Unofficial Portkey Archive

Wherein the true depths of Death Eater depravity is revealed; Dumbledore solves the case; Harry learns of new responsibility; Harry and Hermione get hexed; the D.A. central station is a big hit; Quidditch practice is disrupted; Ron wins; Hermione is insulted; Harry and Hermione duel and snog afterwards.

Thanks to betas Mark Gardiner and Shane.

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 49 - Deception And Duelling

Even at the ungodly hour of three in the morning, the Minister's awful news drove all thought of sleep from Minerva McGonagall's mind.

"…Death Eater attack at the Leaky Cauldron. Hermione Granger is dead. We have her body. Harry Potter is missing."

"But … how?" she protested reflexively. "They're supposed to be in the Castle. Why, I saw them earlier today."

"At present, I see no profit to speculating as to the deceaseds' motivations for choosing to spend the night together at the Leaky Cauldron," Minister Scrimgeour's voice rumbled through the flames of the Deputy Headmistress' Floo connection. "I'm sure that those for whom such speculation is stock in trade will do so. Right now, the critical question is whether they were merely Death Eater targets of opportunity, or if this attack portends worse - a more general assault as when Potter was last taken. This Ministry, for once, is unwilling to take chances. I am treating this as a harbinger unless and until events prove otherwise. I strongly suggest you do the same."

Professor McGonagall's face went paler and paler as the Minister spoke.

"Very well … that is the - prudent course," McGonagall replied tentatively, still reeling from the news. "We enhanced our own procedures over the holiday as part of our general security upgrade. I shall put them into effect."

"Where's Dumbledore?" the Minister asked with an air of inevitability. "I'd best consult with him about where we go from here."

"The Headmaster is - travelling," McGonagall replied, as she Summoned her heavy night robes. "I shall contact him immediately with the news and relay your request. I am sure he will respond directly."

"Thank you," Scrimgeour answered, "and … I'm deeply sorry for Hogwarts' loss. I'll keep you informed as best as wizardly possible."

"I shall as well," McGonagall answered numbly, "and your condolences are very much appreciated."

As the Minister's head disappeared from the flames, Professor McGonagall opened "the Snitch," as the Headmaster's operational manual of Hogwarts security protocols was known. Symbolic of highest responsibility for Hogwarts Castle, it hovered by her, masked by a Concealment Charm, whenever Dumbledore's absence left her in overall charge.

There they were - a row of small glass jars full of various coloured vapours. She pulled out the one labeled Plan 2-B, number two, for the highest security level short of actual attack; and letter B, for staff assignments to be implemented when she, rather than Dumbledore, was in command.

With no time to spare for grief or anger, the Deputy Headmistress unscrewed the jar. A bit of the crimson mist began spilling over the edges. She thrust her wand into the jar and incanted, "Operandi." Immediately the entire contents of the jar flash boiled. The expanding cloud filled the room in an instant and from there billowed inexorably through the entire Castle, and ultimately, the grounds.

Professor McGonagall was responsible for the safety of everyone in the school. She had to act quickly, calmly, and decisively - without distracting emotions. Those could be given free reign later. For now, time was of the essence.

Within minutes, the security warding dictated by Plan 2-B would sever normal transportation and communication links between the Castle and the rest of the world. McGonagall immediately sent an emergency Patronus to Headmaster Dumbledore, informing him of the terrible developments and relaying the Minister's request for a meeting. Through Order channels she sent a second, shorter message to Mad-Eye Moody, Harry's guardian, informing him of what she knew about Harry's latest disappearance. Finally, she dispatched fast owls to two non-wizards entitled to know what had happened - to the goblin King Ragnok, care of Gringotts, and to Hermione's mother in Australia, with the grim news of her daughter's death.

Those steps taken, McGonagall sent up a shower of red signal sparks over the Castle to notify the goblin legions residing in and about the Forbidden Forest to deploy in battle formation in anticipation of a possible attack. From the Snitch's indicators she confirmed that, indeed, the wards had increased to maximum power. Then she listened as the Castle's internal Floo network blared with Plan 2-B's automatic call of all Hogwarts staff to general quarters:

ALL STAFF ASSUME BATTLE-READY POSITIONS IN ACCORDANCE WITH PLAN 2-B. A DEATH EATER ATTACK ON THE CASTLE IS FEARED, BUT NOT UNDERWAY. SECURE THE HOUSES. ARM THE N.E.W.T.-LEVEL STUDENTS, LOCK DOWN THE YOUNGER ONES, AND STAND GUARD. FURTHER INFORMATION WILL FOLLOW.

To ensure nobody would mistake the potential gravity of the situation, Professor McGonagall appended to the standard message:

THIS IS NO DRILL.

Those steps taken, McGonagall made her way to the Headmaster's office to take up her command - and to brood over what had just happened. Only at this point did she mentally reprimand the spirit of the deceased girl. `You were supposed to be the clever one, but you let your desires rule you,' she admonished. `Now your love for that lad has cost you your life. Why, oh why, do you think I let you keep that key?'

* * * *

The scene outside the Leaky Cauldron was chaotic. A code red alert, warning of the likelihood of aggressive Death Eater activity, had issued for all of magical London. Despite that - or perhaps because of it - a large crowd of witches and wizards massed just beyond the perimeter established by Department of Magical Law Enforcement personnel about the crime scene. Inside, a full squad of Aurors conducted their investigation.

Reporters for the Prophet and other magical publications had pushed their way to the front of the queue. They bombarded all who came or went with questions. Although none of the Ministry personnel dignified such inquiries with a response, the mere subjects of these unanswered inquiries were enough to spark wild rumours that quickly spread far and wide.

"Auror, was this really a Death Eater attack, or a murder-suicide?"

"Madame, is it true that Miss Granger was killed whilst in the act with Mister Potter?"

"Lieutenant, was Miss Granger executed by Death Eaters because of her O.W.L. marks?"

"Sir, is Potter really missing, or did the attack drive him violently insane?"

The Aurors were not far along in their investigation when their activities were interrupted by a deliberately over-loud Apparition "pop." In an instant, a dozen wands were trained on the newcomer, whose appearance had overridden an impressive array of Ministry anti-Apparition wards.

"Dumbledore!"

"Indeed," the Headmaster responded to the first Auror who acknowledged his presence. "Now, please explain to me exactly what happened here." His hardened blue eyes - not a trace of a twinkle - surveyed the discomforting scene. The investigation was in full swing, and matters had yet to be tidied up.

"Not so fast," the Auror in charge growled, his wand still firmly drawn. "Tell me something that only Albus Dumbledore would know."

"Very well," the Headmaster agreed evenly. "Your devotion to security is admirable. Thus, I find your appearance quite a bit more professional tonight than the last time we met - when you were wearing the Dursleys' letterbox on your head."

Dumbledore turned to another of the Aurors whose wand was also trained on him. "And you, Jason, had your fondness for polka dot boxers revealed during the same events in Surrey. Now, can we get down to business?"

"With all due respect, sir," reproached the Auror in charge of the investigation, "shouldn't you leave this extremely unfortunate matter in the hands of our experienced detectives?"

"Ordinarily I would be more than happy to do just that," Dumbledore replied in a dignified voice, "but I find the murder and disappearance of two of my highest profile students about as far from the ordinary as I can imagine."

"True enough," the Auror responded noncommittally. "Why don't you start, then, with the question of what they were doing here when they should have been at Hogwarts?"

"A troubling question, indeed, and I do intend to turn to it," the Headmaster concurred. "But that inquiry, if the reports are to be believed, all too likely concerns something in the nature of water under the bridge. I would rather start with some simple questions of my own."

"Oh, have it your way, then," the Auror conceded. The Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot plainly was not about to be denied, and would, if necessary, pull whatever rank required to stick his overly large nose into their investigation. "Ask away."

"First, how do you know it was them?" Dumbledore asked.

"Hard to miss, since they both signed the register," the Auror in charge replied.

"Really? May I have a look?" the Headmaster immediately followed-up.

"Certainly," the Auror agreed, gesturing towards the nearby counter where an old red leather-bound innkeeper's register lay open.

Dumbledore perused the book quickly. "Harry Potter" and "Hermione J. Granger" were the last signatures that appeared - they were hard to miss, being signed in ever-changing magical ink. He instantly recognised Harry's signature, identical in every way to the boy's execution of the highly publicised Goblin Treaty codicil. Hermione's less distinctive signature also appeared to be in order.

With all eyes on the Headmaster, everyone knew it was not a good sign when his face fell. Looking up again, he inquired, "You have confirmation of this? What does Tom have to say?"

"Tom doesn't remember anything," another Auror chimed in, answering the second question first. "Of course, that's to be expected since he was Memory Charmed. It appears distinctly in our Legilimency. Typical Deater M.O. to leave that sort of calling card. Obviously, they wiped away all memory of their victims' presence here. All Tom remembers is four unidentifiable wizards accompanied by a younger woman. In all likelihood, that group were all Deaters in disguise."

"Surely you must have more than this," Dumbledore persisted.

"Of course," the Auror in charge answered, his voice tensing in response to what sounded like implied criticism of his investigation. "As we reported, the boy is missing. We're quite certain because we found these upstairs."

From a robe pocket, the Auror produced a pair of spectacles that perfectly matched what Harry customarily wore. He handed them to Dumbledore.

The Headmaster perused this physical evidence with interest, tapping the lenses with the butt end of his wand. Both legs of the glasses looked bent - rather worse for wear.

"So there was a struggle, then," Dumbledore asked.

"Actually, no - we don't think so anyway," was the reply. "The room was not terribly disarranged. No overt signs of a struggle."

"No overt signs of a struggle?" Dumbledore echoed. "Does that seem strange to you? You are all familiar, I am sure, with what Mister Potter did to your Situation Room not very long ago?"

"That surprised us, too," another Auror admitted. "So we tested the grease lodged underneath the eyepieces. Our analysis was conclusive. Both the Muggle DNA and the magical signature matched up perfectly with Potter's records from his training with us. These are his, all right. No doubt about that."

Dumbledore sighed audibly. "And her?" he said softly.

"We have the corpse," the Auror in charge answered bluntly. "Physically, it's a perfect match. She looks just like her photo from the other day in the Prophet - except, of course, that picture moves whilst she does not - any longer, that is…. And, well…."

The commanding Auror's voice trailed away. There was a distinct look of anguish on his face.

"And?" Dumbledore persisted.

The Auror nodded his head in the direction of the stairs, giving the Headmaster a wordless sign to follow.

When they were both halfway up the stairs and out of earshot of the various ground floor hangers on, the Auror answered previous question. "We haven't released the details yet, but the body … well, it was - mutilated. Ritual murder, it appears…."

Dumbledore winced. His worst fears were coming to pass. "Was it … similar to the previous attacks on Mister Potter's acquaintances?"

"In part, yes," the Auror answered, "but in addition to the lightning bolt in the forehead, a numeric sequence, one-zero-four-six, was carved in her abdomen after death with a sharp instrument. As of now, we're not sure what this means…."

"I'm afraid I do," Dumbledore replied, shaking his head sadly. "Miss Granger's overall O.W.L. average - the one that exceeded Riddle-Voldemort's score - was 104.6."

Even the Auror commander flinched at that use of the taboo name. "I see," he commiserated. "Then I suppose it was - fortunate - that she was already deceased before being butchered in that fashion."

"Cause of death, then?" the Headmaster asked quickly. He dearly wished to conclude this line of inquiry as quickly as possible.

"Reductor Curse to the head," was the answer.

The Headmaster blanched again. "May she rest in peace," he intoned. "At least she did not suffer overly. Wait a minute…. I thought you said you made a visual identification."

"I did," said the Auror, climbing further up the stairs.

Dumbledore followed him.

"But a Reductor to the head," he pointed out. "That would not leave much to identify, would it?"

"In this case there was," the Auror commander replied with transparent discomfort. His voice quavered as he warned the Headmaster, "However, it's not as simple as that. I - I think you need to see the body. But … but you must steel yourself."

Room Eleven - the scene of the crime - had been magically sealed. The junior Auror guarding the door stiffened and rose at the approaching figure of the Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot.

"I really don't think you want to see this," the guard told the Headmaster.

"Undoubtedly you speak the truth," Dumbledore replied grimly. "But the nature of the responsibilities I bear requires that I do what I must, rather than what I please."

The Headmaster had barely entered the room when, staring blindly back at him, he saw the lifeless face of the girl he had often called "the most remarkable witch of her age." From her nude form, his eyes quickly passed to a distinctive crater on the far wall.

One glance at the circular spatter of blood, brain, and bits of bone surrounding the crater told Dumbledore all he thought he needed to know about the circumstances of Hermione's death. Only a Reductor Curse - administered at point-blank range - produced that sort of pattern. It meant that, behind her vacant expression, there was very little left.

He was facing another closed-casket funeral.

The Headmaster kneaded his forehead with his good hand as he turned away from the gory scene. He knew all too well what Death Eaters were capable of, and this was every bit as awful as he had feared.

Shaking his head at the gratuitous cruelty of it all, he took a deep breath. Then he half-heartedly asked the accompanying Auror, "So she died with a wand rammed down her throat?"

The commanding Auror audibly inhaled. "Er … actually not. Worse than that, we think. Our field talisman testing, it showed … something else…on the wall there. Another form of bodily…."

"No!" Dumbledore exclaimed. "You cannot mean…?"

The Auror's masklike face told Dumbledore the horrible truth without need for words - but eventually he answered the Headmaster's question.

"We believe it was wandless," he reported, willing his voice to remain professional. "This was rape, as well as murder. They've made a horrible example of her."

Reality was even more awful than Dumbledore had feared. "And there are no signs of resistance?" he asked again, truly puzzled.

"None, I'm afraid," was the response.

"Did you find either of their wands?" the Headmaster asked.

He received the same answer. "Negative. I suppose He Who Must Not Be Named was collecting souvenirs."

Dumbledore could hardly think straight as he slowly descended the stairs. His mind was racing to make sense of this senseless slaughter. Both of the victims could throw off an Imperius, and Harry had been taught - successfully, he was told - how to resist even the Cruciatus Curse.

Had the young man been forced to watch that gruesome execution?

He doubted it. The Headmaster knew Harry well enough to be certain of one thing: It was inconceivable that Harry would have stood by and let that be done to her. Rather, he would have violently resisted, to the point of his own death.

And probably - almost certainly - much more than that.

How was it that Diagon Alley, and indeed all of central London, still remained standing? Had Harry's Occlumency improved that much in such a short time? Had the Death Eaters somehow broken the boy's spirit before taking him to Voldemort? How could Harry have allowed Hermione of all people to be simultaneously sexually violated and murdered in such a fashion?

Knowing more about Harry's capabilities than the Aurors, Dumbledore could think of no acceptable explanation for what he had just seen.

Back on the ground floor, the Headmaster was almost as perplexed as he was angry - and he was incandescently angry. "Merlin! This just does not add up," he growled to himself as he prepared to leave for Hogwarts. "Even he was not this reckless - and she certainly was not. They had so many other alternatives. To come all this way, and then to advertise it like this…."

He slammed his one usable fist down on the innkeeper's register, from which his two students' garish final signatures practically leered at him.

"This is just not right," He declared loudly enough for everyone in the room to cast furtive glances in his direction. Under these circumstances, it would not do to gawk openly at Albus Dumbledore.

In frustration, as much as anything else, the Headmaster put his good hand over the two colour-changing signatures, as if he could not bear viewing them any longer. He cast a final wandless spell

"Reveal your secret," he commanded.

At first nothing happened. Then the magical ink began to writhe and curl about itself, changing shape before Dumbledore's only half-believing eyes.

"Over here!" the Headmaster called out as the transformation finished.

A half dozen Aurors converged on him as he forcefully gestured to the newly reconstituted signatures. Instead of his students' names, they now read:

"Bellatrix Lestrange"

"Antonin Dolohov"

"They did not sign this. Almost certainly they were never here at all," Dumbledore declared hotly. "It just did not add up. If they were trysting, neither would have advertised their presence like that," the old man lectured anyone within earshot, as the nature of the Death Eaters' ruse became clear to him. "Nor does she use her middle initial…. And let me check those spectacles again."

A simple scan with the Headmaster's wand revealed - ordinary optical glass.

"Gentlemen, these are Mister Potter's old glasses - not the pair he has worn since his return," the Headmaster announced. "I believe we have all been played for fools. And for once, I could not be more relieved, except for the unfortunate young lady upstairs, whoever she was."

* * * *

Harry and the rest of the Gryffindors were jolted out of bed in the wee hours of the morning by an alarm that sounded like a howler monkey subjected to the Cruciatus Curse.

"What the bloody Hell is that?" Harry moaned as he tumbled through the bed curtains into the dormitory.

"That's the new school alarm system," Neville sleepily answered, rubbing his eyes with his fists and looking for his trousers. "They told us Prefects about it on the train - but you weren't there. And it went off when … oh, well, you weren't here then either."

That was all so bloody enlightening.

Harry decided not to bother changing out of his pyjamas. He threw his robes over them and fumbled with their fastenings. "When was that?" he asked, only half listening.

Neville gulped, now fully awake and realising to what he had referred. "Er … The day the magic waves hit and … Hermione almost died."

Harry said nothing, but Neville could almost feel his friend's muscles tense.

"Oh, damn!" Neville added. "I bet you don't know, then - unless Dumbledore's told you. You've been chosen as Gryffindor security liaison. You're supposed to be telling us what to do in all this. Assuming it's real, that means you're in charge of all the House's Prefects."

"Oh, shite!" Harry reacted. So Dumbledore had acted upon his occasional gripes about never being made a Prefect. When push came to shove, the Headmaster had placed him in command of the Gryffindor Prefects in emergencies. He just wished that someone - Dumbledore or McGonagall - had thought to tell him before they were in the middle of just such a damn emergency.

That meant he had no time to naff about. Disregarding the rules and using magic, he dressed as quickly as he could. Harry then tore down the stairs, the alarm still screaming in his ears. Only a few of his housemates had beaten him to the common room, none of them girls.

Almost tripping over his robes in haste, Harry launched himself at the D.A. central station. He had barely finished the spell that activated it when Hermione came down the stairs. Like Harry had originally intended, she had simply thrown robes over her nightclothes. Unlike Harry, she had a bit more tidying to deal with - her flowing hair was loosely tied back by a bit of paisley print ribbon that must have been lying around.

"Harry! What's happening?" she asked the moment she saw him.

"Dunno," Harry grunted whilst frantically trying to reach somebody in either Ravenclaw or Hufflepuff. "All I know is it's some sort of emergency and all of a sudden I'm supposed to be in charge of everyone in Gryffindor. I have no idea what to do. I'm going to cock this up for sure."

Harry finally raised Hannah Abbot. She was every bit in the dark as everyone else - except she informed Harry that her House's security liaison, Zach Smith, was already discussing deployments with the Sixth and Seventh Years. After that, she could not talk any longer.

A few seconds later, the portal to the Common Room swung open and Kingsley Shacklebolt entered, yelling, "Listen up! Listen up Gryffindors! That alarm's telling us to be ready to defend against a possible Deater attack at any time. Nothing's actually hit us yet, though. I'm here because Professor McGonagall is in charge of the Castle with Dumbledore away…."

Shak perused a sheet of parchment in his left hand. "Now let's see…. Who's supposed to be in charge? Potter - should have guessed." The Defence professor's gaze flashed across the growing knot of Gryffindors until resting on Harry, who was still seated at the D.A. central station.

"Potter!" Shak barked. "What's your deployment scheme for the N.E.W.T. levels?"

"Er … I'm afraid I don't have one, sir," Harry responded in a rather small, cast-down voice. "I didn't know about this assignment until a few minutes ago."

"It was announced whilst he was being held by the Death Eaters," Hermione broke in, defending Harry. "And he wasn't told…."

"That's right," Neville added. "The Prefects were informed on the train, and I for one haven't heard any more about it."

Geoff Hooper, the Gryffindor Seventh-Year Prefect, concurred. "Nor I."

"Oh bollocks," Shak snorted upon hearing the news. "Well, we can't do anything about that now, can we? So we'll just have to invent something. My notes say that Gryffindor is responsible for the back wall of the Castle, from this tower over to and including the Astronomy Tower. Unfortunately, I'm new here, and I'm not that familiar with the layout of the Castle…."

Hermione piped up. "I know what to do…!"

"No surprise there," Romilda Vane snarked.

"…In the D.A. central station, there's a map," she continued, ignoring the interruption. "I loaded the floor plan from the …er … from a map I found."

"What's this `central station'?" Shak asked. He was both intrigued and worried - he was responsible for Gryffindor; his House had to make up a lot of lost ground and, it appeared, poor communication.

"Over here," Dennis Creevey called out, moving next to where the still seated Harry. "It's something like a Muggle computer, but assembled mostly from magical parts."

Shak followed. As Colin and Hermione scanned for the file containing the schematic of the Castle that Colin had extracted from the Marauders' Map, the Auror-turned-professor exclaimed, "Merlin's beard, this is - amazing."

Less than five minutes later the file had been located, and several pages of parchment were in the process of being duplicated. Shak had taken the first print out - a map of the Astronomy Tower - to one of the study tables and was marking it up with a quill when Professor McGonagall's magically amplified voice boomed through the Castle.

HERE IS AN UPDATE ON THE SITUATION. WE ARE IN A LEVEL 2 LOCKDOWN. WE FEAR POSSIBLE ATTACK AT ANY TIME BECAUSE OF A SERIOUS DEATH EATER STRIKE THAT TOOK PLACE EARLIER THIS EVENING IN DIAGON ALLEY. THE AUROR CORPS HAS INFORMED ME THAT TWO OF OUR STUDENTS WERE THE TARGETS OF THAT ATTACK. IT IS MY DISTRESSING OBLIGATION TO INFORM YOU THAT MISS HERMIONE GRANGER HAS BEEN REPORTED KILLED IN THAT ATTACK, AND MISTER HARRY POTTER IS ONCE AGAIN REPORTED AS MISSING….

As Professor McGonagall's announcement progressed, all colour left Hermione's face. "As you can see, rumours of my death are…."

Upon hearing the supposed casualty list, Harry simultaneously exclaimed, "What the Hell? Nobody's…."

Neither had a chance to finish their sentences.

Almost instantaneously Shak had his wand drawn. Touching it with his ring, he silently incanted, `Petrificus Totalus.' Two jets of magic emerged from his wand at the same time, striking Harry and Hermione both. Those two toppled over without another sound.

Pandemonium erupted in Gryffindor Tower. "Bloody Hell!" Ron roared upon seeing Shak attack his friends. "Stupefy!"

Ginny was also quick on the draw, firing one of her Bat Bogey hexes at the man. Others followed their lead.

Shak, however, had not been an Auror captain for nothing. Both spells bounced off the Shield Charm he routinely used for protection. Ron's spell ricocheted into one of the portraits that adorned the walls of the Common Room, and Burdock Muldoon, a former Gryffindor Head Boy who became Chief of the Wizards' Council in the Fifteenth Century, keeled over in his frame. Ginny's curse bounced into the crowd and felled an unfortunate First Year, Mark Evans. More deflected curses brought shouts and shrieks as students frantically ducked out of the way.

"Silencio!" Shak's magically fortified voice roared, drowning out not only the noise from the students, but also the end of Professor McGonagall's announcement.

"I had no choice but to use a Full Body Bind because, given the announcement, they're probably Death Eaters in disguise," he explained himself. "I fervently hope not, but there's no telling what they might have done with their covers blown. Everyone stay where you are, and I'll get to the bottom of this."

Shak said all this as he made his way to where Harry and Hermione lay motionless on the common room floor. Most of the onlooking Gryffindors had their wands drawn. Some of those wands pointed at Shak, others at Harry and Hermione.

"Muffliato," Shak incanted, not bothering with silent magic.

Addressing Harry first he said, "Laddie, if you're Harry Potter, then you'll understand that I bound you because, under the circumstances, you might be a Death Eater substituted for the real Harry. On the count of three, I'm going to release your head only from the Bind. You should be ready to tell me something about myself that only the real Harry Potter would know."

Shak made a corkscrewing motion with his wand, and Harry felt his jaw free up. The first words out of his mouth were, "Shak, you did the right thing. Early in the summer, whilst Hermione was in Hong Kong, you came by to visit me in Little Whinging. My relatives were rude to you, and I got angry and used magic on my Uncle. You Obliviated him. Unless you've told someone, I don't think anyone else knows about that."

Shak sighed and relaxed as a huge wave of relief washed over him. It was likely that the whole bleeding alert was a mistake.

He ended the Muffling Charm. Another twist of his wand and Harry was freed from the Full Body Bind as well. Shak leaned over, extended a hand, and pulled the boy to his feet - and into an energetic bear hug.

In the background, Harry heard cheers and spontaneous applause from his housemates.

"Thank Merlin it's you!" Shak exclaimed in a voice shaking with emotion. "I don't know what we would've done if that announcement were true! Now, you can do Granger. I'll leave the two of you alone if you'd rather."

"Me?" Harry wondered aloud.

"I'm not sure I know anything sufficiently private to ask her, actually, and I'm sure you do. And since it's … well … of a private nature, the incantation for the spell I just cast is Muffliato, and the wand movement is like this." As Shak demonstrated, he told Harry. "It's an Order, not an Auror spell, and it puts a buzz in everyone's ears so you can talk without being overheard."

"Okay," Harry replied. He cast the Muffling Charm aloud, and gave Shak an affirmative hand signal. Shak then repeated the process of releasing Hermione's head from the immobilisation.

"Tell me something about myself that nobody else knows," Harry asked her.

She smiled at him. "That's easy. You're my fiancé."

Even though Harry never had any serious doubt that Hermione was actually with him in Gryffindor Tower - and not lying dead somewhere in Diagon Alley - hearing her speak those confirmatory words brought greater solace than he could put into words. That tiny, horrific shred of doubt fled from his mind. A broad, unfocussed grin creased his face.

"Harry," she said. "I still can't move."

He grimaced. "Oh, sorry about that," he apologised whilst giving Shak two thumbs up.

The Defence professor ended the Bind, and Harry immediately helped Hermione to her feet - and past that as he gathered her firmly into his arms. His emotion getting the better of him, Harry gave her a kiss that would have cost the House another ten points had Professor McGonagall been present.

That almost happened.

Before the two now-accounted-for students had even finished their embrace, Shak fired off an urgent Patronus to the Deputy Headmistress.

Harry and Hermione were still accepting the good wishes of their housemates when the common room fireplace blazed green and out hurried Professor McGonagall. Even though the pair's affections remained quite demonstrative, she was in no mood to dock points.

To the contrary, upon seeing them safe and sound, she burst out, "Thank Merlin, there's still some justice in this world!" She stepped up to Hermione, and paused as if unsure of herself. Then Professor McGonagall said, "oh, bother," and gave Hermione a big hug of her own in front of the astonished House. "I thought you were dead," she declared with more emotion than she had probably ever shown in the presence of a student.

Breaking the embrace and regaining some of her stoic composure, Professor McGonagall declared. "Now I must regrettably be off. I have to inform the Headmaster and the Ministry, and call off this alert before the Death Eaters learn even more about our planning - and then deal with the inevitable fallout."

"Before you do, Minerva," Shak intervened, "have you seen this?" He gestured in the direction of the D.A. central station.

"I'm aware of it. I approved its installation," she responded distractedly. All she really wanted was to end the craziness that had so disturbed this night.

"Well, do you know what the students are able to do with it?" Shak continued. "There's a floor plan for the entire Castle in here, amongst other things. They can communicate between Houses. They can access the Muggle Internet."

"So why are you telling me this?" Professor McGonagall answered impatiently.

"I think we should get one - maybe more - for the Order," Shak declared.

"Fine. Take it up with Albus the next time you see him," she waved him off. "I really must be going."

Soon after Professor McGonagall departed, the all clear sounded throughout the Castle. Shak, who watched raptly as the Creeveys put the central station through all of its paces, took his own leave. Although most of the Gryffindors drifted off to bed even before the all clear, Harry and Hermione still sat on a House sofa near the fire clinging to one another. Even the thought of Hermione's death at the hands of Death Eaters made Harry needy and on edge. All he wanted was his fiancée's presence close to him.

Before they headed off to bed, the Creeveys anxiously approached the couple. "Er … Harry? We need to talk to you."

"Whatever it is, the answer's yes," Harry told them. "You saved my arse with that machine."

"Umm … it's about money…."

"The answer's still yes," Harry reiterated. "Just tell me what you need."

"You heard Professor Shacklebolt," Dennis began to explain. "Well, he's not the only one. We can't make enough of these fast enough, even using the Room of Requirement for assembly. The one we just delivered to Ravenclaw took almost a week. We were hoping you would … er … stake us, and that your lawyer friend would help us incorporate. We've some other ideas too … Hermione knows about them…."

"It's true, Harry," Hermione told him. "They've received quite a few orders for their central stations - more than they can possibly fill by themselves. They were using an abandoned classroom that they'd found, so I showed them how to use the Room. But there's only the two of them."

Harry nodded. He summoned one of Blackie Howe's cards from upstairs and gave it to Colin. "Here. Talk to him first. Whatever you need, he can get, but he can also help you figure out what you'll need. I don't officially own any of the money until this weekend, anyway, so get yourselves organised and let's talk about things after that."

* * * *

The rest of the week passed comparatively uneventfully, save the lurid, half-speculative stories in the Prophet about the Death Eaters' idea of a prank, the outlines of which, of course, were quite public. Hermione wrote a long, emotional letter to her mother, emphathising over how she must have felt during that hour-long interval between Professor McGonagall's initial and then corrective owl posts.

Harry and Hermione had a tension-filled meeting after classes on Wednesday with Professors McGonagall and Shacklebolt to discuss security changes. The Ministry, the Order, and Hogwarts were all making modifications, since their responses to the contrived emergency had undoubtedly provided the Dark forces with a preview of their crisis planning.

At that meeting, they also learnt the particulars of the hoax directed at Hermione. The gory details served as something of a test of Harry's Occlumency powers. He passed that test largely because Hermione held his hand (and at one point practically sat in his lap) in front of the professors. The attack was a vivid reminder - if one were needed - of Hermione's likely fate should she ever actually fall into Death Eater hands.

Harry's overlooked role as Gryffindor security liaison was also addressed. Everyone found it worrisome that such a matter could have fallen through the cracks, particularly since Harry was the only one of the four House liaisons not both a Seventh Year and a Prefect.

The weekly Gryffindor Quidditch practice was marred by a row that ultimately involved almost the whole team. An errant Bludger crashed into the Gryffindor bench. That was hardly unusual, but this strike happened to wipe out the team's entire supply of liquid refreshment. Cormac McLaggen was waiting for a go in goal, not doing much whilst Ron trained with the first string. Katie Bell therefore directed him to get more drink from the Castle. McLaggen bridled at being "drafted as a house-elf" and rather rudely suggested to the Captain that Jazzy do it because she was the "least senior member of the team."

Jazzy, however, was a hundred metres in the air as Harry trained her in the finer points of Seeking. Words were passed. The words became insults, which begat a full-scale shouting match.

McLaggen ended up getting the drinks after Katie threatened to kick him off the team.

The long-term solution, however, involved the usual team stalwarts. Harry accepted an assignment to arrange a constant supply of snacks during practice under the auspices of his favorite house-elf. Ron and Ginny agreed to assume similar responsibility for the team's water supply. They could get virtually indestructible containers from the Burrow - casks that had withstood even Fred and George's worst.

Friday's Potions class brought the entirely expected announcement from Professor Slughorn that Ron's brewing had passed with flying colours, thus winning him the Felix Felicis Potion. Unfortunately, the redhead chose to be a bit of a blowhard about it, lording his success over Harry and especially over Hermione. His superior airs particularly wound her up - since she considered (as Ron well knew) use of the Half-Blood Prince to be nothing less than academic misconduct.

Harry did not view Ron's actions as negatively as did Hermione - mostly because he could hardly care less. Harry's lack of interest in Hermione's latest bickering with Ron meant that she did not receive the moral support she expected from her significant other. She let Harry know about that as soon as Ron was out of earshot.

As a result, all three were rather put out with one another when they arrived at the Room of Requirement for the evening's meeting of the D.A.

Hermione instantly reassumed her role of organiser. She had an announcement to make.

"Everyone, please listen. I doubt any of you has failed to notice the problems we've had recently. There are just too many of us - not enough room to swing a cat. There are evidently limits to the magical capacity of even the Room of Requirement. In order to train effectively, and especially to duel, we simply need more square metres per person. Thus, we've no alternative to splitting the D.A. into two sections…."

She halted as a number of D.A. members groaned. Others, however, nodded in agreement.

"To minimise everyone else's inconvenience, we've decided put the other class on Tuesdays, since Wednesday is Gryffindor's day on the Pitch. That way, Harry and Ron can continue to lead the Friday sessions. I'll handle the Tuesday session, along with Neville. I've put revised sign-up sheets on the table by the door so everyone can choose. Like I said, this is purely due to space problems. I encourage all of you to split yourselves evenly. If not, I'll have to split you myself, and I'd much rather let you choose…."

"Umm … no disrespect intended, but I'd really prefer to train with Harry," Zach Smith commented. "After all, the Prophet reported that he scored the highest Defence marks on the O.W.L.s."

"Looks like I'm stuck with you, since there's a conflict with my study group," Hannah Abbott addressed Hermione. "At least I can watch our House team train."

Similar comments followed, most of them vaguely derogatory of Hermione's relative skill in Defence, dismissive of her teaching ability, or both. Soon she was visibly fuming. Hermione was not accustomed to having her competence disparaged in any Hogwarts subject - and certainly not by members of a group she had co-founded.

Like an open book, Harry read the emotions in her face. `You're upset, Hermione,' he Legilimenced. `What do you want to do about this?'

`They're not going to switch to my session,' she return-Legilimenced him. `I'll have to divide them myself, and everyone I'm teaching will wish they had you instead of me.'

`Well, you just need to convince them that you're every bit as good as I am in Defence,' he replied.

`Like that will ever happen,' Hermione ruefully admitted. `You are better, Harry. You have to be. But I'm pretty damn good myself. I think I need to prove myself. We need to duel, Harry. I have to show everyone I can hold my own.'

"Duel?" Harry gulped as he said this out loud. Switching back to Legilimency, he continued, `I don't want to fight you, Hermione - anything but.'

`I don't relish duelling you either, especially because I don't like losing, but I think that's the only way to convince them - if anything will,' Hermione replied. `You know I'm right about this.'

Harry silently nodded his agreement. Hermione, after all, was usually right.

In a loud voice that everyone in the Room could hear, Hermione declared, "I challenge you to a duel, Harry. Just like with the Aurors over the summer. No set length or format. Last person standing wins. All in save Unforgivables and Lesson 128." Silently she added, `and no you-know-whatting either, if you know what's good for you.'

Harry was startled. He had agreed, of course, but had not thought through the ramifications of what his nod might mean. Having been publicly challenged, however, he had no choice but to accept. "All right, Hermione," he declared. "Everyone else out of the way! Stand over there against the wall and stay out of the line of fire."

He turned to face Hermione, calling out, "En garde!"

"Oww!" Before Harry had even finished, Hermione launched a Hornetentious Hex at him. Enough stinging insects slipped in before Harry converted to a Protego Charm effective against physical objects that Hermione was able to cast a second unanswered spell whilst he was distracted.

Several bystanding D.A. members broke out in laughter. "Mate," Ron told him. "There's a big sign stuck to your arse that says `kick me.'"

Harry reached around and yanked off the piece of parchment. Its bright red lettering began to swirl and before he knew it, a pair of lips formed.

"Bffffft!" The lips rewarded Harry with a loud raspberry.

"Two, love, to me," he heard her call out.

That second spell was not at all what Harry expected. Before he could retaliate with any hex of his own, Hermione had conjured a dense fog and vanished. All he heard through the fog was her voice ringing out with yet more magic, "Vox deflectus!"

He could no longer tell from what direction she was speaking.

A quite wadded ball of parchment fell from Harry's hand. "All right, Hermione, have it your way, then. I'm coming after you," Harry growled into the fog.

Her disembodied voice replied, "It's about time."

Harry silently heated up the nearby atmosphere to burn off the fog. Before that spell had done its work, he heard Hermione again, her voice everywhere and nowhere at the same time. She addressed the Room of Requirement itself. "I want the Alhambra," she shouted.

All of a sudden Harry found himself in a completely unfamiliar place - a large room, with polished deep red marble floors, filled with a maze of identical circular white marble pillars topped by red and white striped archways. These were set rank upon rank and row upon row, as far as he could see. The seeing was not the best, as the only light came from flickering bronze oil lamps suspended from the almost seven-metre-high ceiling.

"All right, Hermione," he called out to wherever she was. "You can choose the playing field. But I want you to know - no more mister nice guy. I'm going to come after you wherever you are."

"You'd better," her oddly ethereal voice responded, "I meant what I said about anything goes. You'd better try to beat me, or mark my words, I'll beat you."

Harry thought he saw a mirror appear - one of Hermione's favorite tricks. Changing his shield to deflect magic, he waited and heard her call out, "Expelliarmus." At once he saw the flash of light out of the corner of his eye. The angry red spell ricocheted off the conjured mirror and right at Harry.

There was no surprise at all. For some reason, she was not bothering with silent magic and saying all her spells aloud. So she tipped her hand.

The forewarning allowed Harry to revise his Protego shield so that it easily stopped Hermione's spell.

Just as he did so, she said something else that was lost in the crash of her magic against his shield.

Harry dropped the Protego and returned fire with a silently cast Blasting Curse that he bounced off the mirror. He also drew his backup wand and sent a Sneezing Hex at the spot he had seen the original flash of light originate. Harry had no illusion that Hermione had stayed in one place and would be found by either of these spells, but he was tired of playing defence. The Blasting Curse in particular made a satisfying explosion when it hit one of the pillars. Harry distinctly heard its pieces crash to the ground.

Then, from an entirely different direction, Harry was set upon by a flock of ravens. "Protego physica!" He restored his protection against physical objects, and then expanded the shield to force the ravens away. Once they were gone, he ducked out of the way, and took his shield off. Using Protego to block physical objects had an unfortunate side effect of impeding outgoing magic. Once free of that, Harry had no trouble Vanishing the annoying birds.

As their squawks ceased, Harry could distinctly hear Hermione laughing at him.

He decided to use stealth. It was frustrating being put on the defensive by her absurdly simple spells - especially when she was not bothering to conceal anything with silent magic. He circled his wand overhead and extinguished all of the oil lamps at once. Everything was plunged into darkness. As his eyes adjusted, the distant outlines of moonlit windows at the edges of the space came into view.

Now, how to track down Hermione? Following her voice was not an option. Harry considered using an Audibilising Charm that would amplify her heartbeat, but realised that he had an audience. All the onlooking D.A. members' heartbeats would be similarly affected, overwhelming any signal he would receive from her.

He sent a Tracking Charm after her instead. Almost as soon as he did so, however, he was rocked by a Punching Hex that Hermione returned along the magical pathway created by his own charm. He winced - and not merely from the blow. He had invented this technique himself during their summer training, as an innovative way of thwarting Tracking Charms. Hermione had just given him a dose of his own medicine.

Then he had an idea. Resorting to elemental magic, Harry silently cast an Aquas Charm. Instantly the floor of the entire room was covered with a couple centimetres of water. Keeping his ears peeled, he soon heard his quarry go splish-splashing along through the water. He charged after her, his wand drawn and ready.

Finally he got a look at her. He fired off a Stunner, but she had ducked behind one of the ubiquitous pillars. She changed directions, and returned fire with a spell that sent bolts of very bright light all around. It seemed to have no other purpose but to blind him - which it did.

He heard her splashing and took off after her again. Through the noise of his own splashing, he heard her utter "Frigidio!" Harry quickly reconjured his original shield charm, but Hermione appeared to have missed badly.

After a couple more bounding steps, however, Harry felt his feet hit a patch of wet ice. "Yaaah!" Harry screeched as he flipped arse over elbow. He tumbled off the edge of the slab of ice and fell face first into the shallow puddle covering the rest of the floor, thoroughly soaking himself.

She fired another Disarming Charm at him, which he barely blocked.

As he shook the water out of his face, he heard Hermione scurrying nearby. Harry called out Lumos, and spotted her not ten metres away. She shouted "Immobilus!" but he met her spell with a Babbling Curse of his own. Since for some reason she was avoiding silent magic, he was able to parry his spell directly against hers.

The two opposing spells, one yellow and the other blue, collided in a green flash and careened off one another at crazy angles. Harry's slammed into the roof, disintegrating a piece of the intricately carved stone ceiling. Hermione's chipped some stone off one of the pillars.

Either not noticing or not caring that he was tracking her splashes, Hermione ran off again. Harry fired a couple of Stunners but each time she ducked behind a pillar at the last second. Feeling stymied, Harry let loose with a brilliant blue Reductor Curse that tore one of the offending pillars apart - chunks of stone flew in every direction.

Harry's hopes rose as he heard Hermione recite the Transfiguration spells that converted several of the stone fragments into stout wooden logs, which she stacked into a redoubt. At long last, it appeared that she was going to stand her ground.

If she did that, he was confident he would win.

"So, you're finally going to stand and fight," he called out to her. He noticed he was panting from all the exertion.

"That's for me to know, and you to find out - chump!" she replied in a mocking tone of voice.

Hermione appeared to be following the same strategy she had beaten him in one of their summer Auror training duels. Gingerly, Harry tried to flank her, all the while watching for that spell cutting manœuvre she had employed so effectively on that prior occasion. He was startled when the spell that left her mouth was not even a combat spell.

"Alkalicious!" she incanted loudly. A flash of bright yellow light illuminated the room and Harry could hear a soft hiss as tiny bits of white powder fell into the shallow water all around him.

"What are you playing at?" he screamed out, as he heard her go splashing off again. She had abandoned her log fort before Harry could get a clean shot at her.

In a fit of pique, he blew it to smithereens.

If Harry had not known better, he would have thought Hermione had gone daft. She had not even bothered to defend her fortification. Instead, she had cast a survival spell - one that conjured salt.

Who cares about salt?

When Hermione ignored his annoyed question, Harry decided he needed a little help to track the fugitive girl down. Using his knowledge of magical syntax, he extrapolated from one of the "interesting enchantments" he learnt over the summer. With a wave of his wand, he Transfigured two of the larger remnants of her abandoned log fortress into a pair of animated wooden wolves. He commanded them to capture her, hold her, but not hurt her.

With loud howls, his latest creations bounded off in search of their quarry.

The howls, however, concealed Hermione's latest feint. The moment she heard the first howl, she conjured a Muggle rubber raft under her feet. That done, she pointed her wand in Harry's direction and uttered, "Electrify!"

A strong charge of electricity surged at the speed of light through the now salty water. Harry's body jerked wildly as he received a short, sharp shock. To avoid the possibility of another, he performed Mobilicorpus on himself and levitated his own body out of the water.

That spell not only avoided his being zapped again - just in the nick of time - it also gave Harry a better perspective. He located his furtive fiancée by following the bluish-white glow of her Electrification Hex back to its source.

Line of sight, however, runs in two directions. She had noticed him even before he spotted her. In the brief moment he saw her, she had her wand pointed at him.

"Inverso!"

Instantly - just like Professor Snape in the greasy git's Pensieve the previous year - Harry was upside down and struggling to keep from revealing his shorts to a large audience of D.A. members.

His embarrassment only lasted a few seconds. He heard Hermione squeal as his two wooden wolves set upon her. He had done something right.

Or not. To deal with the wolves, Hermione had to end her Inversion Curse hastily, which dumped Harry unceremoniously into the no longer electrified water. Between the wolves' howls and his splash, Harry did not follow very much of Hermione's defence against his wooden creations. At one point he heard her cast what sounded like a Knot Tying Charm - and something else as well, a Sticking Charm of some sort.

He shook his head … but then heard more splashing. Daft or not, his fiancée had somehow escaped from the pair of wolves - at least temporarily.

He sprinted around a pillar and, "oof!" found himself knocked half-silly and on the floor again. Looking up he saw a still vibrating barrier of mosquito netting that Hermione had strung across the passage at just the right height to catch him in the face.

"Expelliarmus," Hermione fired a hex at him. By taking abrupt evasive measures, Harry just managed to avoid being disarmed, but he crashed his knee into the pillar in the process.

As he rubbed his throbbing knee, Harry was now really getting agitated. This supposed duel - it was like trying to hex smoke. He felt like he was fighting shadows - shine a light on them, and they retreat - but the moment the light goes off, the shadows come back.

He wanted to end this once and for all. All these spells he was casting - and all his running and evasive movements - were tiring. He knew the direction in which she (pursued by the wooden wolves) had fled.

Harry was pretty positive that, after what she had been through, Hermione was probably not very fond of fire - especially fire of the inextinguishable variety. He was uncomfortable that things had come to this, but she had been quite explicit that this was an "anything goes" duel.

Carefully, he set himself, trained his wand and incanted, very calmly and deliberately.

"Hellas Infernum."

Although far less violent than his prior use of the same curse, a stream of Greek Fire, burning robustly, emerged from Harry's wand and alighted on the surface of the shallow water. Resorting again to elemental magic, Harry generated a stiff wind that fanned the flames and sent the carpet of fire flowing in Hermione's direction. The semi-liquid substance rapidly spread out, and soon Hermione was being pursued, not only by wooden wolves, but by an expanding sheet of fire.

Then he waited for her to give up and ask him to rescue her.

It was impossible for her not to see the approaching conflagration. She tried to avoid it, but he kept manœuvring it after her. Whilst it had been simple enough to disguise her voice, an Echoing Charm that could do the same for physical sounds was much more complicated - N.E.W.T. Level or a little above.

That was more potent magic than she was willing to use in this duel.

She had managed to dispose of Harry's wolves neatly enough, but dealing with fire would be incomparably harder.

She was being relentlessly backed into a corner. She could not go through the flames, nor did it seem around them. There was only one way to go - up. Realising that Harry undoubtedly could neither see nor hear her through the flames, Hermione magicked all of the oil and other material out of one of the now entirely superfluous overhead lamps. She avoided Harry's fire by Levitating herself into the large bowl where the lamp had been.

Her weight caused her new perch to swing precariously. Casting an Immobilising Curse on the lamp, she hoped she could ride Harry's spell out - and maybe lie in wait to use some surprise spell that might just end the duel in her favour.

It was not one of her better ideas.

In effect, she treed herself. It did not take long before Hermione knew that her position was rapidly becoming untenable. She had overlooked something very simple and very basic.

Heat rises.

In short order she concluded that she could not possibly stay in this location with the intense flames now moving below her. The heat and smoke rising from the fire were rapidly making the ceiling area uninhabitable. It was getting extremely hard to breathe.

On the plus side, she suspected that Harry had no idea where she was.

She devised a new plan.

That plan began with a Bubblehead Charm Hermione performed on herself. Inside of the charm she added plenty of oxygen. Trusting that Harry could neither see nor hear her through the fire, she improvised. The Fluvius Charm was the simplest way to create liquid - but she was not interested in creating anything as ordinary as more water. Instead, she used principles of spell syntax to create a spell that probably had never been cast before.

If this failed, then she probably had no choice but to give up the duel - she did not want to do that.

The advancing fire was now well beyond her. Pointing her wand at the water that lay beyond the edge of the fire, she shouted "Fluvius Azote!" A torrent of frigid liquid nitrogen shot from her wand and spilled onto the puddled water, instantly freezing it and spreading out over the flat surface of the ice. She carried on until liquid nitrogen pooled on the ice for at least a half-dozen metres around.

Using a Switching Spell, she substituted the thin sheet of liquid nitrogen for the thin puddle of water that underlay Harry's onslaught of Greek Fire.

The effect of the liquid nitrogen was practically instantaneous. Not only was it extremely cold - some negative 200° centigrade - but it was essentially incombustible. The liquid flashed into gaseous nitrogen. Its evaporation drew heat away from the Greek Fire at the same time that the gas itself deprived the fire of oxygen. In the blink of an eye, the fire underneath her went out.

Hermione's spell worked even faster than she had hoped - almost too fast. She still had to escape from Harry, who shot a Disarming Charm at her. It just missed as she conjured a Muggle steel-cable death slide with apparatus, and glided safely over what was left of the flames.

Immediately upon her feet again touching terra firma, Hermione vanished what little liquid nitrogen remained. "Sinous Aquae!" She conjured a wave that sent the remaining flames back at Harry.

Being on the opposite side of the conflagration meant that Harry again could not follow what Hermione was doing. He soon found out when he saw his own Greek Fire come washing back at him.

Cursing her ingenuity, he employed the same Fire-fighting charms he had seen the Aurors use at the Ministry to extinguish the same kind of fire. For good measure, he evaporated the water he had created. Hermione had to be somewhere in the back corner of the room; that was for certain.

Although he tried to be stealthy in his movements, that proved exceedingly difficult, as the salt residue from Hermione's prior spell crunched under his feet. He heard an unusual noise and advanced upon it.

"Shite!" he exclaimed as he got close enough to make out the source of the sound in the again almost pitch-black room.

Beneath one of the innumerable archways, and hopelessly entangled about one of the innumerable pillars, were his two wooden wolves, growling helplessly. A stout cord of rope magically tied their tails together, and the wolves had wound themselves around and around the pillar until they could barely move. Nor could they even howl anymore. Hermione had seen to that. Their mouths were full of splinters. She had forced chunks of a shattered pillar so far down each beast's mouth that neither could possibly remove it.

Hermione was lurking behind a nearby pillar.

"Psoriasea!"

She cast an Itching Jinx on Harry whilst his back was turned. The spell bounced off Harry's shield as he whirled around.

She was toying with him!

Growling, he started after her again, but she cast another spell over her shoulder.

Harry ran headlong into a small twinkling cloud of golden mist her last spell had left behind. Suddenly, it was the Third Triwizard Task all over again. He felt the disorienting reversal of above and below. Harry of course knew what to do, and he quickly did it - but in the interim Hermione had snuck off yet again.

It was like trying to duel a wraith. She just would not let him get a good, straight shot at her. He was fortunate there was no time limit. As his Cousin Dudley would say, she was undoubtedly ahead on points.

Harry heard the crunch of Hermione's salt under foot. That gave him another idea. Transfiguring the salt residue to sand, Harry then tried again to end the duel through the overwhelming application of his powerful elemental magic. He sent a howling sandstorm in her direction

He very nearly succeeded. She was immediately pummeled by a one-hundred-plus-kilometre-per-hour wind that was also choked with sand. The driven sand raised welts on her skin and forced her to keep her eyes tightly shut. To avoid being blown into the open where she would come within range of Harry's powerful magic, Hermione had to conjure another rope, tie it around one of the pillars and simply hold on against the buffeting for dear life.

He might not have caught her with any of his spells, but for all intents and purposes Harry had managed to create an environment that made it almost impossible for her to continue the duel.

The only problem with that strategy was Hermione's ability to change the environment.

"I want the Forbidden Forest," she yelled through the cloth wrapped around her mouth to keep sand out. The Room of Requirement responded, and the Alhambra (or what was left of it) shimmered and fell away.

Replacing it was a shadowy outdoor scene of huge trees dimly lit by a full moon. With this change of scenery, the violent sandstorm spawned by Harry's elemental magic vanished. The air became still, damp, and cool - a late September night in northern Scotland.

Instantly as the scene set, Hermione ducked behind one of the huge, mossy trees - its leaves already half gone with the advance of autumn.

Harry's immediate reaction to the change of scenery was to obtain better illumination. His wand erupted with a blazing white firework that stayed suspended in mid air. With sufficient light, he intended to locate Hermione and press the duel.

If anything, Harry's spell backfired. Long before he was able to spot Hermione, the shadows his magical flare cast told her about where he must be. Once certain she would not run headlong into him, she hastened down a path deeper into the forest.

Harry heard a rustle as she ran through some underbrush and followed at a trot. Neither had gone far when he called, "Dammit, Hermione, stop! It's not safe. Don't you know where you're going?"

"Don't tell me how to conduct my side of our duel," she retorted over her shoulder. Far from halting, she picked up the pace.

Practically shaking with ire, Harry fired two strong Severing Charms and two large trees fell across the path, one in front of and one behind Hermione. He had used the same sequence when he thought he was fighting Death Eaters at Kew.

"Duel or no duel, you don't want to meet Aragog and his family," Harry lectured. "Their signs are all around. Look at the silk in the bushes."

"As if trying to drop trees on me was safe," Hermione shouted back sarcastically whilst remaining hidden. Still, it did her good to rest a bit. She had a cramp coming on.

Harry noted that, with the change of scenery to the Forbidden Forest, the spell that disguised her voice had dissipated. Now he could tell the direction of her voice. He suspected that she did not know that had happened, since things sounded no different to her.

But Harry could see was her wandtip glowing - and he braced himself. Once again he was nonplussed by her choice of spells.

"Hymenoepimecis maximus!"

A dozen giant wasps emerged from her wand. With a second wave of her wand, she set them flying in Harry's direction.

"Shite!" Harry exclaimed as the outsized insects bore down on him. He blew one out of the sky with a Blasting Curse. With that, the others seemed to veer away. They circled once and then buzzed off in the general direction from whence they came, vanishing in the gloom.

"Stupefy!" From behind the fallen tree, Hermione fired another Stunner at him, followed almost immediately by Expelliarmus. Both hexes bounced harmlessly off his shield, but the barrage reminded him forcefully that she was continuing the duel.

Harry dearly wanted to end it. He was more than a little chagrined at how long things had gone on, to say nothing of being tired of fighting his fiancée. He would much rather be snogging - or even revising together.

He concentrated. With a sharp upward wand stroke and the incantation Ultrasonicus, Harry unleashed a magical sonic boom. It was more than just a loud noise. As his spell expanded in all directions, it drastically increased atmospheric pressure.

Harry winced as he heard her squeal in pain. Her ears must have been in great agony from the pressure wave for her to betray her position.

Then he unleashed the second phase of the combination he hoped would finally conclude the duel. He was conjuring with earth elemental magic….

On the other side of the massive tree trunk, Hermione still writhed in the dirt, although the pain in her ears had mercifully started to recede. For the first time since the duel had begun, she was afraid that no matter what she might do, she would lose to him in the end. Still, she thought that she had held out long enough that, even in defeat, at least some of the onlooking D.A. members would view her as a worthy instructor.

Her chief hope now was for her wasps to come through. She had hoped to be much closer before performing the spell that conjured them, but Harry had stopped her. Otherwise, very few options remained open.

Suddenly those options decreased again.

Hermione had just staggered to her feet when she felt an odd sensation around them. Looking down it seemed the very earth was moving. By the time her mind deciphered what her eyes were seeing, she could no longer move.

"Devil's Snare," she gasped. If she failed to act quickly, it would bind her tight. Then, Harry would not only beat her in the duel, but would also have to come to her rescue.

Hermione wanted at least to avoid that ignominy. She cast two quick spells. The first conjured a jar of the same bluebell flames she had used to defeat this menace way back in First Year. The second spell conjured a large block of granite. She jumped atop it as soon as the flames caused the Snare to shrink back and free her legs.

That magic removed the immediate danger, but still she was quite stuck. Whilst protecting her from the Snare, the flames were a beacon proclaiming her location to Harry. Certain that he was even now stalking her, she tried squinting over the tree trunk to see where he might be.

"Ooh!" she squeaked, as she felt something brush against her legs from behind. She threw her hands up in surrender, certain that Harry had finally caught her.

Whatever it was nuzzled against her bare ankles again. It certainly did not feel like one of Harry's nuzzles.

Hermione whirled around and beheld - "Minnie!" She whispered excitedly as she came face to face with the unicorn foal she had befriended weeks earlier. "Look out! The Snare!" she warned - as if the animal could understand anything she was saying.

The juvenile unicorn did not respond. Instead of acting frightened, Minnie lazily lowered her head, and took a large nibble of the delicious greenery that, less than a minute before, had been threatening to engulf Hermione.

Devil's Snare was not only defenceless against grazing unicorns - it was delicious. The once aggressive plant shrank away as fast and as far as it could.

Thinking quickly, Hermione uttered a gentle Sticking Charm and affixed the bowl of dancing blue flames to Minnie's horn. The young animal had no fear of the girl and stood placidly whilst she worked her magic.

"You're a lifesaver, Minnie," Hermione whispered. "Too bad I don't think we'll ever be able to meet like this again." She gave the animal a soft slap on the flank, and it cantered off.

Minnie had no sooner reached the end of the fallen tree when Hermione heard a disturbance amongst its branches. Harry hurtled over them, having Transfigured the soles of his shoes into high-impact plastic. He let out a yelp as he almost impaled himself on the unicorn's first line of defence.

With a triumphant "ha!" Hermione clambered over the tree trunk in precisely the direction from which Harry had just come. He tried to squeeze off a spell, but Hermione doused Harry with a handful of Instant Darkness Powder, temporarily blinding him. She sprinted back down the same path she had come. Behind her a sightless Harry struggled to hold off a rather agitated mother unicorn whilst also trying to extricate himself from what remained of his own conjured Devil's Snare.

Then Hermione noticed a soft rumble that she felt as much as heard. The sound grew rapidly in intensity.

Hermione pointed her wand at a nearby tree branch and incanted "Scanderus!" A long metal spring shot from her wand and coiled around the branch. She recoiled the spring and had just finished vaulting onto the safety of the branch when Harry bounded into view.

"Incarcerous," he bellowed, sending thick ropes at her.

Hermione countered with a Slashing Hex, and the ropes fell away, sliced in two. Looking behind Harry, her eyes went wide, and she shouted, "Harry! Look out!"

Harry pirouetted to face the source of the rumbling, which quickly amplified into an all-encompassing roar. He could hardly believe it as dozens of titanic spiders, each at least the size of a minibus, burst from the underbrush. At full tilt they ran madly towards him across a wide front - pursued by Hermione's wasps.

In the background, where the rest of the D.A. members were observing, Ron let out an audible squeal. He had never liked spiders.

"Quiet!" Hermione demanded of the audience.

"What the Hell?!" Harry blurted, his voice rising an octave in three syllables.

As the stampeding spiders bore down on him, Harry desperately incanted "Excavato!" Dirt exploded in all directions as his Excavating Charm blasted away the earth beneath him. Not a second too soon, he more or less fell into the hole he had dug, as the herd of panicked Acromantulæ swarmed over him. One of the gigantic arachnids stumbled into the hole, a hairy leg the size of a railroad tie missing Harry by centimetres. With an earthshaking crash it lost its balance and fell, its shattered leg kicking dirt all over Harry. Crippled, the huge spider rolled to a stop ten metres away - and was immediately beset by the loudly buzzing wasps.

Poking his head out of the hole and observing the scene, it occurred to Harry that Hermione's wasps were parasites - one of the few natural enemies of Acromantulæ.

Hermione had known what she was doing after all.

Speak of the Devil. As the spider stampede faded into the distance, Hermione jumped out of the tree incanting, "Fluvius." A jet of water immediately cascaded over Harry as she ran by, only a few metres in front of him. He ineffectually lunged at her, slipping and sliding in the now slime-covered bottom of his pit. For a moment - long enough for Hermione again to put distance between them - Harry wallowed this way and that as he futilely sought traction in his now filthy mud hole.

Regaining his wits, Harry levitated himself. Then he cast a strong Drying Charm. Finally he scourgified himself and, once again, set off in hot pursuit.

At least this time he was chasing her back towards the Castle.

Harry got an idea. `Devolvus!' Silently he arced a spell over the top of where she had to be. A bluish-white ball of magic soared through the air and landed in a burst of sparks on the path in front of Hermione.

She came to a screeching halt as the ground where Harry's spell struck began undulating as if it were alive. The surface tore itself free of the supporting earth. The path itself began rolling up like a carpet - coming straight at her.

She turned and saw Harry, in the moonlight, watching her from under a large oak tree. He was breathing heavily with all his efforts, but there was a smile on his face nonetheless. His wand was out, and trained on the path behind her.

Not sure what he was going to do next, she hurled herself to one side, face first into some bushes, as the rolled up surface of the path rumbled by. For a bit it blocked him from getting a clear shot at her. Taking advantage, she pointed her wand, not at Harry, but at the tree above him.

"Bombardo!" An electric orange jet of magic jetted towards the tree, illuminating it.

All the leaves that remained in the tree Transfigured into marble-sized steel ball bearings. They instantly fell off and began pelting Harry, who once again had to change his shield from one that stopped only magic to one that stopped physical objects as well. That done, he Retransfigured the ball bearings into tiny helium-filled balloons, which floated harmlessly away.

Hermione used his pause to change scenery once again. "I want the Hogwarts library!" she declared.

"Your favorite place," she heard Harry mutter as the landscape around them both again shimmered and transformed. "Now will you show yourself and fight? I'm getting bloody tired of this."

"Only on my terms, not yours," she replied. "Damn," she muttered to herself. There was that twinge again.

"Multiplicitus!"

Suddenly multiple images of Hermione surrounded Harry in the main reading room. He could not help but pause. He thought he had never seen her more beautiful.

Her robes were torn and disheveled. Her hair was a mess and flying away everywhere. Her face was flushed, and bore a few minor cuts and scrapes from the bushes she had thrown herself into. Her pouty lips opened slightly as she breathed heavily through her mouth. And her eyes - her eyes were sparkling and bright.

She was oh so very much alive. She was actually having fun!

"The first principle of guerilla warfare," her multiple images began lecturing, "is the innovative application of asymmetrical force in tactically appropriate situations. The stronger opponent must never be permitted to dictate the rules of engagement. That's what I'm doing to Harry. I can't cause a sonic boom or roll up the ground like he can…."

Unlike the rest of the D.A., Harry was not just a passive listener. He silently performed a Tracking Charm, and then placed another charm on his own glasses so they would ignore her false images.

Turnabout was fair play.

`Apis,' he mentally incanted. With a sense of satisfaction, he watched her own eyes go big as an entire shelf of books changed into a swarm of bees. He sent them buzzing after her.

She ducked into the next row of the stacks. "Liliaceous," he heard her utter. Flowers erupted all around. Harry's bees ceased their attack - much favouring the blossoms' nectar.

He continued to track her. `Vaproso,' he thought, and sent a cloud of scalding steam after her.

"Frigidio," he heard her counter.

"Specularis totalus!" Harry cast a spell in Hermione's direction, and instantly all the surfaces around her became mirrors. Then he cut a Stunner ten ways and sent it after the first spell.

In the split second between the two spells, Hermione converted the outside of her own robes into mirrors as well and pulled them over her head.

Over the next few seconds, much of the library lit up like a flashing red strobe light as multiple Stunners bounced this way and that off of one reflective surface after another. The barrage effectively immobilised both combatants.

"Rumpære!" Hermione's Percussive Charm shattered most of the mirrors. The torrent of ricocheting Stunners rapidly dissipated.

"Dammit Hermione, let's end this one way or another!" Harry shouted. "We're not fighting a war, we're duelling." He sent a Blasting Curse through a bookcase.

She ducked it and scurried through a study section. "Phosphære Inverso."

Suddenly, Harry's red Gryffindor tie appeared pale green. His ordinarily brown wand was light blue. His skin appeared a dark blackish-violet. It was all very disconcerting.

"Finite," he said out loud, ending the spell.

He chased her back towards the main reading area.

"Accio!" she sent a Summoning Charm in his general direction, but it seemed to miss badly.

"You're getting tired too," Harry puffed as he called to her. "Let's just call it…. Ouch!" Suddenly books were pummeling him - summoned by her on a path that went right through where he was.

Harry dropped to the ground to avoid the books.

He heard Hermione utter a Banishing Charm that would send the books right back at him again. He changed his shield charm back to one that stopped physical objects, but not before he sent out a Pushing Hex in the direction where he thought she was hiding. That hex toppled over the entire stack of books that blocked his view. That stack crashed into the next, and then the next - setting off a domino effect that left a good part of the library in ruins.

If Harry thought that wreaking destruction amongst her beloved books could draw Hermione out before she was ready, he had another thought coming.

Harry soon learnt that she had escaped that hex as well. He heard her cast a Bubblehead Charm - around him. As far as he could tell, that charm did nothing whatever to him.

She followed with one of her bizarre spell selections.

"Nitroxyl!"

Sure, she was raised by dentists - but a charm used during magical tooth extraction? That was daft. The spell was not even intended for duelling. They had learnt it during their field healing lesson.

Harry responded instantly. "Omnius Leviosa!" he called out aloud whilst waving his wand broadly over his head.

Everything on the affected side of the library began floating to the ceiling - except for Hermione. Because the Leviosa group of spells only worked on inanimate objects, he hoped that his spell would deprive her of places to hide.

"Tarentellegra!" she responded. Enough of that spell made it through his shield that he started involuntarily tap dancing.

Harry answered by dropping the ceiling all around him, knowing that his shield protected him against physical objects.

Hermione dove under one of the fallen bookcases to protect herself.

`A priori!'

Harry silently performed the restorative spell. Instantaneously the library went back to the way it was before they had started using it as a duelling ground.

Hermione was now lying exposed on the floor. He sent a Dizzying Jinx her way. She rolled away, but that hex still winged her and left her feeling woozy.

"Lumos maximus," she called out. A flash of light burst from her wand, temporarily blinding Harry as Hermione jumped behind one of the library's large reading tables.

"Another variant on asymmetric force…," he heard her start to lecture again.

He tried to magic the table out of the way, but she had a solid Anchoring Charm on it from the opposite direction.

"…is what the Muggles call rope a dope," she groaned. Then, all at once, she released the Anchoring Charm and the table flew at Harry. She was on her feet as he ducked it.

"Incarcerous."

Suddenly Harry was wrapped in large ropes.

He expanded his shield, bursting the ropes around him into pieces.

For some reason, though, Harry now felt quite strange - increasingly dizzy and disoriented. Then it came to him what she must have done some five spells before. She used that healing spell to expose him to nitrous oxide! Ever since, whilst she distracted him with spells, he had been breathing a laughing gas mixture.

He ended his shield and broke her Bubblehead Charm in one motion.

She was behind him, casting the Disarming Spell. Now it was his turn to dodge. Groggily, he ducked behind a tall davenport reading desk bolted to the floor. He heard a dull thud as Hermione's spell knocked a large book, Vander Ark's Lexicon Encyclopædia of Spells, off of the davenport and onto the floor.

"Multiplicitus!"

He was again surrounded by multiple images of her.

`Merlin, she's beautiful,' he thought.

`I'll remember that after the duel,' she Legilimenced back at him, `and remind me to thank you properly.' Unfortunately there would be a limit….

"But only after the duel," she warned him aloud. Harry did a double take as suddenly all of her images were brandishing a large wooden stick, easily as long as she was tall.

Before he could banish the false images, she charged him.

He pointed his wand at some of her doppelgangers, but the real Hermione smacked his hands with the quarterstaff before he could get any spell off.

He grabbed at her, but she spun out of his grasp. Her right foot caught him just below his left ear as she flashed by, making him see stars.

"You never had … the Aurors' hand to hand … combat training," she puffed, breathing heavily. "You were already captured … by the Death Eaters."

With that, she tried to flip Harry with a judo move. Whilst she managed to unbalance him, Hermione could not generate enough force to topple him. As he tried to spin away himself, his right arm struck her solidly in the side.

"The Aurors … also taught me … how to take a punch," she grunted as they grappled.

Some force flowing from him, like an electrical shock, forced her to let go of him, but as she pushed Harry away, she sought to trip him with her quarterstaff, slipping it between his legs.

Harry kicked out at her, trying to return the tripping favour.

Hermione saw an opening. With her wand behind her back, she used her only silent spell of the day. From across the room she Summoned another of the library's sturdy oaken study tables. It flew at the two of them.

She stomped on Harry's instep. He reflexively released her, and she ducked down and out of the way. As she ducked, she thrust her quarterstaff under the nearby reading desk.

She was just an instant too slow.

When Hermione suddenly dropped out of Harry's field of vision, all he could see was the onrushing study table.

"Reducto!" he shouted. A loud explosion ensued, blasting the table into several pieces.

The bottom portion of the reading table struck Hermione painfully in the hip, sending her sprawling atop her quarterstaff.

Even after being blasted with the Reductor, the flying chunks of the reading table remained substantial. Several pieces smacked solidly into Harry, knocking him off balance. Both Harry and the sections of the table crashed to the floor.

Harry's left foot, however, stayed lodged firmly beneath Hermione's quarterstaff, with her fallen on top of it, holding it down. He felt - and heard - successive pops as both bones in his leg fractured just above the ankle. His leg exploding in pain, Harry collapsed to the floor.

Hermione felt him fall over her and land heavily. Even before all of the pieces of the table had stopped clattering across the library floor, she was back on her feet, although distinctly favouring her left hip.

Sprawled on the floor, Harry looked up at her with one hand gripping his wand. "Hermione, I think…."

"Expelliarmus!" she yelled. Her spell hit him flush in his unshielded chest.

Harry's wand flew into Hermione's hand.

She was shocked. She could not believe it. She had actually won the duel.

Her Disarming Spell drove Harry back into the floor, and he struck the back of his head. Black flowers began to obscure his vision. From a combination of pain, shock, and exhaustion, he passed out.

"I want the D.A. Room of Requirement," Hermione declared. Then she doubled over, hands on her knees, as she tried to catch her breath. Her own midsection felt awful - cramped, bruised, battered, and no doubt bloody.

For the last time, Hermione's surroundings shimmered as the Room regained its original form. She could see dozens of D.A. members, still pressed against the far wall.

"Everybody can come over now," she panted to them. "It's over…."

Then she added, "Harry, you okay…?"

Hermione was immediately swarmed by a crowd of very impressed Hogwarts students, from whom voluble expressions congratulations emanated.

"Bravo, Hermione!"

"I can't believe you actually beat him."

"Good show, Mrs. Peel."

"That was bloody amazing, Hermione!"

After she caught her breath, she began explaining to everyone what she had done.

"It's rather obvious that Harry's … much more powerful than I can ever hope to be," she began. "In a straight up duel, I wouldn't have a chance. But I won … anyway. How? I beat him using almost all orally cast spells … nothing silent … nothing any of you couldn't learn…. So, if you think you can be Harry … and do that kind of magic … take his session…. But if you want to learn how to survive against somebody much stronger…."

"Bloody Hell," Ron exclaimed.

"What is it?"

"Hermione, look at Harry!" Daphne directed.

Hermione whirled around. Harry's left foot was hanging from his leg at an extremely odd and unnatural angle. Blood had started pouring freely from his trouser leg and pooling on the floor. He was pale and breathing rapidly.

"Oh Circe's knickers!" she screamed. "Harry, what did I do? Why didn't I check? I'm so stupid…. Please, somebody get Madame Pomfrey up here right away!"

Hermione sunk to Harry's side and lifted his robe far enough to see blood pouring from two deep gashes where the jagged ends of his broken leg bones had penetrated through his skin.

Reflexively she began trying to heal him, first casting a Cooling Charm to constrict the local blood vessels. As she worked, her hands became soaked in his blood. This was one part of Harry she never wanted to touch. His blood belonged inside him - not obscenely splattered all over the Room's floor.

Neville managed a wobbly communication Patronus. Ginny and Luna headed for a nearby fireplace.

"Here Hermione," Ron frantically shoved various plasters at her. "These just popped up. Maybe you can use them to stop the bleeding - or at least slow it down…."

* * * *

Madame Pomfrey bustled into Harry's curtained off recovery area at the back of the Hospital Wing. She caught a brief glimpse of her patient and his girlfriend in a clinch before the two of them moved apart upon becoming aware of her presence. "You two," she tutted. "If you spent any more time here, I'd have to charge you rent."

"And you Mister Potter, I don't want you to be getting any ideas about breaking your ankle - actually leg - again."

"Why would I do that?" Harry asked weakly, whilst Hermione went even pinker in the background.

"Because except for cleaning herself up, Miss Granger has not left you alone for a minute since you arrived here," the head nurse replied with a straight face. "And she can't seem to keep her hands off you. Now let me check you out."

The nurse fussed over Harry's healing leg. She duly noted that Harry winced several times as she prodded him. It had been a very bad compound and comminuted break.

"I don't suppose I can convince you to stay overnight, whilst the Skele-Gro takes full effect?" she asked Harry.

"No, not with all I have to do tomorrow and next," Harry objected.

"Very well," Madame Pomfrey sighed. "I have no medical reason to keep you. I want you to stay off of it tonight, and it should be all better by morning. To take no chances, I'm going to wrap it tightly in a Mandrake-soaked plaster. Leave that on until tomorrow. You can use these crutches for the evening."

The nurse pointed her wand at a pair of ebonywood crutches. They hopped to attention, and then bounced over to Harry's bedside of their own accord.

"These are Healer Huckleberry's Self-Walking Crutches," she explained. "Since you're partly healed already, these will do for now. You can return them in the morning."

Soon Harry and Hermione were headed down the Third Floor corridor in the direction of Gryffindor Tower. She had to trot to keep up with him, because Harry was determined to find out how fast he could make the self-walking crutches go.

"Harry, slow down!" Hermione finally called out in frustration. "It's not like we have to get anywhere in such a great hurry, you know. With the rest of the D.A. session cancelled due to your injury, we're still about a half-hour to the good."

"To the good of what?" Harry asked irascibly as he came to a halt. "By now everyone in the Castle knows what happened - my own girl friend broke my leg in a duel. And I stuck on crutches. I'm going to be useless until tomorrow, since I'm not in good working order."

"I hardly think you're useless," she said softly, as she put both arms around his neck and leaned into him, making his crutches start to vibrate with anticipation. "And I could tell in the Hospital Wing that, despite what I did to your leg, the rest of you still works just fine."

With that she kissed him. His arms reflexively started to go around her waist, but when he let go of the crutches, Harry almost toppled over. That forced them to break the kiss and give some thought to logistics.

"Whatever you say, I'm pants at anything standing up," he admitted.

"True enough. And we need someplace more private," she added. "I don't want us be a constant public spectacle like Ron and Cho, or Lavender and her flavour of the month. Once was enough. We could go back to the Room."

"Anywhere but there, please," Harry vetoed. "After all that duelling in there, I think I'd be rather distracted - and not in a good way. You proved your point, by the way…."

Hermione leaned back into him as she thought. "The Common Room is definitely too crowded. I'd lose points being in your dormitory. There's the Library, but I don't want to risk getting thrown out by Madame Pince, with all the work we have to do."

She was slowly tipping Harry off balance again, and his crutches compensated by gliding backwards until coming to rest against the wall. "Umm…. I suppose there is right here," he commented, reaching out for her again, "and right now…."

"I suppose there is," Hermione echoed, reaching up to capture his lips again.

"I say, you two," Ernie Macmillan's overly formal voice called out. "I'd really rather not, but as I do have patrolling responsibility for this evening, you'll have to desist or I'll be forced to take away points."

"Go away, Ernie," Hermione groaned, "or I'll figure out how to dock points from you."

"Really now chaps, I must insist," Ernie persisted. "At least get a room somewhere. You're both role models you know."

They chose to give in to the pompous Prefect and move along. Once they were alone again, and on their way to Gryffindor tower, Harry muttered, "That little wanker. He needs a good pranking, I think. I'm going to talk to Fred and George before the next Hogsmeade weekend…. I've still got that certificate from them. Anyway, enough of that - I know what I want to do."

"Bravo, Harry," she responded, "and to think that I could hardly have been more forward…." But should she have been?

"You know, I think I'd like to go through Fleur's questions with you," he revealed.

"Whose questions?" Hermione asked, hardly believing her ears. Did she have to draw him a picture?

"Fleur's," Harry repeated. "You see, during the summer, when I was so confused about - well, us - I had a heart-to-heart with Bill, and he brought in Fleur as sort of an … I don't know, a romance consultant, I guess…."

"You guess," Hermione said uncomfortably, wondering just how much Fleur knew about their relationship. Even though she and Harry were now engaged, Fleur was back at Hogwarts. Fleur was so - well, Fleur - that Hermione could not help but regard the part-Veela as some sort of rival for Harry's affections. That woman had, after all, been quite forward around Harry after his speech in France.

"So what questions are these?" Hermione asked.

"Questions about you, mostly," Harry replied immediately. "What words I'd use to describe you. What presents I'd want to give you. What songs I associate with you. That kind of thing. I think it would be - well, romantic - to answer them together, since I never got the chance before we worked things out for ourselves, I guess."

He gave her that little half grin he reserved for when he was trying to be sweet - the one that made her resistance melt away like ice in sunshine. Hermione mentally relaxed. Fleur had only posed the questions, after all. She never got Harry's answers. Now Harry was offering to share those answers with her. That could be fun. Maybe more than that.

Maybe she would draw him a picture. But, dammit, why right now?

"Harry, I think that's a great idea. It could be … interesting. And as I was saying, I think I know just the place."

"Where's that?" he asked, intrigued.

"That's for me to know, and you to find out," she answered coyly, repeating a line from their duel. "It's a place you should see, anyway."

"Umm … okay," Harry responded uncertainly to her non-answer. "But I have to go back to the Tower first. That's where the questions are, and I wouldn't want just to summon them. The door to the Common Room's probably closed, and when I last looked, it was raining outside."

"That's fine. I need to get stuff from my dormitory, too," Hermione agreed.

"Constant vigilance," Hermione said to the Fat Lady - informing Harry of the new password.

As they entered the Common Room, both of them thought the same thing, `This could be fun.' Hermione's thoughts, however, were somewhat tempered by the reality of her present situation.

* * * *

Author's notes: The "snitch" is the equivalent of the "football," carrying nuclear weapons codes, that accompanies the American president

The "this is no drill" language was used during the Pearl Harbor attack

Eventually, the key's use will become clear

M.O. is law enforcement speak for modus operandi or method of operation

The Death Eaters' murder method is a variant of a murder that was thwarted in Dan Brown's Angles and Demons

Actually Voldemort left, rather than collected, a souvenir

The howler monkey is reputed to be the loudest land mammal

Zach Smith's year is unclear in canon. I have him in the year ahead of Harry

The "rumors of my death" line is from Mark Twain

Muldoon is mentioned in Fantastic Beasts

Muffliato originated with Snape, so I'm assuming the Order knows it

Installation of the Order's computers will have an important consequence

The new Quidditch division of labor will have consequences

Silently, Hermione warned Harry not to use the Orgasimos Hex

Two, love is tennis scoring

I got "short, sharp, shock" from Pink Floyd's "Us and Them, on Dark Side of the Moon - but it actually derives from Gilbert & Sullivan's Mikado

The description of the Alhambra, a Hispano-Moorish palace in Granada, is as accurate as I can make it

There are different Protego shields, depending upon whether magic or solid objects are being defended against

The use of the Punching Hex is from chapter 20

At various times during the dual Harry resorts to all four forms of standard elemental magic

Alkalai is Latin for salt

Pure water has no dissolved electrolyctic ions, and thus does not conduct electricity; salt water conducts electricity very well

Being able to cast mosquito netting will come in handy

Azote is an archaic name for nitrogen; liquid nitrogen will behave as described

A death slide is British for a zip line

Being ahead on points is a boxing term

The date of this duel, September 27, 1996, is a full moon

A Hymenoepimecis wasp is a spider parasite

A sonic boom behaves as described

Earth elemental magic conjures and affects plants

High impact plastic is used to make super balls

Guerilla warfare is all about asymetrical force

Phosphære Inverso makes one see the opposite color. I got the idea from a Calvin and Hobbes cartoon

Dentists use nitrous oxide, or laughing gas, as an anesthetic; technically nitroxyl is a related compound; essentially Hermione drugged Harry a bit

"Rope a dope" is a boxing strategy for letting a stronger opponent tire himself out through overexertion; Muhammad Ali named the technique and used is regularly

Hermione trained with the quarterstaff in Chapter 30

Steve Vander Ark started the Harry Potter Lexicon

Mrs. Peel is a character from the old TV show The Avengers

Some elements of the later part of this chapter - Hermione breaking Harry's leg and the bit about blood at the end are influenced by Lori's Paradigm of Uncertainty trilogy

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