Unofficial Portkey Archive

Notes:

The dream unfolded as it had a hundred times before. Harry was in his parents' house. The Potters were enjoying a quiet evening meal, secure in the knowledge that their newly-engaged Fidelius Charm had hidden them safely away from those who would harm them and their son. A light knock sounded on the door, and James rose easily from the table with a promise to his wife that he would dispatch whoever it was with polite finality.

Since they were living in a Muggle neighborhood with nary another wizard for miles around, James and Lily had fallen into the habit of dressing in Muggle attire. James, being wizard-born, was decidedly less adept at this subterfuge than was his Muggle-born wife. But Lily was a patient teacher (indeed, when things settled down a bit and they were able to live a more or less normal life again, she intended to pursue a career in teaching), and as James approached the front door it was with full confidence that whomever he met would not guess that either he or his wife were anything but the Muggles they gave every appearance of being.

With a tricky movement of his wand, James removed the Locking Charm from the door and slid back the bolt, quickly hiding his wand in the secret pocket of his slacks. He reached for the doorknob...

Harry had witnessed this scene more times than he cared to remember, and it never varied by so much as a centimeter. Until now.

Harry always observed these seminal events in his life as a dispassionate third party, a disembodied ghost hovering at the periphery of the stage that was his dream-vision. But now, as he watched his father reach out to turn the doorknob, there was a silent flash, as of heat lightning. The scene dissolved in blinding whiteness. Harry blinked his eyes once, twice. Color and form quickly coalesced once again into the familiar parlor of the Potter house. But this time there was a difference. Instead of watching his father open the door to admit the wizard who would become his and his wife's murderer, Harry found himself staring out through eyes other than his own. The hand that reached out to grasp and turn the doorknob was attached to his arm! No longer an unseen observer in a phantom gallery, Harry was suddenly thrust into the role of the principle player in this too-familiar drama.

Harry felt the smooth, cold metal as his fingers closed on the knob, heard and felt the faint click of the tumblers. Cool October air rushed through the crack that appeared as he pulled the door back. Harry tried to stop himself from completing the action, but his hand would not obey him. He tried to cry out, but no sound came. Looking out helplessly through his father's eyes, Harry opened the door and found himself staring full into the face of Lord Voldemort!

Harry tried to slam the door as he reached for his wand to reactivate the Locking Charm, but Voldemort was too fast. The Dark Lord burst into the antechamber, his wand pointing at Harry's heart.

"Who is it, James?" Lily called out pleasantly from the dining room.

Drawing his wand in a blur of speed, Harry called over his shoulder, "Lily, take Harry and go! It's him! I'll hold him off - "

Harry heard the sound of a chair clattering to the floor as his mother bolted from the table and into her son's room. He backed up slowly, his eyes fixed on those of his - and the wizarding world's - greatest foe. Fear coursed through him like ice water. He sent an attacking spell at Voldemort, but the Dark Lord brushed it aside as if he were swatting a mosquito. James/Harry did not run. It was imperative that he give Lily time to escape with their son.

"There is no escape from this house," Voldemort hissed, divining his opponent's thoughts. "Not for you...nor for your son."

Harry trembled with fear, both his and his father's.

"Then you'll have to kill me, Voldemort," Harry said in a steely voice. "Because the only way you'll touch my wife and son is over my lifeless body."

Voldemort's flinty eyes flashed with mingled amusement and disapproval upon hearing his name spoken aloud. Those with the temerity to address He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named to his face could be counted on the fingers of one hand. Those who so dared did so at their peril.

"I expected nothing less from Dumbledore's most faithful lapdog," Voldemort said. He thrust his wand forward so quickly that Harry had no time to fling himself aside. "Avada Kedavra!"

A burst of green light enveloped Harry. The world went black.

Light returned almost instantly. Harry felt himself rising, as if he were floating on his broomstick. But no, there was a gentle pressure enfolding him. He was being drawn upward in the gentle but firm grip of a pair of hands. His mother's hands. Harry tried to speak, but only gibberish came out. He was himself, Harry, again. But the eyes through which he surveyed his mother's terror-stricken face were those of baby Harry, whose tiny body Lily held protectively against her bosom.

Harry saw his mother's face tense, as if in concentration. He knew what must be happening. Lily was trying to Apparate herself and her son out of the house and away from Voldemort. Her inability to accomplish this filled her with a mixture of confusion and terror. She did not know of the barrier erected around the house by the Dark Lord. She only knew that she could not escape. Panic blazed like green fire in her eyes. Harry felt himself being lowered back into his crib. His mother drew her wand, which shook slightly in her slender hand.

A footstep sounded in the doorway. Lily spun about, standing protectively between Voldemort and her son. She raised her wand, but Harry saw that it was merely a reflex action. Her body language revealed that her defensive stance was but a pose. She knew she was no match for Voldemort. As did Voldemort himself. Abandoning pointless bravado, Lily did what any mother would have done - had done a million times before in the text of history's endless tapestry - when faced with the threat of harm to her child: She begged.

"Not Harry! Not Harry! Please - I'll do anything - "

"Stand aside," Voldemort said in a tone of mingled irritation and impatience, as of one brushing an annoying insect from the rim of his wine-goblet. "Stand aside, girl!"

Like her husband before her, Lily did not, could not, yield. To save her own life at the price of her son's did not so much as flicker across her thoughts. From his vantage point in his crib, Harry almost thought he saw Voldemort shake his head wearily as he pointed his wand.

It was then that the most curious thing of all happened. As he stared with unblinking eyes at the terrible scene about to unfold, Harry saw the outline of his mother change subtly. Her tall, slender figure diminished. Her flaming red hair dulled to an inanimate brown, its sheen giving way to a bushy fullness. Harry screamed as a burst of green light filled his vision.

"NO! DON'T KILL HER! DON'T - "

"Harry!"

Hands were gripping Harry's robes, shaking him frantically. His eyes flew open, staring up at the ceiling. For a moment he could not remember where he was.

"Harry!" Hermione repeated. "Wake up!"

Harry sat straight up in bed. He felt cold dampness on his forehead. He was trembling.

"You had the dream again, didn't you?" Hermione said quietly.

"Yes," Harry said numbly, blinking his eyes. The room was a blur. He had set his glasses on the night table when he and Hermione curled up for their kip on the narrow bed. He thought fleetingly of reaching for them, but he abandoned the notion. Enhancing the clarity of his outward vision might serve to likewise sharpen the images still burning in his mind, and that was the last thing he wanted - especially that last, terrible vision of Voldemort striking down the woman who was worth more to him than the life in his own body. Instead he turned toward Hermione, whose worry was evident even through the fog of his diminished eyesight. "It was different this time," he said.

"Different how?"

Harry swallowed dryly. "It was…it was like the dreams I had in Fifth Year - the ones where I could see through other people's eyes. One minute I was watching it happen, just like always. Then, all of a sudden, I was seeing it through my dad's eyes. And when Voldemort killed my dad, everything shifted again, only this time I was looking through the eyes of my one-year-old self. I watched it all - I felt it all, as if it was happening to me."

"How dreadful," Hermione said soothingly.

"There's more," Harry said. He'd considered for a moment withholding this last detail, but the spark of the notion had died before it could be kindled to flame. He had wasted too much time - caused too much death and destruction - keeping secrets from those he loved and who loved him. No more. "At the end," he said as Hermione pressed close to him comfortingly, "when Voldemort killed my mum…she…" Harry felt his throat tightening as if he were choking on dust. "She turned into you."

Hermione emitted a gasp of astonishment and shared anguish. "It was only a dream," she said reassuringly, her hands sliding down Harry's arms to give his fingers a reassuring squeeze. "It wasn't real."

"Not now," Harry said. "But what about tomorrow? Next week?"

Harry pulled Hermione into a crushing hug, his hands tangling in her bushy hair.

"I can't lose you, too," he murmured into her ear. "Voldemort is going to kill my parents all over again tonight. Soon, Sirius will be sent to Azkaban, only to escape and die at the Ministry. You're all I have left."

Hermione's arms tightened around Harry as she said, "Nothing is going to separate us. We're a part of each other. Nothing will ever separate us."

"I wish I could believe that," Harry choked. "I never knew I could love someone as much as I love you. Even the thought of losing you..."

Harry began to kiss Hermione's hair, in which his hands remained tangled. His kisses moved down her cheek until he felt the softness of her lips. They kissed feverishly, hungrily, the world dissolving around them until they were the only people in the whole of Creation. Harry's kisses moved slowly downward, over Hermione's throat, down her neck. They were both gasping for breath when Harry pulled back suddenly. Hermione's eyes formed the question which her lungs had no breath to voice.

"If I don't stop now," Harry said breathlessly, "I might not be able to later."

A long, electric silence hung between the two of them before Hermione said very softly: "Don't stop."

Harry stared incredulously. Surely Hermione did not mean what he thought she did?

"This isn't the time or the place," Harry said, the regret in his voice palpable.

"Will there ever be a 'right time' or a 'right place?'" Hermione said. "Our world has changed forever. We woke up this morning in a safe, happy world, surrounded by friends and family, making plans for a long and wonderful life together. Now, thanks to Voldemort - and Malfoy - that world is lost to us forever. Everyone we love is, or will be, dead, or lost to us in any of a hundred other ways. If I showed up on my parents' doorstep right now and told them I was their daughter, all grown up and hurled back in time from 1997, they'd think I was mad. And who could blame them?

"Our plans for the future all went up the Floo with the Dust of Set. For us, the old cliché is true. It really is just you and me against the world. And given the challenges we face if we're to salvage something good out of so much wickedness, we can't hope to succeed unless we're completely united...in every way."

Harry detached his hands from Hermione's hair and caressed her tangled locks tenderly.

"Are you absolutely sure? We always said we should wait until we're husband and wife - that our union would have more meaning if - "

"As far as I'm concerned," Hermione said, her lips curving into a trembling smile, "we've been husband and wife since the day we placed these rings on each other's fingers. I made a promise to myself that day to love you, and stand by you, no matter how hard the path we had to walk. It doesn't matter that I didn't say the words aloud. God heard me. Nothing else matters."

"I made that promise long before we exchanged rings," Harry said, his eyes embracing Hermione's.

The two lovers melted together in a warm, loving kiss. Harry felt Hermione's heartbeat, hummingbird-quick, against his chest. His own was scarcely a beat behind.

"I always thought we'd be on a secluded beach in the Caribbean," Harry said. "Or maybe in a lavish honeymoon suite in the grandest hotel in Paris. I never pictured us - you know - in a cold, cramped room above the Leaky Cauldron."

"The 'where' doesn't matter," Hermione said. "Only the 'who.'"

His hands caressing Hermione's face and neck longingly, Harry asked haltingly, "Is it...safe?"

Smiling appreciatively, Hermione said, "The moment we exchanged rings, I went straight to Madam Pomfrey and had her teach me the Contraceptive Charm. The truth is, I didn't know how long I'd be able to hold out." A flush spread across Hermione's cheeks, which phenomenon was reflected a moment later on Harry's face.

His eyes welded to hers, Harry slid his hands under Hermione's hair and fumbled for the tie at the back of her robes. On the Quidditch pitch, Harry's hands were always quick and sure, deft and smooth and unfaltering in the accomplishing of their assigned task. Now, as he loosened the neck of Hermione's robes and slowly drew the material forward, he was shaking as if beset by a contagion. His hands slid over her milk-white shoulders, which were so soft that they took his breath away.

"I haven't been this scared," he laughed nervously, "since the Chamber of Secrets."

"Don't worry," Hermione said, her own hands shaking slightly as she loosened the neck of Harry's robes. "Unlike the basilisk, I don't bite.

"That is," she added with a feral gleam in her eye, "unless you want me to."

Harry felt as if he were floating in a warm ocean of utter tranquility. Hermione's warm body was pressed against his. Her face was buried in the hollow of his shoulder, her hot breath on his skin. If this were but another dream, Harry decided, he never wanted to wake up. He ran his hands up and down the curve of her back, savoring her softness unhurriedly.

"Knut for your thoughts," Hermione mumbled as she trailed moist kisses along Harry's neck and shoulder.

"If I'd known it would be that good," Harry said earnestly, "I'd have tried to get into your knickers ages ago."

"Funny," Hermione said as she turned her head and pressed her cheek against Harry's chest, "I was thinking pretty much the same thing."

Harry hugged Hermione as if he never wanted to let her go. He reveled in the feel of her skin against his. Though he had never experienced the effects of alcohol, he thought he knew now what it must be like to be intoxicated. He felt Hermione - his love, now become his lover and wife - flowing through him like a drug. It was an addiction from which he never wanted to wean himself. He doubted that were even possible. Using his right hand (his left being otherwise engaged in appreciating his new wife's feminine charms under the blankets), Harry thrust his pillow up against the brass headboard and struggled into a sitting position. Hermione remained prone, her face now pillowed upon her husband's smooth, flat stomach.

"How are we going to leave the country?" Harry asked suddenly, surprising Hermione so that her head shot up.

"I don't know if I should praise your pragmatism," she said with a wry smile, "or Curse you for thinking so rationally with a naked woman pressed against you."

"Well," Harry said reasonably, "if we don't decide now, we'll have to spend another night here. Merlin only knows what Tom's saying about us downstairs right now."

"Only now it's the truth," Hermione giggled. Looking up, she saw her knickers draped over the bedpost, where they had sailed as if with a mind of their own upon being tossed aside by Harry. She giggled again.

"I hope Tom wasn't just winding me up about that Silencing Charm," Harry said seriously. "If I'd known you'd be so...vocal...I'd have held back a bit."

"I always suspected you were a bit of an animal," Hermione said with a feline gleam in her eyes. "And if it comes to that, it wasn't only me making the windows rattle."

"That was your doing," Harry said as he ran his fingers cautiously over the fresh teeth marks indenting his shoulders and neck like a crimson necklace.

"I did warn you," Hermione said, baring her perfect teeth as she raked her tongue along their serrated edges provocatively.

Giving Hermione's bum an appreciative squeeze with his hidden left hand, Harry said, "So, how are we getting to America?"

Hermione sat up next to Harry, the blanket slipping down around her waist. The chill air in the room made her shiver, and Harry, seeing this, drew her close.

"We can't possibly stay overnight, you know," she said regretfully as she snuggled against Harry, drawing comfort from his warmth. "We need to be gone as soon as possible." She paused for a moment, her mouth curling thoughtfully. "The Floo is out, of course. Even if we could scrape up some powder, Britain doesn't have an international link yet. The Ministry was only just implementing that in our time."

"We can buy a couple of broomsticks from Quality Quidditch Supplies," Harry suggested. "I know you don't like to fly, but that may be our best option."

"Yes," Hermione agreed. "Another possibility is by Muggle aeroplane. We don't have any documentation, but a few well-placed Memory Charms should get us through Customs."

"If we're leaving," Harry now thought to ask, "what do we do about my - I mean our vault?"

Hermione gave Harry a mildly exasperated look. "We'll have to leave it, of course."

"Leave it?" Harry said in surprise. "Why?"

Sighing much as she did when Harry or Ron failed to understand a homework assignment she had explained to them repeatedly, she said, "When we thought we were in the future, the gold rightly belonged to you. But here in the past, everything still belongs to your parents. Think about it. When - when they die - everything they own will sit in their vault until their son - you - receives his Hogwarts letter and learns he's a wizard. What's the first thing you and Hagrid did when he took you to Diagon Alley that first time?"

"We went to Gringotts to get some money to buy my school supplies," Harry said.

"Exactly! If we take your parents' money away with us, what will the other Harry Potter use during his seven years at school? Can you imagine asking the Dursleys for money to buy spell books and potion ingredients?"

Harry had imagined that very scene, in fact. At best, his aunt and uncle would have laughed in his face. At worst, they'd have chucked him back in his broom cupboard and flushed the key down the loo.

"So, what are we going to do for money?" Harry asked reasonably. "We can't hang about long enough to earn any. You said yourself that the sooner we leave, the better."

"That's true," Hermione admitted. "I suppose we'll have to take a small bag, just to tide us over. That shouldn't deplete your parents' reserves to any degree. We can make more detailed plans after we've reached our destination."

"And how are we going?" Harry repeated the question Hermione had not yet answered. Hermione thought a moment before speaking.

"It may be better not to go by aeroplane. The more I think on it, the more I'd prefer that our presence not be documented by Muggle authorities. I think your vault can spare enough gold to buy a couple of second-hand brooms without adversely affecting the whole. We can enter North America on the quiet and go straight to their version of the Ministry of Magic - we know there are wizards in America, we saw them at the Quidditch World Cup. If they know anything about what it's been like here in the shadow of Voldemort, I'm sure they'll grant us sanctuary. I doubt we'll have been the first to leave Britain to get away from Death Eaters. Yes, that's what we'll do - what are you smiling about?"

"If we're going by broom," Harry said, his smile drawing back into a repressed grin, "I think I just won my first argument as a married man."

"Enjoy it while you can," Hermione said with mock coolness. "One victory does not a war win."

Hermione's phrasing struck her at the same moment as it did Harry. She took Harry's face in her hands.

"Voldemort may win today's battle. But we'll win the war."

"Together," Harry said.

They shared a warm, tender kiss, clinging to each other with a gentle relentlessness, as if affirming to themselves and to the world that they were, now and forever, one, inseparable.

"You know," Harry said as he playfully snatched his new wife's knickers from the bedpost and flung them over her head, "'cementing a relationship' takes a lot out of a bloke. You feeling peckish?"

"I could eat a Blast-Ended Skrewt," Hermione said as she flung the blanket back and drew her knickers up her smooth legs. "Stinger and all."

Pulling on his briefs, Harry bent and picked up Hermione's shoes and socks. He handed them to her as he caught up his own and sat back on the bed.

"Now that we're officially 'married,'" Harry said as he pulled on his socks, "we won't have any secrets between us, right?"

"Of course," Hermione said as she pulled on her shoes.

"So tell me," Harry said as he fumbled with the knot on his shoelace, "what was all that about with the butterbeer cap?"

"Oh," Hermione said slowly. "That."

"It sounded like it was something important," Harry said as he sat back, looking unintentionally comical wearing only shoes and briefs.

Hermione sighed and sat close to Harry. "There was a...a chance...a small one...that we could still get to Hogsmeade in time to warn Dumbledore. I didn't want to say anything. I was afraid to get your hopes up, especially when it all came to naught."

"What does a butterbeer cap have to do with going to Hogsmeade?" Harry said, clearly puzzled by Hermione's reasoning.

Choosing her words carefully, Hermione said, "There's...more than one way to enchant a portkey." Harry came alert instantly. "The standard procedure is the way I explained already," Hermione began. "That sort of portkey can go anywhere the enchanter chooses. But there's another type of portkey. It's called a Rebound Portkey."

"What's the difference between the two?" Harry asked, his interest intensifying.

"As I said, a standard portkey can go anywhere its enchanter directs," Hermione said. "But a Rebound Portkey can only go where it wants to go. It's actually much easier to understand than it is to explain." She took a slow, deep breath and began: "Everything in the universe has a special aura…a signature all its own. I once saw a program on telly where the end of a leaf was cut off. When the remaining part was viewed under a special scanner, the missing end could still be seen as a sort of ghost-image, still attached to the original as if it had never been cut off. Even though the end was physically gone, the remainder remembered its missing part as if it was still there. Are you with me so far?"

Harry nodded, his mind fully focused on Hermione's words.

"If something - or even someone - occupies a place for long enough," Hermione said, "their auras sort of blend together. Place an object in a room, over time it becomes a part of that room. Later, if that object is removed from that space, it will 'remember' where it's been. No matter how far away it's taken, it will still be connected to the place where it used to be. And it's that connection that makes a Rebound Portkey possible. If that butterbeer cap sat on Ron's shelf long enough before he gave it to you, it will still be connected to the Burrow as though an invisible thread were strung from there to your pocket. And if I used the Portkey Charm on that cap, that thread would become an elastic band, snapping the cap back where it came from, and taking anyone touching the cap with it."

Harry's face burst with the light of understanding. "So, if that butterbeer cap had come from the Three Broomsticks, you could have Charmed it into a portkey that would take us back to the Three Broomsticks."

"Exactly," Hermione said. "From there we could have run straight to Hogwarts and told Dumbledore everything. But as it came from the Burrow - "

"But since it did come from the Burrow," Harry said, "couldn't we have gone there instead? Asked the Weasleys for help?"

"I knew you'd have suggested that if I said something then," Hermione said sadly. "But there are a number of reasons why that wouldn't work. For one, the Weasleys don't know the Potters. They weren't original members of the Order of the Phoenix with Lily and James, remember. Even if you passed yourself off as your father, they wouldn't know James Potter from Morgan Le Fay. Like as not Arthur would truss us up and take us to the Ministry, probably hand us over to Magical Law Enforcement wizards for interrogation."

Harry was forcibly reminded of the underground chamber wherein sat the special interrogation chair with the magical chains, shuddering as he imagined them leaping up to fasten themselves around his wrists as they had done with Barty Crouch and Igor Karkaroff...and Bellatrix Lestrange.

"By the time they let us off - " Hermione concluded, " - if they ever did - it would be too late.

"But we still night have tried it," she said quickly as she saw the repressed anxiety in Harry's eyes, "except that there's another, less amorphous, reason it wouldn't have worked. You know that the Burrow is surrounded by a magical barrier so that only the Weasley family can come and go freely."

"Like the one Voldemort placed around my parents' house," Harry said grimly. "The one only he could pass through."

"Precisely," Hermione said. "Ron was showing you his collection up in his room, wasn't he? That's where he keeps his Chocolate Frog card collection, so it seems reasonable to assume that his bottle cap collection is there, too." Harry responded with a grudging nod. "So it wouldn't have mattered either way," Hermione said with quiet finality.

"What would've happened if we'd tried anyway?" Harry persisted.

"We'd have bounced off the barrier like a quaffle off a stone wall," Hermione said.

"Bounced where?" Harry asked, unsure he wanted to hear the answer.

"Presumably, to wherever the cap had been previously," Hermione said. "Since Ron gave you the cap over the holidays, I'm guessing he didn't buy the butterbeer in Hogsmeade."

"No," Harry said. "He bought it right here in Diagon Alley on a family shopping trip. He told me."

"So in the end, we'd have bounced right back here where we started," Hermione shrugged. "Except that the place where he bought the butterbeer almost certainly has its own wards. That being the case, we'd have bounced yet again, and this time there's no telling where we've have ended up. But when we finally did land, it wouldn't have been pleasant, that I can guarantee. When a proper portkey arrives at its destination, it sort of 'downshifts' so the landing is relatively smooth. But if it's redirected to another destination, the spell is skewed and the results are unpredictable. The more detours, the worse it gets. And, of course, it goes without saying that we couldn't have used the school items in our pockets to go back to Hogwarts. We addressed that earlier.

"And even if the cap had been from the Three Broomsticks," Hermione shook her head with a weary sigh, "I'm not sure that the time difference wouldn't have thrown a spanner in the works. After all, that cap is from sixteen years in the future. The aura surrounding a building remains essentially the same, so it might have worked. If the cap had been from Hogsmeade, it would've been worth a try, I suppose. We'll never know, will we?"

Harry nodded mechanically. He did not resent Hermione for keeping this from him. He understood that certain things were better left unsaid if they had the potential to do more harm than good. Though he disliked the idea of keeping secrets - especially now that he and Hermione were essentially husband and wife - he understood that she had acted out of love and not selfishness. He could not help but love her more for that. And when he finally asked her outright, the fact that she did not hesitate to answer him directly, making no attempt to dissemble, was the final proof in his eyes. He himself might find numerous occasions in the future to withhold something from Hermione that would cause her pain. There was no question that he would do anything in his power to spare her either physical or emotional hurt. He hoped that, under similar circumstances, he would be as forthright with her as she had just been with him. He owed her that much, at the very least.

Lost in his thoughts, Harry looked down at his Bonding Ring and smiled, feeling his love for Hermione warming him despite the chill of the waning day (and his pronounced lack of clothing, of which he was now keenly aware).

Suddenly Harry shot up as if stung by a bee, his hand darting up to clutch at his neck. Without warning, he leaped from the bed like an uncoiling spring, startling Hermione, who was pulling her heavy slip over her head before fetching her robes from where they hung over the back of the chair.

"For Merlin's sake, Harry!" she scolded teasingly as she tugged her slip straight and reached for her robes. "If I didn't know we were the only two people in the room, I'd have grabbed my wand and stunned you purely from reflex."

"I'll remember that the next time I get the urge to sneak up behind you and play peek-a-boo," Harry grinned. Then his face grew serious. "Sit down. I have something very important to tell you. And show you."

"I'd be able to take you more seriously," Hermione smirked as her eyes scanned (with undisguised approval) Harry's near-naked form, "if you were wearing your robes."

"All will be explained," Harry said as he took Hermione's hand and sat her down on the bed next to him. Harry took Hermione's hands in his, running his thumb over her Bonding Ring meaningfully. "When we were planning our wedding - it seems like it was only this morning - " ( Hermione rolled her eyes at Harry's attempted levity) " - we planned a wizard ceremony at the Burrow."

"Of course," Hermione said, wondering where Harry was going.

"You'll remember I said we had a lot in common with my parents," Harry said. "I engaged Madam Malkin so we could begin our new life the same way my parents did, hoping we could emulate their success and their happiness. And I don't have to tell you that you and my mum share the distinction of being Muggle-born."

"It's a good thing you didn't opt for a career as a lecturer," Hermione observed dryly.

"What?" Harry said.

"Get on with it," Hermione commanded through a toothy grin.

"Right," Harry said, hiding an embarrassed grin with something less than complete success. "Well, um, my dad knew that my mum was still rooted in the Muggle world, at least in part. So he thought he could show her how much he loved her by marrying her in a Muggle ceremony after they got married wizard-fashion. And that meant...a wedding ring."

Releasing Hermione's hands, Harry reached up and touched his throat, his lips forming the words of a hushed incantation. Hermione squeaked in surprise as a fine gold chain appeared around Harry's neck, hugging his throat snugly as a choker. As she watched in silent wonder, Harry unclasped the chain and dangled it from his fingers. Hermione now saw that an object was suspended from the chain. Harry slid this off the chain and held it out meaningfully.

"A wedding ring?" Hermione gasped, her eyes round and shining like two polished Knuts.

"We may never get to have a Muggle ceremony," Harry said. "But I hope you'll wear it anyway. Maybe someday, when this is all behind us, we can turn up on your parents' doorstep and you can show it to them - if only to prove that wizards can be civilized on occasion."

Harry took Hermione's hand in his and slid the ring onto her finger. The fit was perfect. She looked up, her eyes misting with tears.

"It's the most beautiful thing I've ever seen," she choked. "Now I really feel like a married woman."

They came together in a deep, passionate kiss, Hermione's hands playing along Harry's bare back and shoulders. As their lips parted, Hermione's fingers moved along Harry's neck, her lips slowly pursing in an expression Harry had come to know well.

"Yes, Miss Granger?" Harry said in a sharp imitation of Professor McGonagall's crisp Scottish burr. Then, in his normal voice: "Or should I say, Mrs. Potter?"

"You were wearing this around your neck all the time?" Hermione asked. Harry nodded, flashing a knowing smile. "But I didn't feel - " She cut herself off, her cheeks beginning to burn. Harry laughed. During their passionate encounter, Hermione's lips and tongue had missed not a square centimeter of Harry's skin, from the soles of his feet clear up to his lightning scar. The bite marks surrounding his neck were uniform, their pattern undiverted by the ring and chain just revealed.

"Concealment Charm," Harry said with a satisfied smile. "Professor Flitwick gave me top marks. Now you know what I was doing while you were in the hospital wing learning the Contraceptive Charm."

Hermione smiled appreciatively. She knew that the Concealment Charm (a very difficult spell, N.E.W.T. standard) had distinct advantages over a simple Disillusionment Charm, or even invisibility. An object enchanted with a Concealment Charm was magically bonded to a host, and so long as it remained in physical contact with that host, it would be completely intangible. That explained why Harry had the chain fastened around his neck so snugly. With both ring and chain in full contact with his body, it would be as if they did not exist, an encirclement of invisible smoke felt only by Harry himself.

"It fits perfectly," Hermione said as Harry pulled his T-shirt over his head and bent to pick up his robes (which, unlike Hermione, he had carelessly tossed onto the floor in a timeless gesture of masculinity spanning both wizard and Muggle worlds). "Did you buy it in Hogsmeade or in Diagon Alley? It can't be Muggle-made - it fits so well, there has to be magic involved."

"Right on the last one," Harry said as he pulled his robes over his head and tied them behind his neck (which felt strangely naked without the familiar pressure of the ring and chain he had worn for so long). "It's Charmed to fit whatever finger it's on. But I didn't buy it in Hogsmeade or Diagon Alley. In fact, I didn't buy it at all."

"You didn't?" Hermione said as she held the ring up to the fading light straining to penetrate the curtained window. "Then where did you get it?"

"From Sirius," Harry said. He lowered his voice respectfully as he elaborated: "It was my mum's."

"Your mum's?" Hermione said in a ghostly voice. "But...but how...your mum was...I mean...the house..."

"The house was destroyed by Voldemort," Harry nodded. "Or, more precisely, it was destroyed by the backlash of the spell that bounced off of me and devastated Voldemort's body. I got the whole story from Sirius when I got the ring. When he arrived at the house, hoping to get there before Wormtail's betrayal had borne fruit, he found the house a collapsed ruin. Hagrid had just pulled me out of the wreckage. My parents were still in the house, lying where they fell, my dad in the parlor, my mum next to my crib."

"Hagrid didn't move them?" Hermione said in mild surprise.

"No time," Harry said. "It was more important to get me out first. Hagrid still apologizes to me every now and then, whenever he drinks too much and starts reliving that night." Harry paused to reflect that he must break himself of speaking of such things in the present tense. "I kept telling him there's nothing to forgive," he resumed. "I know he didn't love them any less because he had to leave them behind until the Ministry of Magic sent someone to collect them. Just the opposite, he loved them so much that he felt it was his first duty to their memory to see to my safety first, so their deaths wouldn't be for nothing.

"So, when Sirius turned up, and Hagrid refused to disobey Dumbledore's orders to deliver me to the Dursleys, Sirius gave Hagrid his motorcycle to take me safely away. Hagrid thought Sirius was simply being understanding, knowing that he couldn't Apparate and would have to take the Knight Bus to Little Whinging. But Sirius had another reason for getting Hagrid out of the way so quickly. As soon as Hagrid was gone, and before the Ministry wizards arrived, Sirius went into the house and took this ring from my mum's finger. He said she would have wanted me to have it, to give to whomever I married when I grew up. It would be something to remember her by...a way to keep her alive in my heart. And so it is."

"But Sirius went straight after Pettigrew," Hermione said blankly. "What did he do with the ring? Surely the Ministry would have confiscated it when they captured him?"

"When he went after Wormtail," Harry said solemnly, "Sirius knew he might not live to give the ring to me. He was determined to avenge his best friends' deaths or die trying. So, before he set off, he made a stop at Gringotts. He left the ring in his vault. It stayed there until his death. When I inherited Sirius' gold, I also inherited my mum's ring. It just took a bit longer to come to me."

A strange expression was now clouding Hermione's face. "There's something I don't understand," she said hesitantly. "You said you got the ring only two months ago. But you said you got the story from Sirius. How did..."

"How did Sirius tell me the story more than a year after he died," Harry said heavily. "Sirius had a lot of time on his hands while he was cooped up at Grimmauld Place. One of the things he did was make up a will. Dumbledore was the executor. It was decided that the house would go to Dumbledore, so he could continue to use it as the headquarters for the Order. He left the contents of his vault to me. I never meant to keep it a secret. I never brought it up because...just thinking about it reminds me of Sirius. Whenever I go to take something out of my vault, I see all that extra gold that wasn't there before, and I think how I'd give it all away, his and mine both, just to have him back.

"Anyway, when Dumbledore arranged to transfer Sirius' gold to my vault, he didn't tell me that there was something besides gold there - something he kept back."

"The ring," Hermione said.

"It was in a green envelope," Harry said. "Sirius left instructions that it be held for me until the time was right. Remember when Dumbledore called me away just after the Welcoming Feast? That's when he gave it to me."

"But you still haven't explained..." Hermione began, but all at once a light sprang into her eyes. "The envelope!" she exclaimed. "A green envelope! It must have been - "

"An Orate," Harry nodded with an approving smile. "Actually, I'd never even heard of it until Dumbledore explained to me what it was."

"An Orate is like a Howler," Hermione said, "but without the shouting."

"When Dumbledore told me who it was from," Harry said, "I almost didn't want to open it. I didn't know how I'd react, hearing Sirius' voice after so long. I sat up half the night, listening to Ron's snoring, before I finally broke the wax seal."

Harry's smile was strained, almost a grimace.

"Unlike a Howler, an Orate doesn't self-destruct after its message is delivered. The spell lasts for a while after the envelope is opened, like the rosettes at the Quidditch World Cup that called out the names of the Irish National team. I sat up all night, opening and closing the envelope, listening over and over as Sirius told the whole story of how he took the ring and saved it for me. Remember how you got on my wick for sleeping through all my classes that day - dishonoring my Head Boy badge and all? Now you know why I was so tired. Anyway, when you slipped off to the hospital wing to see Madam Pomfrey, I went straight to Flitwick and arranged for him to teach me the Concealment Charm. I didn't know how or when I'd be giving you the ring, but I wanted it to be safe as it could possibly be until then. I wasn't about to be separated from it for an instant."

"And you've worn it ever since," Hermione said in a distant, hollow voice.

Harry noticed all of a sudden that Hermione was trembling visibly, her left hand tightly clenched as the fingers of her right hand closed around it.

"What is it?" he asked.

"Time," Hermione muttered distractedly. "Time. Where's my watch?" She leaped upon the table, where her forgotten watch lay. She scooped it up and tilted its face to the light of the window.

"Hermione?" Harry said with growing alarm.

"It's nearly six," Hermione said hurriedly as she tugged the watch strap around her wrist. "It'll be close..."

"What are you talking about?" Harry said, raising his voice louder than he'd intended in his agitation.

"Harry," Hermione said breathlessly, "I think...I think we can do it."

"Do what?" Harry demanded.

"I think..." Hermione said slowly, pressing her dry lips together to moisten them, "...I think we might be able to save your parents."