep either.” She was shocked that she was even saying it, and even more astounded when Harry just nodded. He smiled at her and motioned to the cloak. Hesitantly, Hermione wrapped herself in it, and they left through the portrait hole.

They didn't speak or take the cloak off until they reached the astronomy tower. At one point, the tower had been an infamous spot for infatuated and hormone-driven teenagers to meet, but ever since Dumbledore's death the tower had been left empty by everyone in the castle. When Harry slipped the cloak off of the two of them and leaned on the stone wall that overlooked the starry sky, Hermione reluctantly joined him.

“I hope you don't take these walks often Harry. This is really dangerous, and I don't just mean because you could get caught.” Harry's lips twisted up into a small smile, but his eyes stayed directed towards the night sky above them.

“I know. It's the first time I've done it since Dumbledore's death, but I did it often before that.” He replied softly.

“Why?” Hermione asked, wondering what there was for a teenage boy to do up here. Had Harry been seeing someone she hadn't known about?

“Well, there's a reason everyone thought that it was so romantic. I mean, you can see the night sky, and it's beautiful when the sun sets or rises.” Harry replied quietly.

“But…but what did you do up here?” Hermione asked, unsure of what to do herself. Harry, startled, finally tore his green gaze away from the stars to look at her.

“Well…most of the time, I just thought.”

“About what?” Hermione asked, wondering what could get Harry thinking in silence by himself for hours during the night.

“Everything and nothing,” Harry replied easily, shrugging and returning to his star gazing. “It helped me relax, and sort everything out. A pity I didn't find this place until last year, it could've really helped with occlumency.” Hermione didn't want to say it, but she doubted that anything could've helped Harry live up to Snape's occlumency standards. In fact, she doubted that Snape had been teaching occlumency at all. She was startled out of all Snape-related thoughts, (something she was admittedly grateful for) when Harry continued.

“I've been wanting to come here just to think for a long time, ever since we were taking classes here. I didn't actually start coming here until this year, when I was trying to move passed Sirius's death. This was the place I felt closest to him.” Harry murmured. Hermione turned her eyes away from her friend's sad face to look up at the stars. It made sense that Harry felt closest to Sirius here. His godfather had been named after a star, and the open night sky made you feel more relaxed than the stuffy dorms ever could.

“So…you're going here tonight just to think?” Hermione asked, unsure. Harry just nodded, then once again fell silent. Eventually, he broke the still silence between them when he asked,

“Do you think everything happen for a reason?”

“I don't know.” She answered carefully. “I'd like think so.” She honestly hoped that there was a reason she had hidden in that particular bathroom on that particular night, when the troll had almost killed her and Harry and Ron had saved her life. She would like to believe that Harry had been the Chosen One because he stood a chance. She would like to believe that there was a reason she and her two best friends had lived through trials many adults would die in off of good luck, some slight skill, and a few tricks of fate.

Harry gently placed his hand on top of hers where it rested on the stone rail overlooking the front of the grounds. She smiled at the contact, and neither moved away.

“I'd like to think so too.”

Fate wasn't logical, and destiny didn't make sense all the time. But somehow, despite the fact that it was against the rules, and despite the fact that she had no real reason to be up there, and nothing she actually had to do, Hermione felt that this moment, just that quiet minute of silent understanding shared between herself and Harry was worth breaking every rule in the book.

She was positive that this midnight escapade was worth braking every rule in the book when Harry turned towards her and softly kissed her. He pulled back, smiling slightly, and turned back to look at the stars. Hermione, too shocked to pretend that nothing had happened, asked,

“Why'd you do that?”

Harry smiled at her rare moment of stunned stupidity. “It seemed like you were awake for a reason.”

Yes, Hermione decided. There were no real rules to fate. If there were, Harry Potter was doing his best to break every single one of them.

But as long as he had a good reason, that was okay.

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