Unofficial Portkey Archive

Wherein Wormtail fails to carry out his master's orders but stumbles upon something interesting; Remus comes out second best in a confrontation; Ron sees Harry at his worst; Harry has a very bad idea, and a very good one; Jazzy has advice for Harry; Harry and Hermione have a confrontation; Harry answers Hermione's question incorrectly; Hermione answers Harry's question correctly; and they are both interrupted by goblins

Thanks to: Betas Catch_the_Snitch, Sonicdale, Mr. Sean, MarkGardiner, Shane and Mumrarj.

Disclaimer: I neither own nor claim any other rights in the characters and other concepts created by J.K. Rowling. I make no money, nor do I seek any commercial advantage from this work. As such it constitutes "fair use" as defined in 17 U.S.C. §107.

Chapter 46 - A Modest Proposal

The barely breaking dawn sent purple tendrils across what had been a pitch-black sky. A lone wizard wheezed audibly, making his way as quickly as he could up the steep mountain path. The path was slow going. Every third step or so, one foot or the other would slip clumsily in a spray of loose gravel.

"I'm getting too old for this," he muttered.

And so he was.

Peter Pettigrew longed just to use magic and be done with it, but he knew magic could be detected. Where he was going, the likelihood of someone trying to detect any magic was quite high. So on he trudged.

He had broken magical silence only once - maybe an hour before - to transform from his rat to his human form. He had been behind schedule, and human legs travelled faster than tiny rodent ones. Also, some odours entering his alter ego's nostrils had been worse than disturbing: predators!

So he had transformed. Apparently he had gotten away with that calculated risk. He had been far enough from his destination to avoid detection.

He struggled on, behind schedule. His task needed to be complete before the sun burned off the concealing morning fog. For now, that fog hung over everything, dampening his clothes and casting an eerie, leaden shroud over the increasingly treeless landscape. The top would be exposed - and so would he - if the fog dissipated before he was finished.

He trudged on wearily, cursing footwear that provided neither sufficient purchase nor protection from blisters. His Master had specifically tasked him with determining whether the bodies of James and Lily Potter remained in what had been intended as their final resting place.

That assignment was dangerous and likely futile, but Pettigrew nevertheless eagerly accepted it. He argued he was uniquely well suited for the task. Alone amongst all the Death Eaters, he had attended the Potters' funeral all those years ago. Once the Fidelius Charm fell away from the gravesites, he knew exactly where to go. His other distinctive talent - his extremely sharp nose in his rodent form - meant he could detect olfactory traces from the corpses if, as suspected, they had been recently exhumed. That would require retransforming into a rat when he reached the top, where Dumbledore undoubtedly had installed magic detection wards. He would not have much time. It would be risky, but necessary.

The Dark Lord had ordered it.

Pettigrew felt some degree of pride. After tasking him, the Dark Lord taught him - and nobody else - a difficult spell to record the dead Potters' residual magical signatures. Their death predated the magical advances that now allowed demagification of dead bodies. These bodies should still have recognisable magical signatures, making them extremely useful, especially against their sole surviving son.

The exhaustion Pettigrew felt whilst climbing this difficult, half-hidden path encouraged unusual honesty. The true reason he volunteered for this mission was to get away from that greasy bastard Snape. The last few months of his life had been among the worst he had ever suffered. Even his prior existence as a pet rat was better than being Snape's servant. The two loathed each other, and the traitorous ex-professor used every available opportunity to make the traitorous ex-Marauder's life a living Hell.

When the Dark Lord had honoured him above his other followers by personally instructing him - Pettigrew felt - take that, Snape!

If this mission was a success, maybe - just maybe - the Dark Lord would not return him to Snape's beck and call at Spinner's End.

He was reaching his goal. The trudging grew easier as the terrain levelled out. The top had no trees, only an unbounded expanse of tall grass and alpine wildflowers. In all directions the scene disappeared into the uncertain whitish-grey curtain of fog that enveloped everything. Whilst the sun was fully up, the hour was early enough that the sunlight's low angle set the heavy dew glistening with every colour of the rainbow.

The place was beautiful - and when clear, the view was awesome. Pettigrew understood why his ex-friends had chosen to be buried here. Sometimes, when alone, he still wished everything could have turned out differently….

This was the place. It had to be. The grass bore unmistakable signs of recent disturbance. In the Dark Lord's opinion, Dumbledore's abilities were declining, and here the Master seemed to be correct. The magic used to restore the location was a bit too hastily cast and failed entirely to conceal what had transpired - thanks to the fragile alpine ecology.

Preparing to cast the spell to record the Potters' magical signatures, Pettigrew noticed an odd, brown patch off to one side. The patch approximated the size and shape of a person. As he muttered the spell, he turned to look at it.

"Oh!" the startled wizard gasped.

A wandpoint's harsh jab in the back of his neck banished all thoughts of curiosity.

"Good morning, Wormtail," a familiar voice growled in his right ear. The holder of the wand was close enough that his hot breath raised hackles all up and down Pettigrew's neck. "I've been expecting you. Drop the wand, don't make any false moves, and I'll let you live - for now…. Which is more than you did for James and Lily."

This person knew him - knew him well enough to approach from his right side. In school, Peter Pettigrew had always duelled better to his left than to his right.

Peter dropped his wand, as instructed, and began raising his hands.

"R-Re-Remus - I didn't mean for that to h-h-happen. I was just too weak…."

Pettigrew was no longer a school boy. He staggered, faking that he had tripped over a stone hidden in the grass. "Aauugghh!"

Remus Lupin hesitated for a moment, seeing the smaller man stumble. That moment cost him dearly.

Pettigrew struck at Lupin with his now-silver right hand, slashing him across the eyes. The contact with silver, highly poisonous to werewolves, caused intense ripping pain. Instantaneously, everything went dark. Maddened by his agony, Lupin struck out blindly with a strong Reductor Curse. If aimed only a few centimetres to the left, that spell would have reduced the Marauder-turned-Death-Eater's head to Montana mist.

But the deadly spell barely grazed Pettigrew's cheek. He swiftly struck another blow at the reeling lycanth with his pearly, metallic hand - and then another, and another. Lupin toppled over with a damp-sounding thump and lay still amongst wild flowers bearing the same name.

"Bastard," the victorious Death Eater panted. He aimed what he intended to be a vicious kick into the fallen man's ribcage. Winded, he missed badly and succeeded only in raising a huge divot. Still, Lupin did not move. "Sorry, old friend," he muttered. "I should probably kill you, but fortunately for your sake, I've been ordered just to get in and get out."

Whilst retrieving his own wand, Pettigrew noticed Lupin's fallen wand nearby. He stomped on it and felt a satisfying snap as it broke under the pressure.

Hastily, the rat Animagus recast the spell his Master had taught him. It took less than a minute to locate Lily and James' residual magical signatures - and to confirm that, as he thought probable, their corpses had been moved. Before he could finish committing the signatures to memory, Pettigrew heard distinctive pops announcing several undoubtedly unfriendly wizards' Apparition.

Aurors! Pettigrew traded a couple of ineffectual hexes with the first one as he turned to flee. He could not fight this many, and the fog was starting to break up, making him steadily more visible - and vulnerable. Forced to dodge curses, he could not stand still long enough to Disapparate. There was but one way out. Stowing his wand in his cloak, Pettigrew transformed.

In rat form, Pettigrew dodged through the thick meadow, well hidden from the Aurors, whom he could hear calling to one another in confusion. Odours, some familiar and some frightening, assaulted his highly sensitive rodent nose. Yes! He could still smell their residual presence. He had been around James Potter so many times, in both human and animal form, to know that scent anywhere. The second, distinctly feminine redolence was less familiar but undoubtedly Lily's.

He detected a third aroma as he sidestepped that small burnt spot, not wishing to expose himself to anyone's sight - Harry Potter's smell. Had the boy burnt the groundcover to a crisp? How?

Pettigrew decided to skirt the brow of the ridge until he could get behind his pursuers. Then he would make for lower ground.

"Mroowww! Pffsst!"

Dodging wildly at the last instant, Pettigrew barely avoided a very sticky end. A jet-black Kneazle tom, one source of the frightening scents pervading the mountaintop, hurtled past. He was hungry. He had a most disagreeable temper. And he had an appetite for rats.

The rat Animagus stopped abruptly, swerved, and doubled back as a second Kneazle attempted to pounce. His nose told him at least a half-dozen of these magical felines were loose in the area. Frantically, he skittered away in another direction.

Pettigrew faced a dilemma. He could either take his chances with the Aurors, or risk being breakfast for the Kneazles….

Suddenly, to his left, the vegetation fell away and he saw the splendid image of Hogwarts Castle passing into and out of view between streaming, torn remnants of the rapidly dissipating fog. The vividly blue lake stretched from the Castle to the base of the almost vertical ridge upon which he was perched. The Forbidden Forest curved around beside the lake, its dark green foliage pierced by autumnal blazes of yellow, orange and red. There was a third choice - the cliff.

A slavering Kneazle pounding towards him forced his choice. Still in rat form, Pettigrew hurtled over the edge, whilst his natural enemy skittered to halt. If he could just make the forest below, he would be home free. As a Marauder he had spent many a night exploring its numerous trails and hiding places. However, even as low to the ground as his rat form was, the slope was too great. All four of Pettigrew's clawed feet lost their grip and he began tumbling end over end.

Out of control, he could not avoid the edge of sheer rock face that dropped off before him. Pettigrew found himself falling through empty space. This sort of thing had happened to him before during a transformation. Maybe he would survive the plunge. He always had before. The foliage in the trees rushing up towards him was quite thick and would break his fall. Maybe he would die. At least then, he would not have to face Snape, or the Dark Lord, ever again.

Leaves, twigs, and pine boughs tore at his sides as his clawed feet desperately clutched at the vegetation flying by. He felt like his fur was on fire as he bounced off a larger limb. He closed his eyes and felt no more.

* * * *

The terrain seemed all too familiar as Harry trudged through the twilight - over blasted hills and through barren dales. Searching….

Searching for … something - exactly what danced just beyond the fringes of his consciousness. Perhaps he was seeking what had gone before. He had certainly been here before.

Wearily, he plodded on in the odd half-light. It might have been the dawn of a new day, or the end of an old one. Time had a way of losing its meaning in this godforsaken place.

Harry picked his way along the holed and blasted remnants of what has once been an elegant line of shrubbery. Reaching the crest of a long, low hill, he saw it - the same half-demolished farmhouse, the same candlelit table, with the same cast of characters around it.

Drawn to them like a færie to a foxfire, Harry made his way as fast as his legs could carry him over the broken and uneven landscape.

"Mum!! Dad!! Sirius!! Bill!!" he called out.

They all looked up at the figure trundling gingerly down the hillside.

"Harry! How good of you to drop by again," the image of James Potter welcomed.

"Great to see you again, Harry!" Sirius beamed.

The others expressed similar thoughts as Harry bent down and kissed Lily on the cheek. "I hope you decided to take our advice," she whispered in his ear.

"Well, it's harder than I thought it would be," Harry hedged. "I'm still trying."

"Harry, I know it's hard to get over such a traumatic experience," advised Bill. "But you can't let yourself be miserable forever. You have to let go."

That reference brought home to Harry that, alone among his deceased loved ones, Eliza was nowhere to be seen.

"Er … where is Eliza?" Harry asked.

"You know women," Sirius chortled. "Still getting ready."

"I heard that," rang Eliza's voice from inside the farmhouse. "Almost ready."

"You have to overcome the hurt and keep going," James counselled. "You'll find another. Don't despair."

"That's not the problem, really," Harry answered. "It's more like, how do I…."

"Ready!" Eliza's voice rang out. "Now close your eyes until I tell you to open them. It's a surprise!"

Harry did as he was told. He heard rustling and footsteps; then a familiar voice told him, "We're ready. You can look now."

He opened his eyes. Whilst Eliza was there, he hardly even noticed her. All he saw was Hermione. She wore the same Muggle clothes - that light blue slogan t-shirt and dark denim blue skirt - she had during her first visit after returning from Hong Kong.

Reflexively, Harry smiled at her - but only for a moment. She should not be here. The only people who were here were….

"OH, NO! HERMIONE, NOT YOU TOO!! PLEASE - MERLIN - DON'T BE DEAD!!!"

Still screaming his impassioned pleas, Harry bolted towards her.

"DON'T BE DEAD!! I CAN'T STAND IT!!…"

He had taken but a half dozen steps when he slipped on the torn up turf, lost his balance and landed face first in one of the numerous mud puddles that dotted the devastated area.

"NNNOOOOOOO!!!"

Soaking wet, white as a sheet, and trailing bedclothes that threatened to strangle him, a screaming Harry rolled from beneath the drawn - and soundproofed - hangings about his bed. He landed with a resounding thud on the floor of the Gryffindor sixth-year boys' dormitory.

Ron was the first of his housemates to Harry's side.

"Harry! Mate, you're dreaming again!" the redhead yelled in his ear. "Whatever you think happened didn't! You're at Hogwarts, dammit - Hogwarts!"

Harry's frantic eyes popped open. He stared into Ron's worried face, and behind him saw the equally concerned looks of his other housemates. He ceased struggling, but his breath still came in rattling gasps as Ron half whispered the inevitable question.

"Is it your you-know-what, mate?"

Harry reflexively touched his forehead, but his scar was cool and painless, the same as since his rescue by the goblins. Voldemort had not visited - that might no longer even be possible.

"No…," he panted. "That … that doesn't seem … seem to happen anymore…. In some ways … this is … worse…. Because it's … me…."

Reaching out his hand, Harry weakly grabbed the collar of the taller boy's robes. He waved the others away. Ron shooed them out as well. When alone, Ron eyed his friend cautiously.

Harry was steaming - his inner heat visibly evaporating the water leftover from his emergency awakening spell. Still, despite the dream's horrific content, nothing suggested that he had been on the verge of an incident.

"I … I can't do this," Harry rasped. "They'll kill her. They'll kill her so they can make a monster out of me."

"The bloody hell you can't," Ron upbraided his wild-eyed friend. "You're letting them beat you without a fight. You'll never be a monster. Not if I can help it. And you'll have to go through her, too. That I'm sure of."

"Ron, you really need to know some things," Harry answered. "About that prophecy that the Death Eaters were after last Term, and about what happened when Hermione was hurt."

"I'm all ears, mate."

* * * *

A couple of hours later, a thoroughly shaken Ron sat by himself in the Gryffindor common room when Hermione came looking for Harry. She had been closeted away in the Library, attempting to learn as much about the Grindelwald Reading as she could. Her low opinion of Divination was notorious. Only the links between Tarot and Arithmancy kept her from viewing the former as every bit as much codswallop as Divination's other purported "arts." For Harry, however, she suspended her disbelief.

"Ron, do you know where Harry's off to?" she asked.

"Why don't you try the Pitch," he offered. "He said he was going to try to train his replacement."

Hermione wrinkled her nose. "I don't exactly like the sound of that," she commented, "but thanks."

"Oh, and be careful," Ron warned his friend. "He's in one of those moods, I think. Having nightmares again, I'm afraid."

"Bad ones?" Hermione asked, concern seeping into her voice.

"Bloody awful," Ron replied. "They're like the ones about Sirius just before…. Well, you know."

Hermione bit her lower lip in concern over her boyfriend. "That's terrible," she said cautiously. "Who is it this time?"

"Who do you think?" Ron shot back.

"Er … me?" she answered in a small voice.

"Knew you'd get it," Ron answered. "Just be careful, okay? You know how he gets - melodramatic and all. No telling what he might come up with."

"Thanks Ron," Hermione responded. "I guess there's no time like the present to get to the bottom of things."

She set her jaw and went off to look for Harry. First, however, Hermione made a detour to the Room of Requirement. Once before, the Room had provided her with something that had saved quite a few lives. Now, she hoped it would provide her with something that would save their relationship.

There would be no more lies.

* * * *

"Now the key to successful Seeking is to keep control of the wide side of the Pitch," Harry instructed his audience of one. "That means, everything else being equal, you want to be on the inside of your opponent, so that you maintain the advantage to the greater part of the Pitch…."

His first private lesson teaching Jazzy how to play Seeker was unfolding far better than Harry had secretly feared. The Kashmiri wild child had arrived on time and ready to practise. During the lesson, she actually paid close attention to what he said. Not only that, she was flying a tad less recklessly.

"…But whilst you play to the inside, you watch to the outside. The Snitch has a mind of its own, and will usually stay to the wide side. But if it doesn't, you're going to be at a disadvantage to your opponent. Using strategy to minimise that disadvantage will be much more important to you than it ever has been to me."

"And just why is that?" Jazzy challenged.

Harry gave her a crooked smile. "You see, I've always been able to cheat. For years, I've had the best broom on the Pitch, so if I was caught out of position I could make it up with better raw speed, agility, or some such. That's all history now that everyone's flying on the same model broom. It's all about talent now … talent and strategy."

Jazzy understood all about privilege. "Okay. I see - so what's the strategy?" she asked.

"I was getting to that," Harry answered with a sigh. "You watch to the outside. When the Snitch appears relatively close to a Seeker, it likes to hide in plain sight - stay where he can't…."

"Or she can't," added Jazzy.

"…or she can't see it," Harry agreed wearily. "But it's really hard for the Snitch to evade two people at once, so if you keep special watch to the outside, you'll actually see it better than the Seeker closest to it."

"But won't the opponent have the same advantage - to the larger side of the Pitch, then?" Jazzy asked.

Harry smiled again. Jazzy was rather young to be Seeking, but she had a head on her shoulders. She asked the right questions. "That's right. That's why you need to use other senses - especially hearing - to detect the Snitch when it's behind you, but close by. If it's far away, it doesn't matter as much because you can make up a head start with a combination of superior positioning and better flying. And no mistake about it, you can really fly. But when it's close, that option's not there. That's why I want to give you this…."

Harry pulled a used Snitch from inside his robes and cast an immobilising spell on it.

"You keep this with you and listen to it," Harry told the girl. "You keep it around you a lot - until you can practically hear that distinctive Snitchy whine in your sleep."

Harry was about to demonstrate when he noticed that Jazzy was no longer looking at him - but by him instead.

Harry turned in the direction of Jazzy's stare. He immediately saw Hermione striding purposefully towards the Castle side of the pitch.

Harry glanced at Jazzy, and she gave him a head gesture indicating that he should do whatever he needed to do. He started to descend - his trainee following at a respectful distance (although she would have roundly hexed anyone describing it in those terms).

Harry knew the time had come. So did Hermione. `I'm sorry to interrupt, but we really need to talk,' she informed him telepathically.

`I know. You're right.' He replied in the same fashion. `Let me get cleaned up. Meet me near the Whomping Willow in about twenty minutes, and we'll go some place private.'

Hermione assented, and Harry slowly turned his broom towards the Gryffindor clubhouse. One look at his tightly knit brow and suddenly serious expression was all Jazzy needed to see.

"I know when a practice is over," she remarked. She turned her identical James-Potter-Memorial-Trust-issued Firebolt in the same direction. She started to zoom ahead of the listlessly flying Harry, but thought better and circled back.

"Er … Harry…?"

"What?" the boy answered in a flat and far away voice.

"It's.… It's like the Headmaster said - at the end of the Welcoming Feast when you were still away."

"No need to sugarcoat it," Harry told her. "I was captured by Death Eaters then."

"Well, he showed up very late - when we were all worried about the failed rescue and all. He talked to us mostly about choices, and how some of his hadn't worked all that well."

"Yes?" Harry replied. He wasn't particularly listening to her, but nothing in his voice told her to leave, either.

"He said something.… He's probably said it before, but it was new to me," she continued haltingly. It really was not her place.

"Dumbledore says lots of things," Harry mumbled absent-mindedly.

"He said that our choices don't always go the way we intended, but at the end of the day we could live with ourselves if we chose what was right - over what was easy."

Harry winced visibly at hearing those familiar words. He looked at the wisp of a Third Year who presumed to tell him about choices at this moment in his life. "And your point is?" He said archly.

She had touched an even deeper nerve than expected. Jazzy almost gasped at the wave of - whatever it was - Harry emitted. Words became even harder. "Well it's just…. You and her…. Whatever's going on … between you. I thought you could use the Headmaster's advice."

Unable to say more, she flew off - directly back to the Castle still dressed in her Quidditch practice robes.

Harry was also unable to articulate anything further: no question about how she had known; no cutting remark about her presumptuousness; no word of thanks for support in a time of need.…

Harry pointed his broom towards the changing room.

He had never felt more alone….

Some fifteen minutes later, with a lump in his throat the size of a Bludger, Harry approached that lone figure waiting patiently for him barely beyond range of the Whomping Willow's club-like branches. She sat on a conveniently located small grey boulder that poked through the thin, grassy soil.

"Hi," he greeted her tentatively.

"Hi, yourself," Hermione smiled tightly as she rose to greet him.

His heart jumped to his throat as he watched her approach. His stomach churned as if filled with buzzing Doxies. Merlin, he loved this girl. And that was precisely the problem.

"Er … where do you want to go?" Harry asked her quietly.

She bit down on her lower lip, and replied in an obviously rehearsed fashion. "Umm … I know a nice, secluded spot down behind the lake."

That surprised Harry. Was she thinking of the same place he was? "You mean … the one with the fallen tree that hides everything from the Castle?"

Hermione was likewise surprised - but not too much. Harry had a very good map of the grounds. "You know about that, then," she stated softly. "I should have guessed."

"I … er … Bill Weasley showed it to me," he replied. It was painful recalling his deceased guardian. But that pain was minor compared to what his heart felt.

They began walking around the lake.

"I learnt about it from the Twins," Hermione offered. "I gather that they learnt about it from Bill too."

For some time they walked together in silence. Ironic thoughts whirled through Harry's head. His first time at that place, he had confessed his feelings for Hermione to Bill. Since then those feelings had waxed incomparably stronger. She had come for him. He had come for her. That only made everything so very much more difficult.

This was not going to be easy.

But was it right?

Her voice shook his mental cauldron. "Harry?"

"Wha…?"

"Take my hand. Please?"

He did, and warmth from their interlocked fingers flowed through him. He considered using Occlumency to steady himself, but quickly dismissed it. In all the world, Hermione was the person he least needed to defend himself against.

"Harry, we need to talk this out," she began bravely. "Ever since that night of the Astronomy retake when everything - everything was so wonderful for a brief and shining moment, you've, you've seemed so … well, withdrawn."

"I could never hide anything from you," Harry answered glumly. "Not for long."

"And I know better, now anyway, than to leave you stewing in your own juices," she answered in the subdued, accepting voice reserved only for him. "We'll talk it through and work it out - that's what we've always done."

Actually, talking things through was quite the opposite of their usual approach, and they both knew it. But that was then, and this was now - and "now" meant nothing was more important in her life. She would work to save this relationship from Harry's demons.

"I'm … I'm…. I'm a disgrace to Gryffindor house," he blurted out.

"Tosh." Hermione had anticipated many things in the hours she brooded over the conversation they were commencing, but not this. "That's absurd," she quickly appended, before realising how judgmental she sounded. "Harry, you're more Gryffindor than anyone. Dumbledore gave you the Founder's picture for goodness sake. You've used his sword. Why in the world would you say that?"

"I'm so scared," he confessed weakly.

"Being scared has nothing to do with courage, Harry," Hermione reminded him. "Fear is what keeps courage from becoming foolhardiness. I don't mind that you're scared. That just means we can be scared together."

"He'll kill you," Harry blurted.

Now that was more what she expected. Hermione gave Harry's hand a squeeze. "He's tried, and he's failed," she declared, "because of you. We've had this conversation before, you know. Think logically, Harry. I'm very well protected. I'm even better protected than you, because I've you protecting me!"

Harry put up a fight. "He'll try harder, if we … well you know."

"And you won't let him, just like the last time," she said, thinking of the sabotaged broom.

"The last time, I nearly saved him the trouble," Harry corrected. Unlike Hermione, he viewed the last time Voldemort invaded his mind as another attempt on her life. "I burnt you up, Hermione. I burnt you alive - from a hundred kilometres away. I can't let that happen again."

By this point, they had circled behind the lake and reached the spot of both of their prior meaningful conversations - his man-to-man talk with Bill, and her woman-to-woman chat with Luna.

"You first," Harry invited Hermione.

"No, you first," Hermione declined. Seeing his odd look, she explained, "This is important. I want to cast a charm to ensure that we won't be disturbed."

She was right. This was important. He shrugged his agreement and moved on ahead, watching what she did from the corner of his eye.

Hermione turned, and if she muttered an incantation, Harry missed it. Twisting her wand like a corkscrew, she conjured into existence the same twinkling anti-gravity mist he had encountered in the Tri-Wizard Tournament's maze.

Stepping on a half buried hunk of greyish rock, she made her own way to the shore, where Harry was waiting for her. A small sandy beach was split by a large, flat slab of reddish sandstone. Moving to the big stone, they sat down side by side. The colours of Scottish autumn were inexorably replacing the verdant green of their previous visits.

The beauty of the place was all but ignored by its occupants.

"Where did you learn that?" Harry asked, momentarily distracted from their more momentous topics.

"My own reading ahead in the Auror lessons over the holiday," she replied tersely, before returning to the matter at hand.

"Now don't change the subject, Harry," she told him. "Whatever you did to me was inadvertent. It doesn't matter any more. It's in the past, and I'm still alive. You saved me, Harry. You rescued me. That's what you do, always, and there's nobody better. Have faith in yourself. I have faith in you."

"But Voldemort will do horrible things to you," Harry continued as if not hearing a word she said.

"He'll rape me with a flaming broomstick, throw me off a cliff, and leave my corpse to be eaten by Fire crabs," Hermione answered, her voice rising. "I know. You think I haven't thought about all this? Well, I have - a lot! I'm at risk, after all. But you're more important to me, Harry! I don't want to live without you. That's why you had to come get me."

"Even worse, he'll try to force me to do his dirty work," Harry continued undeterred with his parade of horribles. "I know. He sent me a nightmare of that over the summer!"

"How?" she asked. Ron had warned her of his nightmares. She was certain they played a huge role in everything that gave rise to his fears.

"He wants me to be the one who rapes you, that's what!" Harry pushed one of his deepest fears into the light of day.

"That's simply impossible," Hermione shot back. "It can't be done."

"How can you say that?" Harry protested. "Voldemort is that bloody powerful. He possessed me at the Ministry."

"He cannot possibly use you to rape me," she declared again. "That won't happen! It can't…."

`Dammit, Harry, ask me why,' Hermione thought to herself. He had plainly spent the last few days obsessing over all the risks of their relationship. She needed to get him thinking about its benefits.

Harry did not put the penny in the slot. Instead, he continued, "Hermione, this is so much bigger than just us," he raved. "He…. He - wants to turn me into a monster. He'll use me … to kill you myself. Like I almost did before, only worse."

"You'd better explain what you're on about, then," Hermione replied, less sure of herself. "I certainly can't see it. You're not a monster, and you never will be. For one thing, I won't let you."

"You don't understand, because you weren't there," Harry spluttered. "This terrible Fifth Element thing that's part of me. It's awful. I nearly killed you from so far away! I must have killed two dozen people, at least, vaporised them at a stroke. Nothing was left for anyone to find. And the valley … I utterly destroyed that whole valley - whole hectares of it. I even melted the bloody rocks."

"I can't help myself, when it comes to you," Harry continued, desperate to make her understand. "It just happens. If he tries to hurt you, when I'm nearby…. I'll go off again and kill you the same way. And then he'd have won, because I'd be a monster."

"You wouldn't do that!" Hermione broke in. "You can't. You're good, not evil. You just have to learn to control it."

"That's the problem! I can't. Not when it involves you!" Harry cried in anguish. "I even have problems when it's just dreams. Just think! If Voldemort really came after you whilst we were in London, it wouldn't only be you who I'd fry when I went off - I could end up killing … millions! I'm a bloody bomb. It's just, just not something we can risk!"

"Harry, think what you're saying," Hermione cried back at him. "You were in London! The Death Eaters did attack! They killed - your girlfriend at the time, and you did not, I repeat, not - destroy London! The Death Eaters did what they did, but not you!"

Harry looked at her with anguish etched in his every pore. "Hermione, don't even think of comparing your situation with Eliza's. I … I didn't love her. I'd realised that, and I'd originally made that date to break up with her. I was planning to tell her it was over when - you and I had our fight, and everything seemed so hopeless."

"Harry, I'm sorry, I should never have brought her up," Hermione apologised immediately.

Harry, however, was relentless. "Well, now that it's out in the open, I might as well tell you. When the Death Eaters outright executed her, I was right there - right next to her, only I had been Petrified. I couldn't see it, but I heard it happen. And you know what? I couldn't save her. I couldn't even muster enough power to break a puny Petrificus totalus. I was pathetic."

"No, you were taken by surprise," she steadfastly offered in his defence.

"Doesn't matter…. That's not what I'm getting at," Harry went on. "You see, when it was you. When Voldemort so much as hinted that he was going to harm you after you'd come for me…. Why, at that point it didn't matter that a score of Death Eaters were all cursing me at once. I blew up everything within several kilometres. If I hadn't been deep inside a valley, it could have been much worse."

For the first time, Hermione found her own confidence wavering. Harry did have a point. "What are you trying to say, Harry?" she asked.

"I … we … We can't be together … not now … not until I destroy Voldemort - which I swear to you I'll work on unceasingly until it's done."

"Harry! What are you saying?" Hermione demanded in a shocked tone. "After all we've been through to get to where we can be together! What you told me when you came for me…. You told me you loved me, and you didn't want to be apart anymore!"

"I'm sorry, Hermione, I hadn't thought everything through," Harry said miserably, his eyes downcast and his face a pasty white.

Hermione was just the opposite. The girl's skin purpled as her eyes narrowed dangerously. "Don't you dare tell me you didn't mean what you said in there," Hermione warned ominously. "You've never been a very good liar, and I'm not about to let you get away with that kind of rubbish now!"

Whilst lecturing Harry, she drew a small phial from an outside pocket of her robes. When he saw it he mouthed, barely aloud, "Veritaserum?"

"If necessary, yes," Hermione replied as fiercely as she could manage. "`No more lies,' you said. Well, that's absobloodylutely right. You can't put me off with nasty lies about how you don't love me, or some such tripe, so don't even think about it."

"I wasn't," Harry said whilst refusing to meet her blazing eyes. "I told you the truth then, and that hasn't changed. I love you so much that it scares me."

Hermione softened when as Harry disclaimed any attempt to deny his feelings or tell her some other malicious lie to drive her away. "Love is nothing to be scared of," she told him in a much softer calmer of voice.

"It is when it's me - and you," Harry persisted. "When there's a threat to you, I just react … like with Voldemort."

She now knew where Harry was headed. Hermione fought to prevent her world, and her future, from falling to pieces. "Do you really think you can defeat Voldemort by yourself? That's why you told me about the - well you know - wasn't it? So we would be in this together! So we would be together, and act together, and beat this together!"

"I was being selfish, Hermione," Harry admitted. "I only wanted you. I only wanted … us. Now, I've understood what could happen - how many could die. I realise I was being unrealistic. There's no happily ever after with Voldemort about. We have to go see Shak."

"Harry, if you're going in for more training in Defence, then count me in - not out. We're much better as a team, aren't we?" she pleaded.

Harry brushed that aside. "Ordinarily, yes, but not when constantly distracted by protecting you and trying to keep my own bloody self under control."

Hermione fought back. It hardly mattered that she contradicted herself. "Harry! How many times do I have to tell you, you don't have to protect me! I'm pretty damn tough when I have to be. I found you, didn't I - even with Dumbledore blocking me at every turn? I'm not some helpless damsel! I'm not Ginny in the Chamber of Secrets. I can bloody well learn to protect myself! That's why I want to be there when you train with Kingsley."

"I'm not suggesting that we train with Shak," Harry abruptly declared.

"Then what?" In her exasperation the girl asked an open-ended question.

Harry answered her, speaking very fast. "Okay, I'll tell you. Here's what I think we can do. Shak's an Obliviator, a really good one. What he did to Edgecombe last Term proved that. We can take some of our best memories; hide them away in a Pensieve somewhere with Ron as Secret Keeper. Then Shak can Obliviate us. Then it can be with us, like - oh, I don't know … me and Avvie, or you and Seamus. Acquaintances only. You'll be safe and out of the crosshairs, and I can concentrate on Voldemort. Then, when it's over, assuming it goes reasonably well, we can put things back together again. And if it doesn't go well … then I guess, you're still as safe as you could be."

Hermione listened to Harry's torrent of words with ever widening eyes.

"Harry, that's your plan?"

The folly of it all took her breath away.

"Yes. I don't see any other way."

It was spherical absurdity - ridiculous any way you looked at it.

"That's so wrong on so many levels, I hardly know where to begin," she began. "Have you even discussed this with anyone?"

"Not any of the details," Harry conceded. "I wanted you to hear it first. The general concept I talked through with Remus, though."

Her opinion of the werewolf dropped precipitously as she marshalled her arguments. "Well, first of all, on a medical level, there's no way it would work. It's possible to shave off a recent memory cleanly with no adverse consequences, like Shak did to Marietta. But there's no way that either of our minds could be wiped clean of something as long, deep, and complex as our friendship without substantial adverse consequences - especially now, when our magic's still maturing. Why, the premature removal of even a single traumatic event can stunt one's magical growth."

"You mean I could lose…?"

"Listen to me, Harry," Hermione was not done. "I'm afraid that you might lose almost everything. Trying to remove something as significant as our five years of friendship could have disastrous consequences. You'll need every iota of your magical talent to defeat Voldemort as it is. You don't want to end up like … like … Professor Lockhart!"

"So, it won't work medically?" Harry asked, his face a mask.

"No!" Hermione almost yelled. "And it wouldn't work practically either. I mean everyone knows there's something between us. Neither of us was exactly subtle about things atop the Astronomy Tower the other night. Malfoy certainly knows. Are you going to Obliviate him too - without his consent? And you're talking about erasing our friendship…. Are you proposing to Obliviate Ron? How about Ginny? Neville knows what's going on. Him, too? I mean … to do what you're proposing; you'd have to Obliviate the whole bloody Castle. Even that probably wouldn't be enough - not with all the rubbish the Prophet has already published about us. It called us `paramours' over the summer, Harry! We're just too bloody famous now for Obliviation ever to work."

Hermione paused, appreciating the supreme irony of what she had just said. She had largely reconciled herself to his fortune. To prevent this fool's errand he had dreamt up, she would gladly come to terms with his fame too.

"So, it won't work practically?" Harry asked, his lips trembling now.

"No!" she repeated, her face as red as her Gryffindor Prefect badge, "and even if by some miracle everything else worked out all right, it would probably be for naught anyway…."

This time Harry asked the open-ended question. "How so?"

Hermione took full advantage. "Harry, I've been attracted to you for years. I know that now. And you told me the same thing when you came for me. I believed you then, and I believe you now. So even if Shak could reduce us to little better than strangers, who's to say we wouldn't just fall for one another all over again? I know I've never been interested in anyone else - who's at Hogwarts…. And you? Well, Ron's got Cho and Neville's got Ginny. Who does that leave? You and Lavender or Parvati? Don't make me laugh! In all likelihood, history would repeat all over again, only we'd lose the benefit of five years of intense friendship. We'd get involved without knowing each other as well."

Harry gave a sigh of defeat. "That wasn't a very good plan, was it?"

"No, it wasn't," Hermione shot back. Thankfully, he was beginning to talk of it in the past tense. "That's because the idea behind it wasn't very good to start with. But it could well be worse than that."

"That hardly seems possible," Harry moped. He did not really have a "Plan B." He has only contemplated one other outcome.

The gears in her mind kept operating furiously. Sensing that she finally had an advantage, she took his hand and gazed squarely into those amazing green eyes. She could sense the fear residing within. "Harry, do you remember the saying I put in your ruddy speech - that Franklin bit that didn't translate well? Don't you think we stand better before Voldemort together, rather than separately?" Hermione asked.

"I don't think so," Harry reflexively responded. He did not want Hermione to face Voldemort - ever. "That would just give him two targets."

"I'm a target anyway," Hermione reminded him pointedly. "If nothing else, my O.W.L. scores prove that. Nothing you do, or don't do, can change that. Without you in the picture, it just gives Voldemort a freer hand to make an awful example of that Mudblood who topped his marks."

In his emotional torment, Harry had overlooked that. "I'm sorry," he choked out. "But still, I don't want to be … a monster that kills millions. I'm no killer. I hate it."

"It's a good thing; killing being so terrible," she comforted him. "Lest we become too fond of it."

Hermione reminded him of something else he had forgotten, trying to engage his intellect. "Harry, we need to think outside the box. You've known the prophecy much longer than I have. Surely you've thought about this. What do you think is the `power he knows not'?"

The question came at Harry from deep in the covers. "It's pretty obvious, isn't it?" he groaned. "It's this ruddy Fifth Element - the same thing that'll make me a monster. I have it; he doesn't; and it's really overpowering. I just have to learn to control it. If I ever can…."

"What if it's not, Harry?" she asked him. "What if it's … something else?"

"I don't think it can be," Harry replied. "I needed a power. Then all of a sudden, I've got one - that. It's too much for coincidence."

"But Voldemort knows," Hermione pressed. "He learnt about it as vividly as - well - as vividly as anyone outside present company. The Fifth Element didn't kill him then; not even when it truly was an unknown power. I agree that it would have fit perfectly before … before everything happened. But not anymore. It's no longer an unknown power. He knows of it only too well."

Harry kicked at the sand forlornly. "But I don't have anything else," he told her. "Nothing that he'd be afraid of anyway."

"Yes, you do, Harry," Hermione said. "You've got me…." She moved closer to him.

"You're powerful, Hermione, but you're not a power," Harry-the-literalist answered.

"Oh, Harry," came her exasperated reply. "Let me spell it out. You have what we feel for each other - love - and that's definitely a power."

The wheels started turning in Harry's head, as well. Maybe clever Hermione was on to something. Maybe another outcome could possibly be Plan B.

One thing was certain - a middle ground was not possible.

It would have to be all or nothing. The Fifth Element was just too dangerous.

"It's.… It's a power, I grant you," Harry conceded. "But, it seems so weak - so puny. Compared to what I've done with the Fifth Element … compared to what Voldemort can do."

Hermione raised her hand to stroke his cheek. "I don't think it's weak at all," she affirmed as she watched him closely. "You said so yourself, only a few minutes ago. What was it that set off the Fifth Element in the first place? You wanted to protect me. Why? For that matter, what led you to set the Situation Room on fire this summer?"

"I love you," he replied thoughtfully, "and I thought they were trying to hurt you. You're right - it can be powerful! Dumbledore once said quite the same thing, but I didn't believe him."

"Harry, the Fifth Element is a tool. Love is the power. It's like - like a fulcrum, and with enough leverage we can move the world," Hermione answered him, her hopes finally rising as she grasped how could overcome this roadblock. "You have love. We have love. Voldemort doesn't."

"But it's still the same problem," Harry lamented. "We can't just snog him to death. Because I can't control how I feel about you, I can't control this - tool. I can't live without you, but I can't live with you either, because one way or another I'll get you killed. I don't know what to do." Harry's shoulders slumped as he stopped speaking.

Hermione had a ready suggestion. "Harry, think of yourself; just for once," she pleaded. "All this pain you've felt - your whole life - you can't keep hiding it away inside you! You really will explode."

Harry followed along intently until her final words, at which his face crumpled.

"I'm sorry, Harry," she wailed. "That was a horrible metaphor. What I'm trying to say is let me help with some of that pain. Give yourself a chance for happiness - please! After everything you said, you must feel something."

Seeing Harry's obvious hesitation and conflicting impulses, she decided she had to put everything on the line. If she could not get the answer she wanted now, it was unlikely she ever would. She wanted - needed - to make it easy for him.

"Please, Harry, just answer one question totally honestly," she requested, unshed tears shimmering in her eyes.

"Er … okay," he agreed haltingly. "I'll try my best."

"Your best has always been plenty good enough," Hermione encouraged. "Tell me truthfully, Harry - don't you want to go out with me?"

`There,' she thought, `finally it's out on the table, where he can't avoid it.'

"G-g-go out with you?" Harry repeated. His eyes popped open wide. He looked quite taken aback at what should have been a simple concept.

"Yes, Harry," Hermione pursued, putting her hands in his. "In your heart of hearts, don't you want to date me? Well - I'm here…, and I'm asking."

Harry's hands felt like they were burning. He had never really thought of his relationship with Hermione in such … shallow … terms.

"Going out with you…. It's just that…. Well, dating - that's for getting to know someone…. To see if there's enough in common…."

"Please, Harry," Hermione pleaded. "It can't be that hard. It's a yes or no question. I'm waiting - for you…." She tried batting her eyelashes, Lavender style, but thought she failed miserably.

Harry gulped. He had a feeling his answer to her question was not what Hermione wanted to hear - or even what he really wanted to say. But she had forced the issue. Totally truthfully, he stated, "No, Hermione, I don't want to go out with you. That would seem triv…."

The unexpectedly negative answer slammed into Hermione's psyche and left her reeling. She felt her world coming undone again. After everything Harry had told her - in there - and here…. After his seeming baring of his soul that caused her to free herself from her own mental prison, he nevertheless did not want her that way. It was too much. She had to get away before she broke down altogether.

Abruptly she stood up. Putting on her bravest front she forced out, "I'm sorry, Harry, for putting you on the spot like that. I'll…. I'll just go now. I'm sorry that I misunderstood."

"But Hermione," Harry pleaded, "it's not like…."

He started moving as she pulled her hands away from his and prepared to depart. Momentarily unbalanced, Harry jammed his foot into the sandy gravel by the rock at which their relationship seemed foundering. Instead of steadying him, the gravel rolled, his foot skidded, and Harry clumsily slid down the rock. He ended up on all fours.

Tears visibly streaming from her eyes, Hermione turned to leave. "I'll just go now. I'm sorry I misunderstood.… It's just - I can't settle for that. I just need some … you." Unable even to string a simple sentence together, she began walking briskly away.

Ironically, her own question had provided Harry an opportunity to drive her away far more effectively than his own elaborate, half-baked plan.

But he no longer wanted that - now that he could envision something else.

Harry did not even try getting up. "Hermione, please listen," he called to her, his own voice cracking. He was ruining everything. He had to tell her the truth - finally - and let the chips fall where they may. "It's not what you think…."

Hermione already had her sights set on the Castle, when those all-too-familiar words reached her ears. In the pain of being rejected - rejected just when she had thought she could not be - she was doing it again.

She was replaying past mistakes. He made the same simple request when she slapped him and drove him away - and yet again, when she almost shut him out of her mind and condemned them both to death. Time and again, she had vowed never again to refuse to listen.

She stopped in her tracks.

Harry still struggled to articulate something. "Please…. It's just that - going out - that's not where either of us is, I think. I'm well past…."

She knew what would eventually come out. He would call her his sister; the mother he never knew; his guiding light; even his alter ego. He would profess some "other" kind of love … something placing her on an impossibly high pedestal. He would say something - anything - ruling out the primal romantic response she so craved from him.

Still, she immediately decided she owed him that much. If he were determined to break her heart, she might as well let him do it right, well, and proper. Willing herself to stay upright, if not composed, Hermione turned to face the emotional equivalent of a firing squad.

From all fours by the large rock, Harry saw the woman he cared more about than anyone in the world hesitate, stop and turn back - towards him.

`In for a penny; in for a pound,' he thought. `Plan B, it is.'

He pushed against the rock and brought himself partially upright. The cold, wet sand soaked through his knees, but did not try to stand. In a perverse sort of way, he was where he was supposed to be at this point in his life - a point often contemplated, but one he never thought possible to attain.

"All right, Harry, I'm listening," Hermione said in an excessively even voice. Whilst she listened, she did not look. As a defensive mechanism, she squeezed her eyes tightly shut.

"It's just that - when you said dating," Harry struggled for coherence. "That's to get to know someone better. That's … that was Cho … and Eliza. I've never seen any need to go out with you. I didn't know them. I know you … better than anybody…. I've known you since I was eleven."

"I've known you equally long," Hermione squeezed out. Harry's characteristic hemming and hawing only prolonged her agony. "I'm sorry that I mistook your brotherly feelings for…."

"No, Hermione!" he raised his voice for the first time. "It's not like that at all!"

"Then please enlighten me," Hermione replied. She teetered on the jagged edge of emotional collapse as she felt all her "happily ever after" dreams shrivelling up and dying.

Harry's hand plunged into an inside pocket of his robes where he felt the locket he carried there. He had originally given it to Eliza - before sorting out his feelings. Tragedy allowed him to retrieve it, as if fate had granted him a do over. Within that locket was the decisive message his father and godfather had sent from beyond the grave.

That spectral message set a standard, and the girl before him met it. She not only came for him - she was still coming for him - even when his fears and guilt conspired to try driving her away. Now, that message, in that locket, gave Harry strength to continue; to do what he had to do.

"Please, Hermione, this is hard for me to say…," he pleaded.

In a half-strangled whisper she replied, "I'm afraid it's even harder for me to hear." Then she went silent.

"It's just that - after all that's happened between us - especially over the last few weeks, well, I don't want to go out with you…."

Anticipating the blow, Hermione screwed up her face.

Only one way remained. He felt helter-skelter - like being on a turnabout slide. He had tried running away from his deepest feelings, but Hermione had not let him, but had spun him around. Harry swallowed and summoned that Gryffindor courage he had denied but a short time before.

"…I don't need to know you better to know how I feel about you. I love you, and that's how it will be. I don't need to date you - I want to marry you, really." Still on one sand-covered knee, he looked up at her with green, little-lost-puppy eyes.

"…I want to marry you…."

Those words reverberated, through Hermione's mind, dizzying her. Her heart felt so full that it might burst. Her stomach lurched like she had fallen through the vanishing step in the Gryffindor stair case.

"…I want to marry you…."

A maelstrom of emotions assaulted her - shock, disbelief, love, fear, relief, and hope all fought for primacy. Someone seemed to have Evanescoed her insides and replaced them with something very warm, very soft, and very light. Soon, that mythical someone added the Jelly-Legs Jinx. No longer able to stand Hermione took one step towards Harry, staggered, and abruptly fell to her knees in the middle of the dirt path to their hideaway.

"Oh, Harry," she gasped, her face flush with intense emotion. "I - I had no idea! Not in a million years did I expect…. I'm flabbergasted. I don't know what to say…."

Harry suddenly felt cold and uncomfortable. What only moments ago seemed like the only thing he could possibly do - suddenly, that sense of cosmic righteousness was slipping through his fingers.

To be replaced by unfathomable dread.

What if he ended up like Viktor Krum?

Harry shuddered as his throat tightened and his tongue felt unnaturally thick and numb.

Their mutually maintained Platonic wall that cordoned their friendship off from - anything else - battered as it was, had finally been breached by his telling the whole truth. Not just broken, but shattered. It might be impossible to go back.

Would she recoil from what lay beyond? He had to know.

"Umm … you could - say yes," Harry murmured haltingly.

Inside his robes, his right hand gripped the silver locket intensely. He wanted her to say `yes.' He needed her to say `yes' - more than anything else in his life up until this point.

In the battle amongst Hermione's emotions, disbelief briefly attained the upper hand. "You - you really mean it, Harry?" she asked in an unnaturally quavering voice. "I mean, we're so young…."

At least she had not turned him down.

With that, Harry felt an adrenaline surge. "I mean that more than anything I've ever said. I-I don't make a habit of asking people to marry me. Please, Hermione? Say you will. Now … later…, any time you want."

For the time being, Hermione's doubts vanished, leaving only joy and love in their wake. Pushing herself back to her feet, she stood uneasily for just a moment before she launched herself at Harry.

He, too, was only just standing up. He caught her as she flew at him, and found himself sitting down heavily on the rock they had left only mere minutes before - only now with Hermione in his arms, sobbing joyous tears.

"Yes, Harry! Of course, yes! Always, yes. A thousand times yes…. I love you so much I don't believe it!"

She pulled him closer - and he, her - until they clung together as one. She had him in a death grip, her arms encircling him just below Harry's shoulders. Her head was burrowed in his neck, where he could feel her ragged breaths and hear her repeated murmurings.

"I love you…. I love you…. I love you…."

Her ear was very close to his lips. He started whispering to her. "Hermione, darling, I was a fool to think - it could happen any other way. I'm still scared to death. I'm not afraid to admit it … not to you. But right now, you've made me the happiest man in the world."

He felt her response from her hands - rubbing and clutching his back.

No, he was wrong. She was just moving her hands upwards, into his hair.

She resolutely lifted her auburn eyes to meet his.

"Harry," she purred at him. "That's enough talk. You may kiss the bride."

Kiss…?

New warmth spread from where Harry cradled her head and shoulders against his. He looked back into her eyes, but she had closed them, anticipating his next move. Her lips were open slightly - enough that he could see the pink, moist tip of her tongue as it wet those lips.

Kiss…!

"And you damn well better," she murmured.

It had happened. He had done it. Having planned precisely the opposite, Harry had ended up asking her to marry him.

And she had accepted!

In probably vain pursuit of her safety he would have surrendered everything that made him happy.

She had not let him. She refused to let him….

In her own way, she had come for him.

Again.

He felt the gentle pressure of her fingertips on the back of his neck - guiding him to her. Rational thought, all his worries and fears, took leave as he felt her soft breath on his lips. He let her lead him to a moment they both needed above all else.

Harry shifted forward - towards her. His newly bruised bum ached, but he ignored it. Stroking the back of her neck with his fingers, he closed his eyes and held his breath until he felt his lips brush the willing wetness of hers. He felt her relax as the last of her tension melted away.

He began with the tiniest suction, kissing her lightly and tentatively. The tip of his tongue only brushed against her own. He felt her sigh as she exhaled. Her breath tickled his tongue and curled around his lips, which still were little more than hovering expectantly against hers. She pressed her lips against his, and Harry lost himself in the feeling. Pleasant memories flooded his mind - when she agreed to come back…, almost snogging her in Hyde Park on the Serpentine…, the other night on the Astronomy Tower…, her first appearance on his doorstep, as if by magic….

Her fingers entangled in his dark hair, Hermione finished the job, urgently pulling him towards her. They eliminated the last barrier between them. Her body was soft and supple and seemed to flow over his. Her mouth was sweet and warm. He surrendered to the insistent pressure, kissing her more fully and more confidently, to the point where his glasses bumped against her nose. She cast some spell, and the offending item floated upwards and out of the way. He heard a soft splut as they landed a short distance away in the wet sand at the edge of the lake.

Harry paid his glasses no mind. He was utterly wrapped up with how remarkable - how magical - her teeth, her lips, and especially her tongue felt beneath and beside his. That obstacle removed, he instinctively realigned both their lips and plunged forward, deeper into the unknown depths of her welcoming caresses.

Together.

They kept snogging. It slowly dawned on him that - astounding as it might seem, Hermione was not the least bit shy about what she wanted. He drew her to him and held her tightly. Was it real? Had he actually done this?

Yes.

This was real, as real as it got. He was with Hermione. Kissing her, and she kissing him back. She kept a hand around his neck. He had one sliding from her knee to her mid thigh, beyond which he dared not go - yet. His other hand looped around her shoulder, gathering her up to where she felt like a second skin.

He had wanted this for so long. Had fantasised about it. Dreamt about it. In captivity, the thought of it - a hope against hope of their full reconciliation - helped fight off Dementors and overcome the Cruciatus.

Now it was actually happening.

It was brilliant; everything he had imagined, and more - because now it was real. If only it could go on forever….

But the snog session had to end, at least temporarily. He felt her draw ever so slightly away as she broke the seal between their lips. He did the same as the fresh air made his heart race. Needily, he filled his lungs with oxygen.

"That may be your most brilliant idea ever," he whispered in her ear, in a voice ragged with emotion.

"Yours was even more brilliant," she whispered back. His breath on her neck made her toes curl. "But since you like it…." She grabbed him and pulled him back to her. Moaning into his mouth, she pushed her tongue against his - and her entire body against his.

Entwined, they leaned backwards until he was flat on his back on the sandy rock. Her body pressed against his from head to toes. He became acutely aware of … well … the pressure of her breasts upon him. He cautiously opened his eyes as his hands slipped to her waist. It was wonderful, but were things spinning out of control?

He felt Hermione's hands leave his neck. She broke the kiss, propped herself up a few centimetres away, and gazed at him. His eyes flew open at the same time and met hers. Her soft brown hair tumbled all around his face, shutting out the rest of the world save a few diamond-like slivers of light. Her face was all he could see - needy, thoughtful, and familiar - warm, wet, and wonderful.

"Is this what you want, Harry?" She asked tenderly. "What you really want?"

"I've never - wanted anything - more in my life," he returned in rasping gasps.

"Me too," she answered, closing those hauntingly beautiful dark brown eyes. "Kiss me again."

She lowered herself to him and he enthusiastically complied. Harry felt an adrenalin surge of self-assuredness. Finally he had done something right. The truth was undeniable. Together, they were so much more - to each other and to what they both had to do. Ecstatic, Harry hugged Hermione to him and let love and magic spill from him in waves, embracing and surrounding them both in warmth and adoration.

She made him whole…. She completed him…. For the first time in his life he felt the full measure of a power that a Dark wizard like Voldemort did not, and could never know. This was the power. Everything else he knew, everything else he could do - those were but tools in the hands of love. She would help him, somehow, find a way to fulfil the prophecy and allow him to live a life that, if not normal, might at least be long and happy.

With the tiniest `pop' of their lips Hermione broke their latest kiss. "Harry, what are you doing?" she whispered.

"Er … thinking."

"Don't," she told him. "Merlin knows we've enough of that to do, but just for once, stop and just enjoy the moment. It's been long enough in coming."

"Ohhh," he moaned. "I'll try."

"That's good enough for me," she said, smiling at him. A moment later, their lips locked again.

Long minutes later, contented with their efforts and basking in their feelings, the two lay side by side, gazing into each other's eyes. Hermione briefly glanced away and ran one hand purposefully down the thin sliver of sandstone that lay beneath and between them.

"Better now?" she asked.

"Far, far better than anything," Harry sighed.

"No, silly, I meant the Cushioning Charm," she giggled.

He reached out, touched her chin, and moved to caress her cheek with his fingertips. "Yes, that too," he said dreamily.

More meaningful silence passed.

"Did you really mean that?" Hermione asked.

"Mean what?" Harry replied. "I'm sure I did…."

"That I was … better … than her?"

"Oh, Merlin, Hermione, there's no comparison," Harry affirmed. "I love you. I can say that with everything I can muster. I never really loved Eliza, let alone Cho. Sometimes I thought so, but I was guessing because … nobody ever loved me, and I didn't … well, know what I was missing. I've never really loved anyone.… Can you forgive me for being such an idiot?"

Hermione smiled at him before answering. "Stop thinking so much. Let's just forgive each other everything that's gone before and start out fresh."

Rolling onto him, she craned forward to kiss him again. He cupped her face between both his hands. She brought her hands forward, grasped his wrists, and let his chest bear her full weight. Her lips kissed their way across his forehead, then over his scar, to the tip of his nose, and finally to each corner of his mouth.

She lingered, enjoying the warm, soft feeling of his lips. Her eyes half closed, Hermione looked down to see Harry's awesome emerald eyes amorously staring back at her. His look reduced her insides to jelly. She parted Harry's lips, then withdrew; allowing Harry's pursuing tongue to chase hers. Of course, he caught her.

Of course, she wanted him to catch her.

With his tongue wrapping around hers, Hermione felt the urgent, almost liquid sensation of lust seeping through her nether regions, a hormonal surge the likes of which she had never before felt. Their breath quickened in the heat of passion as the rest of the world faded away - again - for a little while.

At length they broke apart. Hermione gasped as she sat up.

"Oh, my!"

Harry gazed past her at the waters of the nearby lake. Myopically, without his glasses, he could still see why she had reacted.

The formerly tattered autumnal remnants of water lilies were round and light green - and bore yellow and white flowers. The leaves of the surrounding trees, previously aflame in blazing colours, were restored to the cool green of late springtime. The evergreen shrubs that lined the pocket beach sported garlands of large purple blossoms, so bright almost as to glow from within. Overhead vines, nearby bushes, semi-aquatic plants - plants all about them were also a riot of blooming colours.

For perhaps ten metres all around, spring seemed to have returned.

"My word.… Luminescent rhododendron - in full bloom. Færies feed on the pollen. Harry, did, you…? Did you … do this?" Hermione asked in a voice tinged with amazement.

"Not me, I think - us," Harry answered. He budged up next to her and put an arm around her waist. She snuggled into him.

"I could never do this," Hermione stated.

"Me neither," Harry replied. "It's regenerative elemental magic - earth magic. I saw Lao Kung do something similar, but only on a few plants at once. I never managed more than one before. It's us, not me."

"It's the power," Hermione observed. "Another manifestation…. You - we - have it. All we have to learn is to control it." She rested her head on Harry's shoulder.

He turned towards her, and buried his face in her hair….

More time passed. Harry watched could see the elemental magic start to fade - reminding him that, no matter what he might want, it was September, not May. "I'm still scared," he whispered to her.

"And I'm terrified," Hermione agreed. "But I'm not letting anyone deprive us of the happiness we can find in each other. For however much time we have, we'll be together."

Harry was unconvinced. "But what if I mess up?"

"Nobody's perfect," Hermione reassured. "Just pick up and keep going."

"But like you said, we're so young to be doing this," he fretted.

"Harry, I know in my heart I'm ready for this," Hermione told him, "but if you're not, I won't hold you to your proposal."

"Oh, no, Hermione, it's not that," Harry quickly responded. "It's just that - well half the neighbours on Privet Drive were divorced. And most of those couples now can't even stand the sight of one another. I-I-I fear for our friendship if this doesn't work out. I just can't bear to lose you if we go this route and things fall apart."

"Harry, there's nothing you could do that could stop me from being your friend - I promise," Hermione vowed. "If you want, I'll even make an Unbreakable Vow."

"NO!" Harry burst out. "Nothing that could hurt you anymore, please! I-I-I trust you, Hermione."

"Then please, Harry," she continued, holding both of his hands in hers. "Please for once think about what could go right, instead of what could go wrong. Kiss me."

He did, and the wonderful feeling returned. She was right. He had to trust someone. If not her, who?

Who, indeed.

They came up for air again, and this time she looked surprisingly - well -thoughtful.

"A penny for your thoughts, Hermione," Harry suggested.

She reacted oddly, as if reluctant. "Oh - it's nothing, really…. I was just thinking."

"You know, you told me not to do that," he reminded her.

"It's silly, that's all," she said with a shrug of her shoulders. "I just wish I had never known Viktor. Then you could have been my first…."

Harry flushed. Suddenly, he bore a rather large grudge against the Bulgarian. But wait…. That made no sense. Her testimony - he had read it. "But, Hermione! The unicorns. How could you have fooled…?"

Hermione gasped. "Oh, no, Harry. It's not like that at all. I'm sorry, that came out all wrong. I meant that you could have been my first kiss. I should have waited for you. I was just so flattered, and he was so - nice to me."

Harry gulped. There was one thing he had never told her. Something from long ago. "Er … Hermione? Like I said before, no more lies. Remember?"

"Yes, Harry? What is it?" she replied curiously.

"Well, I was," Harry confessed, reflexively running his hands through his hair.

"You were what?"

"Your first."

Hermione was extremely confused now. "My first what?"

"Umm … your first kiss."

"I wish. But you're not making sense, Harry," she replied. "I assure you, I would have remembered that - and we would have saved ourselves quite a bit of grief."

She looked at him. He was fretfully rubbing his feet in the sand, and not looking at her. He almost seemed ashamed of something. She stopped talking and waited for him to put whatever he was thinking into words.

"Er … that's because you weren't exactly awake when it hap … er … when I did it."

"I don't care, Harry. Whatever it is, it's forgiven," she told him in a low but serious voice. "All that's gone before is forgiven."

"Well, it was when you were - Petrified - during Second Year," he began, with an air of True Confessions. "I was at wit's end, and I still didn't understand how magic worked. I'd seen so much that only happened in fæiry stories that I thought…. I remembered the Sleeping Beauty story and, well, one evening when I was keeping you company and nobody else was about, I had this insane idea, and I had to try it out…."

"So you kissed me to see if maybe that would wake me up?" she prompted.

"Exactly, and I did give it my best shot," he told her truthfully. "I had no idea what to do, but I tried hard enough - what with you being Petrified and all. But of course, it didn't work. I hope you're not too offended, because it wasn't right to do something like that. I didn't do it again, whilst you were, well you know, in that coma or whatever it was."

Again, he seemed too embarrassed to look at her.

"Harry, it's nothing to be ashamed of. You meant well," Hermione dismissed his concern. "C'mere." She put both arms around him and cuddled up close.

"Yes it is," he said, "I didn't have your permission."

"No, it's not," she cooed. "In fact I think it was rather - sweet. Now get over here, handsome prince, and kiss me again so I don't fall back asleep. You have permission now."

She leaned into him, captured his lips and, without breaking the kiss, slowly edged Harry over until he was supine once again. Their closeness was delightful - and arousing. Her breasts pillowed against his chest. But Harry groaned as, despite Hermione's cushioning charm, something ground annoyingly into his left thigh.

The locket.

Harry broke the kiss and manœuvred them both to a sitting position.

"Umm … I didn't really plan this," he admitted the obvious.

"Planning is overrated, sometimes," she said softly. "Harry, you're at your best acting on impulse." Her smile warmed his soul.

"Well, that means I don't have a ring," he continued.

"I don't need another. I'm already wearing your ring, remember," she murmured and held up her right hand. "In a sense, I've been wedded to you since I first put this on, the day after you were taken. I've never taken it off since, not even to wash."

"It was the only thing you had." He felt rather uncomfortable. He had never mentioned seeing her starkers whilst she healed. "Er … well, you know - after I almost killed you…. You were still wearing it."

"Don't be embarrassed, Harry," she told him. "I'm not. I'll just move it, see?"

With that she removed Harry's Auror's ring from her right hand and placed it on her left. "There, that's the way it should be," she declared. "Better?" She kissed him on the cheek.

"Umm … well you deserve a real ring," he said.

"I don't need anything from you but you," she answered.

"Still, you deserve one. But for now I do have this." He held up the silver, heart-shaped locket and handed it to her. "I've been meaning to give this to you, but the time was never quite right. First it was your mum, then - well then I started having the nightmares…."

She turned the finely crafted solid silver locket over in her hand. It felt distinctly warm to her touch. "Harry, this - this is beautiful. But I can't … you gave it to her, didn't you?" she questioned.

"I-I did," he admitted, "when I thought I might be in love with her. I was confused. It's like - well, like fate returned it to me so I could give it to who I really loved all along. There's a message in it."

Hermione unfastened the hasp, and the locket came open, revealing a thin parchment strip rolled up inside. She unravelled and read it. Then she looked at him with a surprised expression on her face.

"Harry, what's the meaning of this?" she asked in a more high-pitched voice than usual.

"That's - that's how I knew," Harry told her. He kissed her forehead, and looked straight into her questioning eyes. "I was confused. There was you, and there was her. Then Tonks gave me what was left of my Dad's and Sirius' wands for my birthday. I-I-I asked them what to do. And they told me this. Tangible proof."

"And you knew?" Hermione asked, wondering how deep this all went.

"Not right away," he explained. "But when you were attacked, the night Bill died; I was ready to march into Hell for you. Then I realised it was you … only you, all the time. But we had our fight. I went to Eliza thinking I had lost you, and you know…. But even after all that, you came for me, just like it says there. When I got the locket back, I felt I had a second chance. So I've been meaning to give it to you - with the message - and so you'll know that I'll come for you, always."

"You already have, Harry," she said as she slipped the locket over her head.

"And I will again," he vigorously affirmed. "Whenever necessary."

"I know you will," she responded, taking his hands again. "That's why I told you I wasn't afraid of anything Voldemort might do to me, because I know that, in the end, you'd stop him."

"Hermione," Harry said cautiously, looking into her positively shining eyes. "I only wish I were that strong."

"You are, Harry, I'm sure of that," she reaffirmed, taking his hand. "And even if you weren't … well … I'd go to my death believing it anyway, so it doesn't matter."

"It does to me," he told her honestly. "I couldn't take it…."

"I know," she interrupted. "That's why we're in this together. Together we'll make sure it never comes to that. Now, kiss me and stop worrying about things we don't have to deal with right now."

Hermione leaned towards him, and he towards her. He could feel his heartbeat in his ears. Again they made full body contact, and this time he needed no coaxing. He wrapped his arms around her and caressed her face in both his hands.

"Harry?" she whispered. "I want you to know something."

"What more do I need to know?" he grunted.

"I love you."

"Hermione.., I can't believe how you make me feel right now," he responded. "I'm in awe. I don't deserve…. How can I measure up to a love like this? You came for me - you really did. I'm.…"

He could not go on. He would have started crying had she not seized that moment to kiss him deeply and to pull him atop herself. She sensed him on the verge of losing it - in a bad way - and she resolved to make him lose it, but in a good way.

She groaned into his mouth as spasms of desire shot through her from deep within. He groaned back as almost frantic caresses edged out his tears. Their motions quickly became less gentle, and more heated. She felt almost dizzy with passion - a passion bottled up within her for much, much too long. Almost (but not quite) involuntarily, she wriggled her hips beneath his. He made a guttural nose whilst deeply kissing her and clutched harder at her sides.

She wriggled again and slid her hands down the small of his back until they rested on his firm rear. She broke one side of their kiss and gasped out his name whilst squeezing him against her. His desire for her was unmistakable and manifest. Maybe this could be the moment she had been longing for - for months, if not years.

Harry backed off and drank in the look in her half-closed eyes. Elation took his breath away as the love filled those enticing, incredible eyes seemed to change colour with the light - now a sweet blend of honey and chocolate. He realised he wanted her … desired her … needed her.

But right as everything was, it was not righteous enough….

There was something she needed to know.

She brought up the subject first.

"Harry, about sex, I think that…."

"Hermione relax," Harry groaned as he lifted himself off her. "I'm sorry, I just got carried away, I guess. Don't worry; I won't try to take advantage of you."

Confusion shone in the girl's eyes. "What do you mean Harry? It's not like I'm being taken advantage of…."

"Not yet, maybe, but if you'd given me a few more minutes," Harry interrupted. "I can wait though. You needn't worry about that for as long as you want."

Hermione's confusion vanished; replaced by a smirk. "It's not like that at all, Harry. All I wanted to say was that I ought to renew the Cushioning Charm before we … er … proceeded."

Harry looked cross-eyed as he comprehended what she meant.

"You mean - you want to…?"

"Want to?!?" Hermione echoed. "Harry, just a few minutes ago, didn't you ask me to marry you?"

"I sure did," Harry responded, "well, sort of anyway…."

"And what did I do?" she asked rhetorically. "I didn't exactly send you packing, did I?"

"No," Harry allowed. "You said you would. But that doesn't mean you have to…."

"But that's just it, isn't it?" she broke in again. She dropped her robes from one shoulder, revealing the plain, button-up-the-front, white school jumper underneath. "I said yes. So, whilst I don't have to, I can want to."

"Er … so … what is it?" he stammered, totally flummoxed.

"`Yes,' that's it," she declared, dropping her robes from her other shoulder. They pooled around her waist.

"Yes?"

"Yes," she repeated. "Harry, what part of `yes' don't you understand? I want to do this." With a come hither look in her eye, she started unbuttoning her blouse.

"Umm … Hermione," Harry sputtered, "I guess - the part about surviving the, the act … er … intercourse-wise."

"What about surviving the act?" Hermione asked distractedly as she unbuttoned the second button. "I won't…."

"That's what I guess I don't understand," Harry tried to explain.

"Harry Potter, just for this once will you stop worrying about one or the other of us getting killed," she replied, working on the third button. "Let's bloody well make use of the time we have together. You can't ask me to marry you and then turn it off like that. Abstinence isn't all it's cracked up to be, anyway. I've been abstinent all my life - not any more…."

Harry felt very warm all over. "But…. But…."

Hermione stopped asking and started instructing. "Intercourse-wise, we needn't wait any longer," she copied Harry's unusual terminology. "That mist won't dissipate until I end the spell. We're quite private in here. Let's celebrate our engagement properly."

Instead Harry did something entirely unexpected. He shouted, "ALAKAR! Show yourselves."

Half hidden in brush at the opposite end of the glade was one greyish rounded boulder. A second lay mostly buried in sand along the path from which they had entered. A third could barely be seen underwater next to the fallen oak tree. Two more erratics were located amongst the trees, just within the area affected by their earth magic.

At Harry's command all of these boulders transformed into battle-ready goblin warriors. Each expectantly finger one sort of weaponry or another, awaiting Harry's next command. Having been urgently called out, they expected to have to fight something.

"Aiee!" Hermione squealed as she pulled her robes around herself.

Harry spoke the simple command for them to stand down. "Bashu!" The goblins vanished, once again replaced by innocent-looking grey stones.

Looking abashed, Harry explained, "Sorry, Hermione, but after all that's happened, when I'm outside the Castle - even on the grounds - they won't let me out of their sight."

Hermione's ears went bright pink at the thought of what she had almost done. As soon as she had restored herself to presentability, she grinned at him weakly. "Thanks Harry. I guess - I got a little carried away there."

"Forget it," Harry replied. "You can be sure I'll never take advantage of you, no matter how out of control you might get. I've had practise."

"Er … thanks Harry - I guess," Hermione answered, a wry look on her face. "So what do we do now?"

"Well, I'm not keen on hiding that we're together, and it'd probably be futile to try," he thought out loud. "I reckon Voldemort pretty much knows already. But I wouldn't tell anyone - except Ron - exactly how together we've gotten. I don't want to set a date or anything, not until we're out of school anyway. But I'm pretty sure that, when it's time, we'll know that."

Hermione waited patiently for him to finish, but her fidgety feet would have given her away, had Harry been paying attention. "I think that's all fine and good, but what I meant was what are we going to do about sex? What do you want?"

Harry went silent for a long moment as her weighty questions hung over his heads.

"Don't you want me? It certainly seemed like you did," she persisted when he failed to respond.

"More than anything - really," Harry reaffirmed. "It's just, well I want the consent of my best friend…."

"You're…. You're not planning to ask Ron about this?" Hermione snorted, plainly scandalised at the thought.

"Oh, no," Harry backtracked furiously. "That came out all wrong. I mean I wanted your consent."

"Well, isn't it obvious you've got that?" Hermione exasperatedly replied.

"I've got the consent of Hermione my … fiancée," Harry responded softly as his voice caught on the final word, a word that suddenly seemed so awesome to him. "But I feel that I've sort of overwhelmed you today. I want the consent of my best friend Hermione, the one who's so clever, and rational, and all."

"What are you asking for, Harry?" Hermione answered, trying to make sense of his response. "You've got my heart; don't you think my mind will follow? Don't you think it already has?"

"That's what I'm hoping for," he replied, taking her hand again. "What I'd like best is for you to cool off and analyse everything, like you do so well. Think everything through carefully, and if you still want to do this, we can work something out. I just…. I can't feel like I've stampeded you into anything."

Hermione shook her head at him. "Poppyc…," She would have thrown up her hands - if he had not been holding them. But seeing he was serious, she relented. "Oh, all right then. I've waited this long, I can wait a while longer. But I want to set a date. This is too important to let slide."

"Er … okay," Harry answered. "Like what kind of date. You're not thinking about doing it in Hogsmeade, are you?"

"Oh, no, Harry," Hermione replied. She had not even considered that - actually entirely rational - option. "I meant a date certain … a deadline. How about the night of the Masked Ball? That's far enough off, we can plan something - suitably cosmic. And I'm assuming that you do want to go with me. You didn't ask anyone else whilst I was … gone, did you?"

"Not a chance," Harry answered, thinking about how, even then, he had turned down both Fleur and Daphne. "It's a date, then."

* * * *

Hours later, the glade was quiet as the sun slipped below the horizon. The new couple had long since departed, followed after a decent interval by their stony guardians. The stillness was broken only by a scratching sound amidst the sodden, tangled mass that was once the root system of the toppled oak tree.

The scrabbling stopped, and an animal's nose emerged from between two of the gnarled roots. It sniffed the air twice. Pushing forward, a pair of beady black eyes emerged.

All was quiet and calm in the gloaming. The last rays of the day cast a reddish glow across the tops of the tallest towers of Hogwarts Castle looming on the other side of the lake.

A single rodent - a rat with a silver paw - dropped with a splash into a few centimetres of water, scurried across the sand, and disappeared into the depths of the forest.

* * * *

Author's notes: Title chapter is a double entendre

Magical silence is used equivalently to radio silence

Sole surviving son is a colloquial term for someone who is entitled to military deferment or discharge under certain circumstances where a family member is killed in action

The "beck" in "beck and call" is an archaic short form for "beckon"

The alpine wildflowers included lupines

"Montana mist" is what happens when a small animal receives a large calibre gunshot

Færie to a foxfire - better than the tired "moth to a flame"

Many forms of Tarot reading do depend upon numerology

The Quidditch strategy is made up. I modeled it on the play of defensive backs in American football

In Saudi Arabia, and probably elsewhere in the Muslim world, women must walk a respectful distance behind their husbands

I don't know where the phrase "brief and shining moment" comes from, I'd guess the Arthurian legend, but I'm not sure

Rape, of course, cannot occur with consent

The Veritaserum is what Hermione got in the Room of Requirement

A sphere is completely round so spherical stupidity is stupid any way you look at it - from an insult coined by Fritz Zwicky

There's someone else who suffers from the premature Obliviation of a traumatic event

The paramour reference is from Chapter 11

The Franklin reverence is from Chapter 26

"Horrible … lest we become too fond of it" - Hermione's "killing" statement paraphrases a remark Robert E. Lee is said to have made about war

"Deep in the covers" is the cricket equivalent of "out of left field"

The "other outcome" will become clear

The situation room incident is from Chapter 17

The idea of using a lever to move the world dates back to Archimedes

Can't live with you - can't live without you, comes from Queen

The "all the pain you've ever felt" line is from "Shadows of the Night" by Pat Benatar

"In for a penny, in for a pound" - used first in Chapter 7, with an author's note that it would recur later. Well, here's later

A "helter-skelter" is a circular slide in England, hence the "slide" references in the Beatles song of that name

The from friend to fiancé without bothering to date sequence was the route taken by the smartest guy in my Princeton class

The evergreen shrubs are lilacs

Rhododendrons grow in Scotland, as they do near where I live

Harry's secret first kiss with Hermione petrified has been alluded to before. Here, he confesses it

Harry will remember his "whenever it's necessary" promise later, under trying circumstances

"How can I measure up to … after such a love…." From "Who Are You" by the Who

The "intercourse-wise" line is taken from a Dan Radcliffe interview

Text is modified slightly to introduce anti-gravity mist, as there were criticisms that Hermione was OOC starting to undress potentially in public

As first demonstrated in Chapter 35, goblins can turn into grey boulders at will

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