Unofficial Portkey Archive

Disclaimer: I am not J. K. Rowling. If I were, I'd have a larger bank account and Harry would have a better girlfriend.

Chapter 5: There Are More Important Things

Harry was beginning to hate St. Mungo's. It had been over five hours since he, Hermione, Tonks, Luna, an unconscious Ron, a badly hurt Phobos Lovegood and a seemingly stupefied Snape had been transported by portkey to the hospital for magical maladies, with half a dozen befuddled Aurors in tow. Harry, Hermione and every single Weasley with the exception of Bill (who was in France with the family of his bride-to-be) and Percy (who was still an enormous git) had confronted a seemingly never-ending stream of healers, demanding answers. Yet there was still no word on what was wrong with Ron.

His fingers ran restlessly through his already untamed hair. Although Harry had had plenty of experience on the other end of the hospital waiting game, he was unfamiliar with the frustration that came from sitting in a chair for hours at a time, hoping that nothing serious was wrong but quietly fearing the worst. However, even he knew that going this long without hearing anything couldn't be good.

Harry Potter sat looking idly at the tiles on the floor with his knees in his lap and his hands holding up his chin, feeling alone in a sea of Weasleys. He had barely said two words to any member of the family, unwilling to accept the forgiving and sympathetic looks they were no doubt giving him. As various Weasleys made strained but polite conversation with each other, Luna Lovegood sat in one corner of the waiting room, staring at the wall and rocking back and forth, worry written all over her usually vacant face. 'If Phobos Lovegood doesn't make it, she'll have seen both of her parents die,' Harry thought gloomily. Thinking of his own parents and the sacrifice they made, he watched Luna with a mixture of guilt and pity. 'No one so young should have to go through that. And all because Snape thought she was my bloody girlfriend.'

This of course reminded him of the danger he'd spared his most recent girlfriend, Ginny Weasley, by breaking up with her. Before the Weasley family had arrived, he'd been worried that the raid on the Quibbler might have been one of many such attacks and that the Burrow could have been one of the targets. That hadn't happened, but if Voldemort ever learned that he and Ginny had been dating while they were at Hogwarts, it very easily could.

Ginny Weasley had been sitting next to him throughout the whole ordeal, even attempting to hold his hand on more than one occasion, but Harry had repeatedly shrugged her off. Knowing that anyone here could be reporting back to Lord Voldemort, he refused to even look her way. Instead, he watched Hermione, who stood with her back to the wall and her arms crossed, giving as much information about the attack as she could remember to a sympathetic-faced Tonks.

Harry had already gone through that routine himself. "How many Death Eaters were there?" "Did you hear any names mentioned?" "What were they after?" He had only been too happy to give the Ministry information with which they might identify and prosecute Death Eaters, but had been deliberately vague on what had brought the three of them to the offices of the Quibbler in the first place, staying with Hermione's story about arranging an exclusive interview. He didn't care if Scrimgeour thought he was a publicity hound, so long as the Minister of Magic didn't know that the three of them had been searching for Voldemort's horcruxes.

'I should have gone alone,' Harry thought to himself, a combination of sorrow and anger making him gnash his teeth together. 'I destroyed Tom Riddle's diary and Slytherin's locket on my own. I was the only one Dumbledore trusted with information on the horcruxes. Ron and Hermione wouldn't know about this at all if I hadn't…'

"Excuse me," the soft voice of a young woman in a crisp, new healer's outfit interrupted, calling out to everyone in the hallway. "I have information on a patient that was brought in from the attack on the Quibbler…oh, dear, I must have the name here somewhere…" Harry sat on the edge of his seat, as Fred, George, Charlie and Ginny moved closer to the flustered healer in anticipation. Arthur drew Molly Weasley into his arms, holding her tightly. "Ah, here it is. 'Phobos Lovegood'."

Harry returned to his chair as the faces of six Weasleys fell. His disappointment quickly turned to curiosity, however, as Luna Lovegood raced down the hallway to speak to the healer. "Is my father going to be alright?" she asked with a sob in her voice.

"He's suffered a major physical trauma, but with therapy he should make a full recovery," the woman assured Luna with a kind smile. "Although I'm afraid his voice will be gone for quite some time. Tell me, does your Dad have much experience with casting nonverbal spells?"

"Well, there was one time…we were searching for flightless skleebats in Inner Mongolia…" Luna began to answer her as the two of them walked down the hall, presumably to visit her father. Harry felt a small amount of pressure ease itself out of his body, as though there had been three hippogriffs sitting on his chest and one of them had decided to take flight. Phobos Lovegood would be fine. He longed for some assurance that Ron would be alright, too, but he couldn't get rid of the feeling that something terrible had happened to him.

'Snape set up our duel just so he could hit me with that spell, whatever it was,' Harry reasoned. 'If Voldemort really did tell his Death Eaters not to kill me, it couldn't be something lethal, but it might be anything else. Snape could have used a spell that would have brought me as close to death as he could without actually finishing me off.' The prophecy had made him overconfident, making him think that he would survive a battle with anyone but Voldemort regardless of what he did to save himself. Harry let out a sharp, mournful breath. If Snape's spell had hit him, he would probably be dead by now, murdered in cold blood by a triumphant Lord Voldemort. Ron had likely saved his life, but at what cost to himself?

"You're beating yourself up, aren't you?" Ginny asked from beside him. Harry closed his eyes and nodded slowly. "There's no point, you know. Nobody blames you for this."

'Maybe they should,' Harry thought bitterly. 'I was the one who agreed to the duel. I should have known that Snape was up to something, I should have backed out when I had the chance…'

As Tonks began chatting idly with Charlie Weasley, Hermione took the seat on the other side of Harry. She regarded him seriously with a soft glow in her eyes. "How are you feeling?" she asked simply.

"How do you think I'm feeling?" Harry snapped, although the defeatism in his voice made it sound hollow rather than harsh. "Guilty. Miserable. Like the world's biggest idiot. Other than that, perfectly cheery. How about you?"

Hermione let out a small gasp. "I didn't mean…" She shook her head and looked to be blinking back tears. "I was only asking about your burns. You haven't taken any of Bill's potion for hours. I thought maybe I could ask one of the healers to bring you something, if you were in any pain."

"Oh." Harry examined his hands, which were still covered in bandages. His mind completely fixated on Ron, he hadn't given any thought to his own injuries. Hermione had, however, and a snippy reply had been her only reward for reminding him of them. "Thank you, Hermione, but no. I'm sure I'll be fine." The persistent hot, tingling pain coming from his hands and chest gave the lie to that statement, but Harry could ignore that for the moment.

"You're not the world's biggest idiot, you know," Hermione pointed out with a supportive smirk and a quick squeeze of his knee. "You're forgetting about Crabbe and Goyle. Also, your cousin Dudley is both quite large and incredibly moronic."

Harry smiled in spite of himself. "True." The smile vanished as quickly as it formed and he turned slightly to face her. "Hermione, I'm…"

"Please don't apologize to me, Harry," she interrupted, her voice much quieter than before. "I don't need to hear it."

"I think you do," Harry replied insistently, his anger flaring once again. "I don't know what I was thinking. Dueling Snape was a bloody terrible idea. I should have listened to you. I should always listen to you. Why couldn't I have just…?"

"Stop," Hermione instructed lightly as she pressed her index finger to Harry's lips. "Just stop. You know, this isn't easy for me either."

"Oh please," Ginny muttered from the other side of Harry. "This is the last thing Harry needs right now, Hermione."

Harry stared up in surprise at the red-haired girl, who was now standing in front of them both, a stormy look etched on her face. Lost in conversation with Hermione, he had almost forgotten she was there. "Ginny," he began, his voice half-startled and half-chiding.

She never let him finish, her eyes angrily boring into Hermione's. "You were right. That's what you want to hear, isn't it? Well, you were. You were right about Harry dueling Snape. You were right about the Half-Blood Prince book. You were right about the Department of Mysteries being a trap. Does that make you feel better? Or does it make you feel like you're better than the rest of us?"

Harry could feel Hermione trembling, although whether it was from fear or rage or anguish, he did not know. "I…I wasn't…" she stammered.

"You weren't what?" Ginny interrupted with a scowl. "Going to rub it in? Of course you weren't. You'll just wait for Harry to wallow in his own misery so much that nobody can talk to him… except you, of course," she spat. "Harry has more important things to do than feel guilty about things that he can't change. But that's all you're really there for, isn't it? Harry can do the research on his own, but nobody can nag him like you can."

Harry was dumbstruck. Hermione looked deflated, her eyes seemingly searching the floor for something. "I should go," she said in a whisper. Hermione then ran across the hall and threw herself through a set of double doors, tears streaming down her face.

Harry rounded on Ginny angrily. "What the hell was that about?" he demanded, his eyes blazing with intensity. "I thought you and Hermione were friends…"

"And I thought you were my boyfriend. But you won't see me anymore. You don't even look at me when I'm right in front of you," she hissed quietly, not wanting to attract more attention from her family, most of whom were politely pretending as though they weren't paying attention to what was going on between them. "Damn it, Harry, I won't do this again, I won't become invisible to you, not after everything I've gone through…"

"Don't try to make this about you, Ginny," Harry interrupted, his firm tone making her back away instinctively. "Hermione didn't do anything to deserve what you just said to her. If I were you, I'd go after her and apologize."

Ginny's mouth fell open in shock. "Apologize?" She grabbed Harry's shoulder and pulled him aside. "Listen, Harry, I wouldn't expect this to be the sort of thing you would notice, but…Hermione tends to get in the way of your relationships, doesn't she?"

Harry frowned. "Hermione gets in the way?" he asked her in disbelief.

Ginny nodded, as though she were finally getting through to him. "She takes up all of your time, she expects you to confide in her and only her and she can't keep her hands off of you! I thought Cho was nutters for letting you go so quickly after your fifth year, but…"

"Hold on a minute," Harry interrupted, his brow furrowing in confusion. "What does Cho have to do with any of this? The reason we broke up was because she wouldn't stop crying about Cedric all the time."

"That's the reason you broke up with her," Ginny corrected him sharply. "The reason she broke up with you was because she was jealous of Hermione."

"Yeah, I remember that now," Harry replied thoughtfully. "Seems Cho didn't understand how important Hermione was to me and decided to make me choose between the two of them. Only there wasn't a choice, not really. Cho was a complete nightmare and Hermione was…is…"

"Your best friend," Ginny finished for him, although Harry wasn't altogether sure that that was what he had been about to say. "Believe me, I understand that. I'm not Cho; I know that there's no way in the world you could ever fancy Hermione." She rolled her eyes at the very idea. "I just wish she'd learn to butt out once and a while. I don't always want her around when we're together."

Harry bristled. "Maybe you don't want her around," he retorted, "but I do. I need her."

Ginny looked nervous. "Of course. For books and research and…and information…"

"It's more than that," Harry cut her off, frustration surging through him. How could he get her to understand his relationship with Hermione when he had never really taken the time to consider it himself? "Without her, I'm too reckless, too careless. It's like she's my conscience or my…my other half."

The redhead's brown eyes widened. "Your other half," she repeated numbly. "You do realize how that sounds, don't you, Harry? If I wasn't so understanding…"

Harry groaned loudly. Right now he didn't know how Ginny could be less understanding, but he kept that to himself. "I don't much care how it sounds. It's the truth." Harry moved a few steps away from her, forcing her to drop her hand from his shoulder. "Look, Ginny, things have changed these last few months. The things the three of us have been doing…well, it's very important that we succeed. It matters more than petty jealousies or who's dating who or whether I'm bloody well looking at you enough." Ginny turned away from him in a huff. "Hermione gets that. She always has, really. But I'm not sure that you do."

"I let you break up with me, didn't I?" Ginny asked with a slight whine in her voice. "I knew sooner or later you would have to go off and face Voldemort, I just didn't think that you'd drag Hermione and Ron along with you." Harry gasped involuntarily. "Harry, I didn't mean it that way. You know I don't blame you for Ron getting hurt."

As Harry began to walk away from her, Ginny turned around and called after him. "You're going to go to her, aren't you? Even after everything I've said."

Much to her annoyance, Harry refused to look at her as he spoke. "She needs me, Ginny. I'll bet she's blaming herself for what happened to Ron as much as I am. Between that and your temper tantrum, Hermione's probably feeling pretty rotten right now."

"What about me?" Ginny asked, her voice small and pleading. "What about my feelings? Ron's my brother, for Merlin's sake. I don't know what I'd do if…if…" She sniffled audibly and Harry thought he heard a slight whimper in her voice.

"I know," Harry replied with a sigh. "I don't either." Despite his own sorrow and a sudden wave of sympathy for Ginny, he knew he couldn't stay with her. "You should be with your family, Ginny. If you really want comfort, I'm sure they'd be willing to give it to you. But right now, I'm the only one who seems to give a damn about Hermione." Harry pushed through the set of double doors to follow Hermione, leaving a dejected Ginny behind.

Harry had no sooner made it out of the hallway, however, when a frail bony hand reached out and grabbed his arm. "Mr. Potter." Harry spun around to see a gentleman with slicked back gray hair, a pair of horn-rimmed glasses and a long mustache who wore both a fancier than usual healer's outfit and an affable expression on his face. "So terribly sorry to disturb you, sir, but I was wondering if I might have a word."

"Of course," Harry agreed, assuring himself that he would go back to looking for Hermione the minute he was through talking to the healer. "Is this about Ron?" he asked, worry obvious in his tone.

"Indeed," the man replied with a swift nod of his head. "I was sent to apprise you of Mr. Weasley's condition. However, it would be a terribly rude thing not to introduce myself first." He removed his right hand from Harry's arm and extended it for a handshake. "I'm Edwin Wolfram, the healer in charge of the Accidental Spell Damage ward. Please accept my sincerest apologies for not meeting with you in person earlier. You sustained some very serious injuries, Mr. Potter. How are they coming along?"

"They're fine," Harry replied impatiently. "What about Ron? Is he alright?"

A jovial expression filled the elder man's face. "Oh ho, so what they say about you is true, Mr. Potter. Modest to a fault. You come in here, still suffering from a severe case of spell damage, having captured the second most wanted wizard in Britain, that dastardly Snape character, and all you care about is how your friend is doing."

Harry clenched his teeth in anger. Who was this guy? The president of his fan club? "That's right. I do care about how my friend is doing. I want to know what Snape did to him. But nobody will tell me…"

Edwin Wolfram shook his head sadly. "Yes. Dreadful business, that. You of all people should know how Death Eater attacks can be, Mr. Potter. The after effects can be frightfully unpredictable."

Harry stared at the other man with a confused and angry look on his face. "Does that mean that you don't know what happened to Ron? That there's no way that you can help him?"

Healer Wolfram's voice became hard for the first time. "That is not what I said, Mr. Potter. I assure you that St. Mungo's will see Mr. Weasley through to a full recovery. However, I must shamefully admit that, despite using every method at our disposal, we have no idea what spell was used on him, nor do we know what it was intended to do."

"To hit me," Harry thought aloud. When Wolfram frowned, he elaborated. "The spell. It was meant for me. I think Snape might have been trying to make me easier for Voldemort to kill."

The man's mustache twitched uncomfortably at the mention of Voldemort's name. "Yes, well, that would be consistent with our diagnosis of Mr. Weasley's condition." At Harry's expectant look, he continued. "Physically, the patient is fine. Fit as a fiddle, as the muggle expression goes. However, it seems that whatever spell Severus Snape used drained a great deal of his magic. In point of fact, if Mr. Weasley were to wake up right now, he would be little more than a squib."

Harry was startled. "A…a squib?" he repeated in a strangled voice. He could not imagine his best mate living out his life without magic. There would be no more Quidditch, no future career as an Auror, no possible return to Hogwarts after they defeated Voldemort…

An irritatingly vapid smile broke out on Edwin Wolfram's face. "Do not look so glum, Mr. Potter. Your friend is young and resilient and his magic is already beginning to regenerate. He has slipped into a bit of a coma…" Harry blinked rapidly. A bit of a coma? What did that mean? "Nothing to worry about, really. A wizard's body often reacts to the dramatic loss of magical ability by shutting itself down. It's probably just an unforeseen side effect of the spell."

Harry frowned. "Unforeseen? You mean… you don't think Snape meant for this to happen?" He had been so certain that his former DADA teacher had been planning on delivering his unconscious form to Lord Voldemort that he hadn't really considered that Snape might have been plotting something else entirely.

"I should think not," Wolfram answered with a frown. "Particularly since Severus Snape is lying in a hospital bed not fifteen meters from where you're standing, suffering from a strikingly similar malady."

Harry's head snapped to where Wolfram pointed in an attempt to see where they might be keeping the grotty berk. Deciding to hold off on thoughts of revenge for now, he turned his attention back to the healer. "Can I see him?" Harry asked, his voice catching slightly.

Healer Wolfram adjusted his thick glasses and pursed his lips. "We're keeping both patients under quarantine until we can figure out what in the name of Merlin's wand happened to them. So I'm afraid visitations of any kind, including threatening ones to Mr. Snape, will be out of the question for the time being." The mustachioed Healer let out a long sigh. "I suppose I shall have to inform the family."

Harry raised an eyebrow in surprise. "Snape has family?"

"No, not Snape, Mr. Potter," Edwin Wolfram corrected him with a small chuckle, "Your friend, Don Weasley, has a family. And a rather large one at that." He gave the door a look of dread. "I loathe breaking the news to the relatives. It never does go smoothly."

"His name is Ron," Harry corrected as the healer walked away from him with a distracted expression on his face. "That should make things go a little smoother."

Harry let out a deep breath. Now that he knew more about Ron's condition, he was more confused than ever. The knowledge that his best mate was not in mortal danger was comforting, but questions lingered in his mind. What was Snape's goal? Did he merely hope to make Harry even less of a match for Voldemort than he already was? And why had the spell he used effected Snape himself as well? Harry felt a surge of anger rush through him. There was only one person who would ever know for certain and, conveniently enough, he was in no position to tell anyone anything.

Slowly walking down the hall, Harry soon found himself glaring through a pane of glass at the dark wizard who had murdered Dumbledore; the man who had put Ron in a coma. The peaceful look on the normally scowling face of Severus Snape served only to make him angrier, as he let out a long growl of frustration. Snape had fooled others before, but not Harry. He had never trusted his former Potions teacher. Snape knew that full well, however, and had used it against Harry, much as he had played upon Dumbledore's trusting nature for so many years. He always seemed to know how to manipulate others to achieve his own ends.

Harry's heart filled with fury at the thought of the Half-Blood Prince book he had used so often last year. Snape had written some very dangerous spells while he was a student at Hogwarts and Harry didn't care to imagine what kinds of dark magic he had mastered as a Death Eater. No matter how optimistic the healers were that Ron would recover, nobody really knew what had happened to him and no one would until the wizard who did it decided to wake up.

'I can just hear Snape now,' Harry thought bitterly to himself. 'Promising a miracle cure for Ron in exchange for some kind of leniency from the Wizengamot. A lifetime in Azkaban, but no death sentence for the wizard who killed Albus Dumbledore.' Harry slammed his fist into the wall at the thought.

"Oi, Harry," a friendly female voice said from behind him. "I know you're upset, but walking around hitting things isn't going to make you feel any better." He quickly turned around to look at Tonks, who had returned to her natural hair color and heart-shaped face now that she was no longer in the field. "Trust me, I know. I've spent most of my life walking around hitting things. Not on purpose, though."

Harry kept his now throbbing hand clenched into a fist. "Promise me they won't let him off. Promise me he'll get what he deserves," he pleaded angrily.

"Snape?" Tonks sniffed, giving the traitorous potions master a scathing look, as if she were examining a toad she had placed in her handbag by accident. "I don't think you have anything to worry about there, Harry. The Ministry's calling for his head. In case you haven't noticed, Scrimgeour hasn't fared so well in the war against You-Know-Who, at least not since…" A mournful expression crossed her face and she did not bother to finish the thought. "There was no shortage of volunteers among us Aurors for the job of guarding him, either. Everybody loved Dumbledore."

A slight smile and a distant look in her eye made Harry think she was recalling a fond memory of the Hogwarts Headmaster. "It isn't easy to make promises in my line of work, Harry. There's always the possibility that the MLE will make a deal with Snape if he starts naming names. But there are a lot more people who want Severus Snape dead than could stand to see him live after what he did. If Scrimgeour even thinks about allowing a sentence less than death, he'll catch more than his share of trouble for it."

Harry nodded his head, thankful for Tonks' assurances. Snape's capture had been the only good thing to come out of the debacle at the Quibbler. They hadn't even gotten their hands on the horcrux that they'd come for in the first place.

Harry suddenly felt like an abject moron. The horcrux! He had been so worried about Ron that he'd nearly forgotten about it. The last time he had seen Ravenclaw's quill had been when Snape snatched it from behind Luna Lovegood's ear. "Tonks," he began, his voice forcibly calm, "did you happen to find anything on Snape?"

Tonks smirked. "You mean other than about twelve pints of grease?" Harry faked mild amusement and anxiously waited for the Auror to continue. "Just his wand and a few sickles. Why? Had he taken something from you?"

Harry considered telling her that he had, but decided against it. He had already endangered Luna by telling her about the horcruxes and had nearly gotten her father killed. "No," Harry answered, his voice soft and hesitant. "Nothing." A thought struck him. The Death Eater who had been Snape's second in the duel, the one who had used a portkey to elude capture…could he have taken the quill? "That Death Eater who escaped… Moorefield… had you ever heard of him before?" Harry asked Tonks conversationally.

Tonks scratched her chin. "Can't say as I have," she answered honestly. "Although from your description, mask on wrong and all, I'd say he's probably a new one. Death Eater recruitment has been up lately, you know." The Auror looked thoughtful. "It's a bit odd, though, isn't it? You wouldn't think Snape would have the patience to surround himself with amateurs, but all of the Death Eaters we pulled in except Snape have clean records. Of course, they all claim to have been under the Imperius curse, but who doesn't these days?"

After they both remained silent for a few moments, Tonks gave him a wide smile. "Go on with you, Harry. I'm sure I'm not the girl you'd prefer to be spending your time with right now."

Harry wanted to kick himself. Speaking of having forgotten about something important… "Hermione!" he exclaimed.

"Actually, I was thinking more along the lines of your girlfriend…" Tonks began with an unusually wide and goofy grin.

"I have to go," Harry declared, his worried tone making Tonks frown a bit. "Give Remus my best." The metamorphmagus blushed as Harry jogged down the hallway, intent on finding Hermione with no further interruptions.

A few questioned healers and one 'point me' charm later, Harry found Hermione standing alone on a balcony overlooking the London skyline, leaning against an ornately designed marble railing and staring out at the darkening evening sky. Harry smiled thinly. It was exactly the sort of place he would have gone to be alone with his thoughts.

As he stepped out onto the balcony, Harry noticed a light rain beginning to fall, although an invisible barrier above them appeared to be shielding them from it. "Hermione?" he called out softly.

Hermione turned around in surprise. "Oh!" Her eyes were red and puffy and when she saw it was Harry, she wiped a few stray tears from them. "Harry, I…I didn't expect you to come out here. I thought you'd be with Ginny…"

Harry looked down sheepishly. "I wanted to make sure you were alright." He stood about a meter behind her and seemed hesitant to move closer. "And…to tell you the truth, I'm not very happy with Ginny right now."

"You should be," Hermione replied automatically. "You deserve to be happy." Her voice wavering, she turned away from him to look out at the rain. "I didn't mean to cause a fight between you two."

Harry shrugged nonchalantly. "It was bound to happen sooner or later. I'm sure we'll both get over it." Harry had barely taken the time to consider that he and Ginny had never fought before, nor contemplate what that might mean for their relationship. Right now, he had more important things to worry about. "The things she said to you…"

"She was just saying what everyone else was thinking, right?" Hermione interrupted sadly, although her tone was slightly venomous. "That's what she does, you know. That's what makes her so funny." The way she said the word 'funny' made Harry think Hermione didn't find Ginny amusing at all. "Everyone thinks I'm a walking, talking brain with bushy brown hair. 'Little Miss Perfect'. 'An insufferable know-it-all,'" she finished, quoting both Rita Skeeter and Severus Snape before sniffling back a few tears.

"I don't," Harry told her softly. He brushed his long bangs out of his eyes as he began to move toward her slowly. "I don't think you're a know-it-all at all." 'That sounded a bit silly,' Harry thought to himself. 'Better think of something else to say.' "Er, not that you don't know a lot." 'Smooth, Potter. You're not helping her think of herself as anything other than a brain.' "Which isn't a bad thing. Some things are good to know. Like spells and incantations and…" Why was he so bad at handling crying girls? He could never find the right thing to say. There had to be a way to do this without words. "Oh, sod it!" he exclaimed and did the last thing he would have expected to do when he came out here. He enveloped her in a hug.

As Harry relished the feeling of his arms around her, a huge smile broke out on his face. It had worked! Hermione had stopped crying. Of course, she was also so shocked by the fact that Harry had hugged her that she had stopped breathing, but a bloke had to take his victories where he could get them. As he released her gently, he took the time to notice how warm and soft she felt when her body was pressed next to his.

"What…what was that for?" Hermione asked in a daze. She stared up at him quizzically, still in shock over the first non-Ginny-related act of affection he had ever initiated.

Harry nervously scratched the back of his neck. "I dunno. I guess you just looked like you could use a hug."

Apparently this was the wrong thing to say, as Hermione began to tear up again. However, instead of turning away from him again, she launched herself into his arms. "Oh Harry," she said appreciatively, her warm breath against his ear making his skin tingle.

"You shouldn't listen to any of that negative rubbish. You're hardly insufferable and you're not a nag." As she broke the hug and took a few steps away from him, Harry noticed that a glowing smile had replaced the frown on her face. "You're a great witch, Hermione. Don't ever let yourself forget that."

Hermione laughed lightly. "You know, that last part sounds familiar."

"Does it?" Harry asked in mock confusion. "That's odd. Although, come to think of it, the brightest witch of her age did say something like that to me once."

Hermione decided to play along, throwing in a gasp of shock for effect. "Lavender Brown told you that you were a great wizard?"

Harry nodded seriously. "She did. Right before she asked me if her lip gloss made her look fat." Harry and Hermione shared a much-needed laugh at that, before the seriousness of the situation at hand brought them back to reality.

"Ron," Hermione breathed, regret and sorrow heavy in her voice. "They've told you something, haven't they?"

Harry sighed and forced his hands into the pockets of his hand-me-down jeans. "The healers still don't know what happened, not really." He felt ready to burst with emotion, although he couldn't decide whether he wanted to cry out or start randomly destroying things. "Ron's in a coma. Hermione, his magic's almost gone. Whatever Snape did robbed him of it." Hermione nodded slowly, her eyes darting from the rainstorm and back to Harry furtively. "The healer I talked to said that his powers were returning, slowly; that he…," here his voice caught for the first time, "he wouldn't be a squib for long."

Hermione looked away from Harry guiltily. "And he was already insecure about his magic. He'll be devastated when he finds out." Harry tried to put himself in his best mate's shoes for a moment, as he imagined waking up from a coma only to find himself unable to perform even the simplest magic spells. Frustration welled inside him. If only Ron hadn't tried to protect him…

Harry was shaken from his own thoughts by a startled Hermione. "Harry, that spell could have hit you!"

His sullen green eyes refused to meet hers. "I wish it had."

Hermione's voice dripped with fury. "How could you even think that?! Do you know how much worse it would have been for all of us if you were the one lying in a hospital bed, powerless?"

"It wouldn't be worse for Ron, would it?" he demanded, his anger at the situation finally bubbling to the surface. "I'm sick and tired of being the one everyone else makes sacrifices for. My parents, Sirius, Dumbledore, Ron…"

"And if you could ask any of them if they would do it all over again, they would say 'yes' in a heartbeat," Hermione interrupted, her voice sounding slightly exasperated. "Harry, you can't blame yourself for what happened to them. They made their own choices and they chose to put their lives on the line for yours." Her voice grew eerily quiet. "It's the same decision I would have made."

"Don't say that!" Harry exclaimed. The idea of losing Ron was harrowing enough, but the possibility of Hermione giving up her life for his was unthinkable. She had such a bright future ahead of her and the notion of it being cut short nearly paralyzed him. "I couldn't stand to lose you, Hermione. I…I don't know what I'd do without you."

"I think our last year at Hogwarts was a pretty good indication of what you'd do without me," Hermione replied evenly, her impassive face revealing nothing of her emotions.

Harry winced. In his fifth year at Hogwarts, whether he had wanted to admit it to himself or not, Hermione Granger had become the most important person in his life. In his sixth year, however, that had changed. When it came to learning new spells and help with his schoolwork, he had used the Half-Blood Prince book whenever possible. His renewed trust in Albus Dumbledore as a friend and mentor made the late Hogwarts Headmaster the person he turned to for advice and counsel. And although he had refused to place Cho Chang above Hermione in importance when he had been dating the older Ravenclaw girl, he was only too willing to make Ginny Weasley the most significant girl in his life.

But what had come of it? The Half-Blood Prince, who Harry had once believed to be his father, turned out to be Severus Snape, the wizard he loathed more than anyone else in the world. Snape had murdered Dumbledore, effectively beheading the Order of the Phoenix and depriving Harry of his greatest shelter from the storm that was enveloping the wizarding world. His time with Ginny Weasley now seemed only a distant memory, a reflection of a life that he could have lived, had things gone differently for him.

As Harry found himself looking directly into Hermione's eyes, he felt incredibly foolish. He could never have truly replaced her in his life, not with a book nor a mentor nor a girlfriend. There was a bond between them that had not broken, despite being tested time and again. Whatever the reasons for the distance between them over the last year, they now seemed to have disappeared, like a brief squall on a normally calm sea. "I guess I was a bit thick last year," Harry finally admitted, shooting Hermione a look of sincerity.

"You weren't the only one," Hermione confessed in a soft voice. "I spent so much time telling myself that I couldn't let you be the most important thing in my life anymore, that I had to get over…" She stopped abruptly, as if she were afraid to reveal something vital. "I thought it would be for the best, but…Harry, I've never felt so lost."

Harry nodded knowingly. "I felt that way, too," he told Hermione breathlessly.

A frown of concern wrinkled Hermione's brow. "You're not going to try and go it alone, are you? After you went to Grimmauld Place to find Slytherin's locket without telling us, I thought maybe you wanted to keep looking for the horcruxes on your own."

"Well, I did destroy two of them without any help, you know," Harry pointed out, although his face had broken out in a silly grin.

"Yes," Hermione admitted indulgently, "and you nearly died both times. You had to be saved by a phoenix and a house elf."

Harry smiled down at her winningly. "That's why I don't brag about it more often." Hermione chuckled a bit in spite of herself. "Seriously, Hermione, I'm not going to go charging off on my own, waving my wand around and yelling 'Accio horcrux'. I need a plan. I need a strategy. I need you."

And, with some small measure of surprise, Harry realized that he did need Hermione, much more than he had ever admitted to himself before. What was perhaps even more surprising was that he liked needing her. He enjoyed having her there for him when nobody else was.

"Do you really?" Hermione asked skeptically. She was examining Harry curiously, as though something might appear on his forehead to accompany his lightning bolt-shaped scar.

"Of course I do," Harry assured her as he squeezed her right arm with his left hand. In the back of his mind, he knew that if he followed the same reasoning that he had when he ended things with Ginny, he should insist on leaving her behind; that if the truth were known he would be more devastated if Hermione were to die than if Ginny did. However, his feelings for Hermione did not make him want to push her away for her own protection, but rather made him long to hold her to him closely and keep her safe. Harry didn't give much thought as to why this was so.

"Well, then," Hermione began with a small smile, "I suppose we have horcruxes to find."

Harry quirked an eyebrow. "Are you sure you're up to it? Because there isn't going to be anyone else helping us. Not anymore. No Dumbledore. No Ron. Just us."

Hermione gingerly wrapped her fingers around one of Harry's bandaged hands. "'Just us' is alright with me, Harry," she told him with a confident look in her eyes. Harry felt a wave of gratitude wash over him. He was extraordinarily lucky to have her as his friend. As he noticed how lovely she looked standing in front of the dreary evening sky, Harry wondered if Ron knew just how fortunate he was to have her as his girlfriend. "Although, maybe it wouldn't be so terrible if we told some of the members of the Order what we were up to? That way if anything else happened…"

Harry shook his head. "Everyone's safer if nobody else knows what we're doing."

Hermione scoffed. "Oh, honestly, Harry. We've already told Luna, I don't think there would be any harm in a few more people…"

"There you are. I've been looking all over for… you." Ginny Weasley's voice seemed to die in her throat as she took in the sight of Harry and Hermione standing so close together and holding hands. After taking a moment to compose herself, she continued on unabashedly. "Listen, Harry, I'm coming with you. I know you still think it's too dangerous, but if you'd just give me a chance to prove myself…"

Harry considered telling her that he hadn't changed his mind about taking her along, or that he was still angry with her for what she had said to Hermione. But before he had a chance to do any of those things, he was temporarily blinded by the glare of a flashbulb. "Agh!" Harry exclaimed as he covered his eyes a moment too late.

When he opened his eyes again, Harry watched as a blurry image he assumed to be Hermione peered intently back into the hallways of St. Mungo's. "Ginny, are those…?"

"Reporters," Ginny finished for her as she stood barring the door as best she could. "They've been swarming around for over an hour, hoping to interview Harry."

"About what?" Harry demanded indignantly, trying in vain to clear his eyes.

Ginny's tone was fatigued. "What Snape did, how Ron's doing, whether or not Luna is your girlfriend, your favorite brand of toothpaste…they're not very picky, you know."

Hermione shot Harry an urgent look as several members of the wizarding press began pushing fervently against the glass doors leading out to the balcony. "We can't stay here, Harry. We're going to have to apparate." As he nodded his agreement, she grabbed his arm and pulled it quickly around her waist. "Hold on."

"No, wait," Ginny cried as Harry and Hermione began to apparate away. "Don't leave without…" They vanished. Ginny moved away from the door in defeat, letting a stream of confused reporters rush past her. "…me."

The next chapter is called "Mr. and Mrs. Pot Ranger". Here's a teaser:

ITL

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