disclaimer:
I asked Albus Dumbledore to obliviate JK for me and make her give her rights over to me… He told me he couldn't do it, some crap about higher powers and all that.Oh well, what can't be done, can't be done. I'll just have to settle for saying that it's hers after all and no infringement is intended.Now then Albus… IMPERIO!.
Hermione Granger was not in a good mood as she walked towards Kings Cross railway station. A mere 50 metres and she would be free of Ronald's complaining as he had since the day she had turned him down.
Harry Potter however, was even more irritable. With Arthur Weasley on one side of him, Mad Eye Moody with his stupid bowler's hat on the other side of him, Tonks in front and Ron and Hermione arguing behind him, he was just itching to scream at one of them. Tonks teetered very close to that precipice when she had mentioned the Dursley's love for him an hour prior.
"Ah, the station!" He chirped happily, breaking through his order guards. "We're finally there."
He ran towards the wall and entered before anybody could stop him.
The platform was bustling with first-year parents straightening their children's clothes and wishing happy times to their children and other parents giving stern discussions about applying wholeheartedly to studies or the occasional Quidditch cheer.
Harry spotted Luna Lovegood entering the train while whistling "Weasley is our King" and he shook his head in fondness. Even with things the way they were, there were constants.
As Hermione and Ron came through the barrier, he ushered them towards the train as fast as possible, however, Hermione had found her parents wishing to say goodbye and of course, Arthur wasn't going to let his youngest son go without the father-son pep talk.
Harry sighed and stepped onto the train to find an empty compartment.
He thought to do some meditation while he waited for them, but he didn't think it was a good idea to enter a state of serenity with Draco possibly lurking around. He did however do some breathing exercises which calmed him down dramatically.
After he had gotten full control of himself he pulled out his wand.
"Lumos" Nothing happened. 'Oh shit!' Harry thought to himself. "Lumos!"
"Everything alright Harry?" Neville asked as he ducked his head in the compartment.
Harry went pale. "Sure, everything is fine, just messing around."
It occurred to Harry for a moment that he was still imagining his tap in his mind as he called the spell. He blanked his mind as best he could and tried one more time. "Lumos." His wand lit up and he felt relieved. He extinguished it.
Neville clapped and Harry gave him a lopsided grin. "Not being allowed to do magic for the summer, I was wondering if I'd remember how to actually use a wand."
Neville laughed. "As if you could forget!"
Harry just shrugged. He felt as if he almost had. His attempt at getting magic to work again proved to him he was going to need to improve if he were to switch from wandless to wand magic in an instant.
He was brought out of his thoughts by Ron and Hermione entering the room.
"You've been so muddled in the brain the last couple of months that I'm surprised you can even tie your own shoelaces!" Ron yelled at her.
Harry knew he was in for a long train ride that wasn't going to be the most enjoyable, especially when Draco and the two stooges decided to give his yearly visit to their compartment. "Oh, it looks like the institution actually let you out did they Potter?"
Harry raised his wand, ready to cast whatever came to his mind.
"Draco Malfoy!" Rolanda Hooch said as she tapped on his shoulder. "There will be no fighting on this train, understood?"
She turned to see who he was pointing his wand at. "Harry Potter, the medical bay sees enough of you, so drop it. Both of you."
Draco glared at her and left with his cronies.
Harry sat back in his bed, thinking. The sorting ceremony had been nothing special, but Harry did catch the Headmaster smiling at him once. It was the way that he smiled that was stuck in Harry's mind. It was a simple smile, but Harry knew that behind that smile seemed a smugness that the Headmaster thought he had Harry under his control. 'If he truly had me under his thumb, then he would have had me back at the Dursleys. One point for me.'
Unable to sleep, Harry got up from his bed and grabbed his Defence Against the Dark Arts textbook and his cloak.
Wrapping his cloak around him, Harry moved down into the common room where he found Hermione sitting in a state of complete relaxation. It surprised him to find her meditating in a similar style to the one he used.
Harry wasn't game to sit down on the chairs as his weight would leave a telltale mark that someone was sitting there. Instead, he chose to sit in a rear corner and started reading his textbook.
It was Harry's intention to get ahead in his studies, specifically in the practical section. In his first free time, he was going to go to the room of requirement and study from his Dark Arts book. He felt so terribly behind if he was going to stop Dumbledore from controlling people the way he was.
He had lost track of time, but became aware when he saw movement in the room. Hermione had risen from her meditation and was walking back to her dormitory when she stopped and looked right in the direction that Harry was sitting.
"Accio Cloak!"
Harry suddenly felt very exposed. "How did you know I was there?" He asked.
"You-er-um your foot was poking out from under it."
Harry cursed himself for being so careless. "That's the Dark Arts textbook is it?" She asked him. "Why didn't you sit over by me?"
"I didn't want to disturb you. You looked so serene sitting like that."
"I wouldn't have minded. I was just working on my occlumency shields."
"You're practising too?" Harry was kind of surprised.
"Dumbledore has been trying to probe me on a regular basis." She informed him. "He tried it while we were at the sorting ceremony."
Harry grumbled. "I wish he'd mind his own business."
Hermione shook her head. "It doesn't matter. He didn't get in." She looked at him square in the eyes. "What I want to know however is why you needed your invisibility cloak."
Harry shrugged. "I didn't want to be seen down here. If you weren't here I was going to practice my other magic."
"I would like to as well. We should set aside a night to practice together." She suggested.
Harry shook his head. "I don't want anybody else knowing that I can do it yet. Least of all our beloved Headmaster."
"Neither do I Harry, so we'll sneak out and go to the room of requirement."
The suggestion shocked Harry. Hermione, breaking the curfew of her own free will. Then it occurred to her that when it came to the curfew, she might have been one of the major offenders. He wouldn't put it past her to sneak out and to the library to do some late night research.
He grinned at her. "Alright then."
Classes went quite smoothly with little issues except where they normally existed. Harry was constantly belittled by Snape in potions, and the times when Harry had his potion absolutely perfect, it was sabotaged by Snape at the last minute.
Homework was inevitable, and with inevitable homework, came Hermione's nagging to have it done as soon as possible.
Harry didn't need to be nagged. He needed his spare time more than ever before. Tuesday and Thursday nights, Harry and Hermione studied together in the Room of Requirements, having both advanced to a level proficient enough now to engage in small duels.
They were very careful not to hurt each other as a midnight trip to the Hospital Wing was the last thing that either of them needed. The remaining nights, Harry was in the Room practising his Dark Arts. He had finished going through the practical parts that he could do and instead, the last two chapters were about dark rituals, which while Harry found rather interesting, but was hardly going to use himself. Things like the bloodlust ritual and the soul lock ritual were group spells, neither of which Harry would even suggest to Hermione or Ron.
Harry couldn't even bring himself to mention any of his books to Hermione. He felt ashamed that he was even considering using any of the spells. But he knew that a 6th year level knowledge of Defence was going to be absolutely useless in bringing Dumbledore to atone for his crimes, so he did not stop.
Harry flipped the last page of his gift book. He was about to close the cover when he noticed that a piece of paper was slipped under the metal reinforcement corner. He pulled the piece of paper out and turned it over to find a message.
I hope that by the time you finish this book, you will have replaced your pathetic righteous anger with something more fun to play with.
"Bellatrix" Harry scowled. There was proof that the Ministry happened. Harry felt reassured again that what he knew of the last three months was the actual events that occurred. Harry was not grateful to the source of the reassurance.
"I'm going to kill her." He said emotionlessly. "She killed Sirius, and I won't forgive her for that."
Harry rose and put on his cloak of invisibility and exited the Room of Requirement. In the distance, he heard squabbling, a tell tale sign that Hermione and Ron were on their late-night prefect rounds.
He stood perfectly still and made sure that not a part of him would be visible as they walked past him.
He waited until they were well out of sight before heading off to his room.
The following day at breakfast, Professor McGonagall pulled both Harry and Hermione aside and told them that the headmaster wanted to see them. They shared a look and hoped that what they were wanted for was purely academic. They hadn't done anything to give the impression that they had done anything out of place or wrong with what everyone else was doing.
Still, their hearts beated as they opened the door to the Headmaster's office.
"Albus, I've brought them." McGonagall urged them in and then closed the door behind her.
They each looked at Dumbledore expectantly. "You wished to see us sir?" Hermione asked him.
"Yes, I wanted to speak to you both about your essays that you both wrote over the holidays. They really are of the most exceptional quality. I'm assuming that it is mostly attributed to the resources available at the Black Library.
"I'd like your permission to have them bound and placed in the Hogwarts Library if that is ok with you both."
They each let out a breath they didn't know they were holding.
"That would be really wonderful professor!" Hermione exclaimed.
"Excellent! This leaves only one question for you both. Why weren't your essays the ones I had your teachers assign you with your new memories." He flicked his wand and the door behind them locked.
'Oh shit!' Harry thought as he felt a staggering blow against his mental shields.
"Even with your memories in tact, I can understand you working hard on your occlumency skills Mister Potter, and I commend you on it, but Miss Granger, I cannot imagine for the life of me what reason you would have to have such a strong shield if not to keep me out."
Hermione drew herself up. "My thoughts are my own Headmaster; I wish to keep them private."
"Your thoughts are not private!" The headmaster bellowed. "Such a thought is both a muggle ideal and an assumption on behalf of the wizarding world!"
"The fact that you Harry allowed Voldemort to return to his body is troublesome at the very least. It is hard to control a panicked population. They tend to run and hide like rats from a cat! This whole issue with Sirius and the Ministry must be kept unknown from the population to stop them from panicking."
"So you can control them?" Harry asked venomously.
"People are sheep Harry, they do not think for themselves. There is enough animosity in the pureblooded part of the wizarding world to overflow into the muggle population and cause a complete imbalance of power."
"That's not for you to decide! We have aurors to keep the peace!"
"Aurors? Hah! Those fools can't catch Tom Riddle, they can't even keep Lucius Malfoy from escaping their ropes! What makes you think they're capable of anything?"
"We'll go public with what we know." Hermione told him decisively.
The headmaster calmed and offered them each a lemon drop.
Harry suddenly had the suspicion they might have been poisoned.
"It's clear to me now that a third attempt to obliviate either of you will probably end in failure. So instead, we're going to play a different game. I will fix up this mistake with your essays, leave your minds in tact and you two are both going to back down and give up this hopeless romance you continue to pursue."
"Roma--" Harry was about to ask.
"How did you find out about that?" Hermione glared at him sparing a brief glance with Harry.
"What? Do you think I have not been aware of you and Mister Potter sneaking off to the Room of Requirement every few nights? No, I've been a headmaster of this school long enough to know what two students alone do in that room. It was quite easy to figure out once you see the signs."
Harry could have laughed, but he kept his response to that thought carefully hidden. He did his best to look ashamed.
"This romance will stop. Immediately, and the Room of Requirements has been made off limits."
"I refuse." Hermione told him defiantly, surprising Harry. If he didn't know better, he would have thought she really did think it was a romance.
"You do not get a choice in the matter Miss Granger. If either of you do not back down under the conditions I've given, you will both loose something important to you."
"I have nothing important to lose!"
"Oh I assure you Mister Potter. You do."
Hermione looked like she wanted to hit him, but restrained herself very well. She pointed her wand at the door behind her. "Alohamora!" and let herself out, with Harry in tow.
"I cannot believe he would say such things!"
"Nice going with the whole Romance thing, even I was almost convinced, as if it would ever happen."
"Oh Harry-!" Hermione stared at him, with tears forming in her eyes. "You! I!" She spluttered, then turned and left him standing very confused.
'What did I say?'
Hermione avoided Harry like the plague for a few days after that event. Harry became aware that without Hermione to talk to, he felt rather alienated from everyone else. It was a very lonely feeling.
He was out of touch with Hermione, and he had been unable to find a room to use to practise his skills where he knew there was no chance someone would walk in on him. There was one place, but he was very averse to going there. There were too many bad memories in that place.
The only practice that he managed to achieve was doing his meditations where he explored his magic from the inside. He was surprised, the third day after Dumbledore's ultimatum that he became aware of faint outlines around everyone around him.
Pulsing colours that emanated from each and every person. At first he found it very annoying as he couldn't seem to get rid of it. Especially those whose colours bled a lot further out than others, making it hard for him to see around them. There were two people of notable interest who seemed to have auras much greater than the other students.
Draco's aura was a very murky brown-grey that extended twice that of the average student around him, though it was rather see-through. It also had a curious disturbance around his left arm which made Harry almost positive that Draco had taken the mark of Voldemort.
The second student was Hermione, whose aura was twice that of Draco's and a lot more solid. He wasn't sure what to make of it and resigned that he would speak to her if he ever got the chance to again.
Harry's greatest annoyance however was a small aura that Harry saw quite commonly. The biggest difference between this aura and any other was that it emanated from nothing. It was the height and build of Professor Dumbledore and suddenly, Harry knew how Dumbledore had known about them being in the room of requirements.
He grinned at knowing that he would be fully aware of Dumbledore spying in the future.
He noticed that Dumbledore did not devote as much attention on either Harry or Hermione as he thought the old man would and visited classes for only five to ten minutes at a time.
By the fifth day, he couldn't take it any more. His anger was building and he needed to take it out somewhere, what was worse was the fact that Hermione was also showing signs of great irritation, and so Harry had deliberately walked past her while her back was turned. He placed a hand on her shoulder to keep her from running and said softly into her ear, "Moaning Myrtle's bathroom, please meet me tonight," and left before she could respond.
It was cold and dark in the bathroom and no sign of Myrtle either, which surprised Harry as he expected her to be flirting with him as soon as he walked in. Instead, Hermione was already waiting for him when he arrived.
"I'm glad you came." Harry told her. "I've been so lonely lately."
"Me too" She replied. "What did you want to talk about?"
"Actually, I wanted to show you somewhere." He replied to her. "I think we both need to let off some steam as I noticed you've been a lot more snappy at the other students lately."
"I haven't been snappy!" She retorted hotly.
Harry folded his arms and gave her a look that told her that she'd just proven his point.
"Alright, I'm irritated."
"Fine then, come with me and we'll do some cleaning."
Harry moved to the sinks and called out in parselmouth, revealing the entrance to the chamber of secrets.
"Harry Is this what I think it is?"
He nodded and jumped down the hole, trying not to make a noise.
The smell in the chamber of secrets was nothing short of rancid.
When Hermione finally appeared at the bottom of the entrance, she was very quick to put a bubblehead charm over. Harry wondered why he hadn't thought of it himself.
"Oh Merlin that smells gross!" She cried.
"Well, there's a 3 year old dead basilisk in here." Harry explained. "We're going to need to get rid of it in order to make good use of this place." Harry cast nox to put out his wand as they entered the lit chamber and put his wand away.
Tonight, they would practise scourgify to great length.
When they finally got too tired to work any further, they called it a night and trekked back to the entrance. Harry was about to start climbing when Hermione tugged on his shirt to stop him.
"Harry, I don't want to be alone in this world. There's nobody I can trust here except you I don't want us to ever separate."
"They why wouldn't you let me talk to you?"
"When you said that Dumbledore was wrong, and that there was no way that you and I could have a relationship together My throat went tight, and I felt like you'd torn my heart in half."
Harry was trying to bring himself to understand exactly what it was he thought she was implying. "Hermione What are you trying to say?"
"I- I think I'm falling in love with you Harry." She said, and then looked away. "I was so mad at Dumbledore for telling me that I could have the one thing my heart wanted most. I thought that if I distanced myself from you, I could lesson the feeling," She let loose tears that rolled down her face. "But it didn't work!" She wailed and flung herself on Harry.
Harry held her as best he could. There. It was out in the open, she loved him.
How could he respond? It was true that he consciously felt it when she was not talking to her, and it made him anxious, but could he say that he loved her back?
And while his mind pondered those questions, he barely registered that he was lifting her face, and gently putting his lips on top of hers.
They stood in their embrace as they kissed for as long as they could before Harry gently lifted his face from hers, where her eyes glittered with tears anew.
"Harry" She said in wonder.
And suddenly it hit him. He too had fallen in love with the brunette bookworm and best friend from first year. What was worse was the fact that he hadn't even realised it until halfway through the kiss. They had grown closer in the time that they shared, being anchors for reality for each other.
"It's ok Hermione We'll work through this together, you and I." He told her as he held her shoulders. "We'll do it together."
She smiled and hugged him again.
After they got to the top of the well, Hermione disillusioned herself, where Harry saw that she too had an aura around her visible when she was not. He warned her to be careful going back and pulled his cloak around himself.
Time passed slowly, but Harry was happy, though he tried his hardest not to show it. He slept well and applied himself with renewed vigour to his school work, just making the deadlines for a couple of assignments he was late with.
He spent all of his spare time down in the chamber cleaning it and returned to practising the spells from his old Dark Arts book while starting to work slowly from the second one he'd brought from the Black mansion.
At one point, Hermione approached Harry in the library, casting a Muffliato as she approached.
"I've found something which should interest you Harry."
She placed a tome down in front of him and read from it. "Memory Charms require a license to use. In modern times, licenses are only given to Ministry Aurors or magical folk working in the obliviator squadron. Which means that either Dumbledore has at some point worked in one of those departments, or is doing it illegally.
"When I cross referenced Dumbledore's history, it was not listed that he worked in either of those departments and has always done his work alone or with his brother Aberforth."
Harry grinned. "So that means that if we can get the aurors to keep an eye on Dumbledore for a while, they can catch him in the act!"
"That's what I'm thinking, but I'm very concerned because everybody sees Dumbledore as a pillar of the community."
"We'll send an anonymous message to an auror that we know isn't involved in the order."
"Amelia Bones?" Hermione asked.
"She seemed like a reasonable person." Harry agreed. "We'll start with her and see what comes of it."
With the letter sent off, Harry and Hermione waited impatiently for any suggestion of action, the answer was a week coming, and if they'd known what the response would be, they would never have pursued the line of thought in the first place.
It was with great trepidation and fear that they both found themselves before the headmaster once again in his office. Dumbledore sat in his large chair grinning broadly and twinkling brightly as they entered the door.
"Children. Have a seat."
They each sat down and with a flick of Dumbledore's wand, they both found themselves petrified and unable to speak.
"I'm sure you know what this is." He said as he placed a scrunched up note on the table before them. "Did you really think I wouldn't find out? Trying to tip the Ministry off? Do you think I have not outsmarted the ministry before!?" He yelled. "And though you've tried to keep it hidden, I can see it clear as day that you two are closer today than you were two weeks ago, if that's even possible!
"I warned you both." He told them, his eyes stern. "And today, you are going to stop this foolishness, because you've both lost important things to you this day."
Harry wondered what the old man meant when Dumbledore reached behind him and threw a limp animal in front of Harry.
Hedwig did not move from her spot on the table. Her eyes dead.
'No!' Harry couldn't move his mouth, he couldn't even scream. The best he could manage was to cry, so he sat there in silent pain.
"I'm pretty sure you understand Harry, you left me no choice."
"Miss Granger, you are no innocent either, and therefore, this is for you." He levitated a sheet of paper in front of Hermione and left it there for her to read. "I assure you that it is real and already in effect."
Hermione trembled, despite the petrification, and Dumbledore took the sheet of paper from her line of site.
"That children is for your disobedience with trying to expose my position, but as I said before, I wanted you both to stop your seeing each other, but given that you didn't listen to me the first time, I shall do it my way.
"Miss Granger, hand in your prefects badge as soon as I release you. Ravenclaw already has two prefects from 6th year and don't need another. You are forbidden to speak to each other in class or out of class, all of the professors will be notified of this."
He got up and released their petrification. Harry immediately went for his wand and pointed it at Dumbledore.
Dumbledore raised his hand and sent Harry flying back into the door. "My boy, you're a year and a half away from being able to do wordless spells, and a hundred and twenty years shy of besting me in a duel. Your muteness will disappear when you leave." He said, waving them out.
Hermione rushed to Harry's help and glared at Dumbledore as she helped him up and opened the door.
"Miss Granger, I shall send Professor Flitwick to pick you up in a little bit and from then on, the restrictions between you both will be in effect."
Harry never hated Dumbledore more than he did that moment, and true to his word, their voices returned as soon as they were out of his office.
"That old bastard!" Hermione cried in a cold fury as she stormed towards Gryffindor tower. "I hate him! I will never forgive him for this!"
"What happened Hermione?" Harry asked urgently. "What did he do?"
"That sheet of paper Harry, was an jail without trial form, for my parents, signed in full. He sent them to Azkaban Harry! For being Death Eaters of all things!"
Harry couldn't believe what she had said.
"Harry, tonight, I will meet you in our meeting place. I want you to bring both of the dark arts books you've been reading from. I'm going to kill that bastard if it's the last thing I do!" She said through her tears. "Putting innocents in Jail, full of dementors, which they can't even see!"
"Books?" Harry didn't think Hermione even knew about it.
"Don't play dumb with me Harry. I've seen you carrying that book under your invisibility blanket almost every night you were out without me. Bring it tonight."
Harry nodded dumbly. He had been completely busted.
They stopped talking as students starting coming into view. When they reached the Gryffindor Tower, Hermione started packing furiously, slamming her clothes into her trunk and shrinking textbooks down to fit.
When she emerged a while later, Harry was waiting in the common room. Professor Flitwick was waiting for her looking pleased as punch. 'Of course he'd be happy to get the brightest witch in Hogwarts.' Harry mused.
Harry and Hermione hugged briefly. He felt Hermione slip something into his robe pockets, she stared at him with a fierce look in her eye.
She turned, said something to Flitwick and left Gryffindor Tower.
Harry stared at the entrance as she left.
A moment later, Ron emerged from the boy's dorm.
"Hey, wasn't that the Ravenclaw chick, Granger? What was she doing here?"
" Ron." Harry warned in a dangerously low voice.
"Oh yeah, sorry man. I just heard about Hedwig. Hagrid will catch that damned cat though, just you wait. Must be pretty hard loosing your bird and Sirius like that though."
Harry rounded on Ron and punched him in the face as hard as he could, sprawling Ron to the ground.
Everyone present stared at them both.
Harry thought of a million things to say, not one of them appropriate and every one of them directed at Dumbledore. He bit back his own tears once more and moved to his bedroom where he laid down. He heard a faint crumple of paper and dug out the piece of paper Hermione had given to him.
Listed on the paper was a spell, falsus imago, and corresponding wand movement which if Harry had sufficient magical ability, would create an image that would fool anybody not looking closely into thinking he was still in bed.
Harry hoped that it was enough to fool Dumbledore because he suddenly came to a realisation that it wasn't much of a stretch of imagination for Dumbledore to retract the order and have them given the kiss instead of imprisonment.
He realised that Dumbledore held all the chips, as he always had, and if they were truly serious about bringing him down, they would need to take some of those chips away, and so, that night, Harry moved to the Chamber of Secrets with his books cautiously and quietly, where he waited for Hermione.
When she finally came, she ignored him and walked straight up to entrance to the chamber of secrets and hissed at it, saying "Open" in very rough parselmouth. It was obvious to Harry that she had listened to him open it often enough to try replicating what he said without understanding it. Harry was surprised when it actually opened and she jumped in ahead of him, careful not to ruin the books she was holding.
She said nothing as she moved deep into the chamber and immediately drew up a stone wall, 7th year magic. "Reducto!"
Harry brushed the powder off of himself and hugged her. Hermione wanted to cry, but her pent up anger just wouldn't allow her to.
"It's going to be alright Hermione."
"Yes it is. I'm going to kill him, and then everything will be alright." She put her arms around Harry. "But first, I'm going to break my parents out of Azkaban."
Harry stared at her.
"That's why I need your books, and tonight, I want you to show me what you've learned."
"Hermione! Are you crazy? This is Azkaban we're talking about! There's no way two students could break in there!"
"Join me or don't Harry!" She yelled. "My parents don't belong there! They're muggles for Merlin's sake!"
Harry bit his lip, there was no way he could talk Hermione out of it, but there was no way he could let her do that alone. "I'll help, It's just hard to imagine that the both of us even attempting it."
She smiled in relief. "You have no idea how much it relieves me to hear that. I'm going to go away for a couple of weeks to train."
"I'll come with-"
"No Harry. You should stay here and give Dumbledore the impression you're not a part of whatever I'm up to."
Harry didn't want her to go. They had just been forcefully separated by Dumbledore and he wasn't sure if he could handle two weeks without her.
"I'll come back to visit you Harry, one week from now, in here. If I'm not here then, don't panic, I will come back."
"I'll try not to" Harry told her.
With that, Hermione pulled out her wand.
"Come on Harry, let's dual. We'll need lots of practice with that, and you can show me some of those spells."
True to her word, Hermione was not present for any of her classes the next day which caused a lot of talk amongst the Ravenclaws.
Her prediction of the headmaster's actions was also correct and Harry found himself cornered by the old man at the end of his last lesson. It was a short conversation. Dumbledore asked him if he knew where Hermione was. Harry could truthfully say to him that he didn't.
"I haven't spoken to her since yesterday." That was almost true. Technically the last time he spoke to her was about 1am, but it still felt like yesterday.
Dumbledore stared at his eyes appraisingly, but Harry refused to look away. He felt his shields probed once more.
"Very well Harry." He said at last. "If I find out that you haven't been telling the truth" He waved his hand and a translucent image of Hedwig appeared before him, and as the image faded, so did Dumbledore, vanishing with no trace but his aura. 'Hedwig another casualty to this man's cruelty Just like Sirius and Hermione's poor parents.'
At the thought of her, his heart ached. He missed her terribly.
He spent the time waiting for her return by going through the books that she had left him, coincidentally 7th year textbooks. He found bookmarked the pages on wordless magic and focussed solely on that and while he found it quite easy to learn how to use such magic with his wand, the same principals just did not work without it, much to his frustration.
During the day, Harry spent his spare time researching Azkaban. He was annoyed by the lack of information that he could find, but he was hardly surprised. He surmised that the only way to get any useful information about the place would be from someone who had stayed there. Sirius was of course completely out of the question.
Hagrid was a possibility, but Harry knew that he was too close to Dumbledore to be of help. They needed someone who they knew would have no association with Dumbledore at all.
Their meeting day came and went with no sign of her. Despite her assurances that Harry shouldn't worry about her that was quite difficult to do under the circumstances. He missed her embrace and the few kisses they'd shared.
A week and a half after Harry had first discovered wordless magic, he made an important discovery. When using the wand, the magic that came from his tap had a distinct colour, and a sort of shape to it. It was only a couple of hours after he realised this that he was able to shape the magic that came from his hand and the colour of the magic from the tap came quite instinctually.
Schoolwork started to build up, but Harry didn't care. His grades were slipping and he found himself berated for it by Professor McGonagall without Hermione around, he just didn't care.
The fourteenth day passed, and Harry moved to the chamber as he had every night. When he reached the bottom, he gained the distinct impression that someone was watching him, but he saw no aura that suggested anybody was invisible.
"Harry" Hermione's voice rang out as Harry felt something press around him in a hug.
"Hermione?" He called.
Hermione appeared out of thin air.
"You've hidden your aura" Harry asked more than stated.
"I had a feeling you've grown to see them too. One of the things I found out over the last couple of weeks is that magical taps naturally leak at the base, if you can plug that up, you can hide your own aura."
Harry grinned. Another thing to practice. "You're back then?"
She nodded. "Though I didn't get done as much as I would have liked."
Harry nodded. "I've been trying to learn as much as I can about Azkaban, and there's practically nothing out there. We can't break in without knowing anything about the place."
"I've found that too, but I do have an idea, though I don't think you'll like it."
"Tell me."
"Voldemort He has followers which have been in and out of there. I'm almost certain that he would be willing to help with a jailbreak as he has his own people in there."
"Voldemort! Hermione! You're talking about breaking out murderers and rapists!"
"I realise that Harry, and you know what? I feel nothing when I think about that. I don't fear the idea; I don't even loathe the idea. I just want my parents out, and safe. He would be a powerful ally in our struggle Harry. Dumbledore and Voldemort hate each other. We know that for a fact. The idea that Voldemort is unreachable means that he, like us, has not been obliviated to Dumbledore's regime."
Harry sighed. "You're asking something very difficult of me Hermione. Voldemort wants me dead."
"And you want him dead, but what I'm proposing is that we make ourselves an invaluable asset. I'm going to kill Dumbledore Harry, and I don't care what means I do it by."
Harry understood of course. He too felt that fire that was burning inside of himself that demanded blood, and the idea of killing the man did not bother him in the slightest.
"We'll need to be more skilled than we are to stand in front of him with a room full of death eaters."
To this, his girlfriend smiled. "I think we don't need to worry about a room full of death eaters, I'm sure that Voldemort's pride will allow us to set the terms of the meeting, or at the very least, negotiate, and as for the skills"
The chamber of secrets lit up as Hermione's aura flared white, projecting two metres from her body, she held out her hand and released a spell which impacted with the wall she had destroyed before, shaking the walls all around them.
When the dust cleared, Harry could see that Hermione had left a huge crater in the wall, demonstrating that she had achieved an insane power boost.
He gawked at her. "Don't tell me you did what I think you did!" He yelled at her in awe. "You did not sacrifice someone for this power did you?"
Hermione looked amused. "No. I simply had a theory and followed it through, dangerous as it was."
Harry looked at her. "I'm listening."
"I snapped the faucet off."
"You can't be serious!" Harry cried. "The amount of magic that must flow out-"
"-Is a lot Harry. Breaking it off was the easy part. It took me three days to figure out how, and then I spent six days in a trance trying to block up the hole, I won't lie to you Harry, it was painful, but it was a theory that worked that didn't require me to sacrifice anybody."
Harry smiled and kissed her. "Suddenly I feel like we can actually pull this off."
"We'll organise the meeting with Voldemort once you've released yourself and we've trained up a bit. We're going to need to be able to face a squadron of Death Eaters if he doesn't like what we have to say."
Author's note:
Thanks everyone for the kind reviews I've been getting.
I'll let you guys know that I've already written chapters 1 to 6, I'm just releasing them every day or so until I run out of pre-written stuff, then I'm afraid I'll have to slow down a touch.
--Steven