Chapter Thirty-One
THE BOOK OF WARDS
"Oh, you," said Hermione, sighing as she reached back into the pen behind Hagrid's hut for Erinel. This was the third time she'd tried to put him back in with the other hursles but failed. He bark-hooted happily and squirmed about as she took him into her arms again and let him lick her face. "I just hate to leave you."
"Hermione," said Harry patiently, his hand at her waist. "Hagrid went in ages ago, and not to... er, rush you or anything, but... er, he seemed to be looking for some... er, alone time with Madame Maxime, and I don't quite... er, feel comfortable standing out here during that."
Hermione turned so quickly that he still had his hand on her waist-just on the other side. She looked from him to Erinel and said, "You know, I'm well aware that Harry hesitates often and even stutters some when he speaks, but that might be the most I've ever heard in one sentence." Erinel barked, and she stood on her toes to kiss Harry quickly. "But-point well taken."
"All right then," said Harry, leaning down to return her kiss. He cautiously patted Erinel's head; the hursle was now regarding him with an almost disdainful expression, probably jealous of Hermione's affection for him. He rolled his eyes. "We'll be going now, dog-horse-bird-thing, provided you'll allow me some time alone with your person."
Hermione turned toward the pen again, giggling. She kissed Erinel's feathery little head once more before setting him down in the pen. He whimpered, which made her flinch, but she didn't reach down for him again. Instead, Hermione just patted his head before turning to go with Harry.
"Two of my favorite guys," she said, grabbing Harry's hand while waving over her shoulder to Erinel, who had already stopped whimpering and joined again with his hursle friends.
"Not your two favorite guys?" Harry squeezed her hand as they headed back to the Hogwarts castle.
"Well," said Hermione, blushing, "yes. There's a lot of important `guys' in my life-you and Ron, Erinel and Crookshanks, my dad... Hagrid, even."
"But..." Harry couldn't help but ask, "am I your favorite?"
"Wouldn't you like to know?" said Hermione mysteriously, but the way she squeezed his hand and smiled gave him his answer. "So... what do you think of what Hagrid said about Clara?"
"Hmm... What Hagrid said about Clara?" Harry repeated. "I think he just told us what we already knew, didn't he? She was in love with Professor Lupin, she was friends with my parents, and she died too young."
"No, I meant his slip-up," said Hermione. "About the wards?"
Harry chuckled. "Hagrid's pretty prone to doing that, but... a book of wards? What shouldn't we know about that? She and some other students helped protect the castle. Wouldn't that be a good thing?"
"There's obviously something about it," said Hermione firmly. Harry looked at her skeptically, and she pressed on, "Harry, there has to be. Why else would Hagrid not want us to know of the book of wards?" She glanced at him in frustration. "Think back to first year-would it matter if we knew Dumbledore was friends with Nicholas Flamel unless there was something to hide from us there?"
"Point well taken," said Harry, grinning at her. He continued playfully, "So we're trying to figure out what we shouldn't know about some-Hermione?"
He had very nearly walked on without his girlfriend. It was apparently a good place to stop, halfway between Hagrid's hut and the castle. She wasn't blinking, and she didn't quite seem totally there, which scared Harry for some reason. He was about to say something when she scowled.
"You don't have to curse," said Hermione disapprovingly, and Harry didn't even get a chance to tell her he hadn't before her eyes widened. She tugged on his hand. "I think I've figured something out! Come on, Harry!"
Instead of having his arm yanked backwards, Harry felt himself being pulled forward so suddenly that he nearly fell. He scurried along with Hermione, curiously listening as she muttered things he only caught words from. "Charm... Clara... Bom... oooh, where's Ron?"
"Maybe our room..." Harry trailed off and stopped, forcing her to stop as well. "How about you telling me what you've just figured out?"
Hermione shook her head. "I don't know how to tell you, but if I'm right, I can show you."
"Can you at least tell me where we're going?"
"Back to Gryffindor," said Hermione. "And we'll probably need Ron... where is he?"
"I think he's in our room," Harry repeated, "but he could be with Anna."
"Classes are still in session for everyone but the fifth years for at least a few more minutes," said Hermione.
Harry snorted. "That's not likely to stop those two."
"Well, we'll deal with that when we get back to Gryffindor." Hermione was now walking briskly instead of running. "Okay, I guess I can try to explain it to you on the way, but you're going to have to help me."
"With what?"
"The book of wards, of course," said Hermione, her tone as brisk as her walk. "Okay, Hagrid mentioned an original book, remember? He also said that different students of the day helped with the revisions-your parents, Clara Lewick, and Sagesse Bom, among others. All Head Boys or Girls, right?"
"I remember," said Harry, "and you're right."
"Well, there would have been a Head Boy and Girl between Bom and Malfoy-"
"Malfoy?" Harry's nose turned up in disgust.
"Elena-the Hufflepuff," Hermione reminded him. Harry nodded thinking back to one of the detentions that had really gotten them into this. "There would have been a Head Boy and Girl between them and your parents. Don't you think they would have worked on the wards as well?"
"Probably," said Harry, bemused.
"That's four years of work on the wards then," said Hermione matter-of-factly, taking the stairs two at a time. "Plus the original work, of course, which was done in the thirteenth century. That's five people-well, five sets or groups, actually-that have worked on the wards. Five people, five sections! Don't you see?"
"Er... see what?" said Harry, stepping out of the stairwell behind her. They were fast approaching Gryffindor tower.
"Sagesse Bom's book!" said Hermione. "You know, the one we found in-oh, I told you that I needed to show you." They skidded to a halt in front of the Fat Lady's portrait. "Lion pride."
"That's right," said the Fat Lady, creaking on her hinges. "Don't you forget it!"
Harry waved to the portrait as he scrambled through the hole she concealed. "Hermione, do you want me-" she was already on the staircase "-to get Ron?"
"Get Ron!" Hermione called, apparently not having heard him. "Tell him what Hagrid had to say, and make sure he has the words to that charm!" She disappeared into the girls' dormitories.
"It's nice that no one's down here," Harry observed of the empty common room. Their year was the only one not in class, so that didn't leave so many people to be around. He headed quickly up the stairs to his dorm and very nearly collided with someone on his way down-Ron.
"That's one problem solved," Harry muttered, and the bell rang somewhere else in the school to signal the end of classes for the day.
"What?" Ron said. "Did you say something, mate?"
"Nothing important," said Harry, grinning. "Come on, Hermione needs you for something that I don't quite understand. We've been to see-"
"Oh good, you've found him!" said Hermione, rushing towards them. She slipped under Harry's arm and let him hold her there. She held something-a book-up in his line of vision. "See? Five sections!"
Harry ran his fingers down the block of stuck-together pages. The pages that had once seemed so seamlessly bound were as bound as ever, but Harry could see now that it was more messily so. It seemed to be slightly uneven in five places. The first part was half the pages, but the other four were closer to equal. It was Sagesse Bom's book.
"Er... well, as fascinating as this is," said Ron, sounding rather confused, "classes just let out for the weekend, and I'd like to find my girlfriend." He headed off in the direction of the portrait hole, but Hermione seized the back of his robes to keep him from going.
"We need you for a second," said Hermione.
"But Anna..." said Ron in a voice strangely reminiscent of a child in search of a lost pet.
"We need your help with something," said Harry. "This is Sa-"
"Clara Lewick's diary," said Hermione quickly, interrupting Harry.
"Oh, you want me to open it?" said Ron, still sounding rather distracted. He dipped into the pocket of his robes and fished out both his wand and a scrap of paper. He cleared his throat, took the book from Harry, and proceeded with Anna's rhyme and the incantation:
"Re'em hair and dragon hide,
Family name, family honor, family pride.
A secret message or special note, behold,
Speak incantation and it will unfold.
Dry Lydia's tears and remember Elaine,
For Lewicks rise above the pain.
Patefacius!"
"There you go," said Ron, passing a wide-eyed Hermione the now-open book. She and Harry shared a look; Ron hadn't seemed to think it anything unusual. "I'll just be with... you know, with Anna. Well... bye."
For a moment, Harry forgot about the mysterious book Hermione was holding. Still standing at the bottom of the boys' staircase, he turned to her. "Why'd you tell him it was one of Clara's diaries?"
"Did you see the way his eyes lit up when he mentioned Anna?" said Hermione, her eyes looking a bit misty. "He wouldn't have paid us any mind with her on the brain. We'll tell him about whatever we find at dinner. Prefect common room?"
"Huh? Oh yeah!" said Harry, putting his arm around her again as they headed towards it. He pressed his lips to her forehead in a sweet kiss, thinking to himself just how lucky he was.
They had no sooner entered the prefect common room that Harry found himself caught in one of Hermione's bone crushing hugs. She blushed when she pulled away from him.
"Sorry," said Hermione, sitting down on the couch. "I just can't believe we finally got that thing open!"
Harry flipped past Sagesse Bom's heavily glued in bookplate to the pages. He expected to see the names of spells-long ones that he probably wouldn't recognize-but there weren't any. Instead, symbols even less recognizable covered every part of the first two pages. He waited for Hermione to start flipping through the book. The next pages were the same, though, and the next. The first half seemed consistent of both hand and pen, but the next parts weren't so uniform.
"Er..." said Harry, "Hermione, do you... er, understand this? It's all a bunch of... lines and dots and stuff."
"I expected this," said Hermione, running a finger down a page. "It's written magic-an old wizard alphabet in which every character stood for a magical property. Spells were recorded as what they were capable of, not as they sound when spoken, like they are today. It was pretty common until the fifteenth century, but it's practically a lost art now."
"Okay," said Harry slowly. He could easily imagine Hermione stumbling over such a fact in a large and dusty book somewhere. He peered down again at the book in Hermione's lap. His eyes grew wide. "The symbols are moving! Are they supposed to be moving?"
He felt her hand close around his. "It is magic, Harry," said Hermione gently, "and yes, the symbols do move when being read. They're supposed to. That's one of the reasons wizards stopped writing spells like this. Knowing magic just to write it? For a first year or any other beginning student, that would certainly have been a challenge."
Harry glanced at her. "You understand this, don't you?"
"I can read some of it," said Hermione in a voice that told Harry not a single character didn't make sense to her. "We learned about it in Ancient Runes third year. It was so interesting that I did an extra credit project on it, and I've studied it ever since."
Harry dropped a kiss on the top of her head, knowing that she was blushing furiously. "That's my Hermione," he murmured. "Don't be embarrassed about being smart."
Hermione let him draw her closer, once again tracing a line down a page with her finger. "Do you see how its written, top to bottom instead of left to right?"
Sure enough, the symbols lined up in columns rather than rows. "So... they'd write spells like this but say them like we do?"
"Well, for most spells, they would," said Hermione, "but probably not these. When a spell is written by magical properties, one of two possible spells much finish it. The first makes it readable. The second does the same, but it also executes the written spell."
"Is there a way to tell which one is used?" said Harry. "Or is it even important?"
"Not so important, but I'd like to know. I can look up the incantation you'd use to feel for magical energy," said Hermione. "I'm fairly certain that the spells were executed from this book, though. Otherwise, the Head Boys and Girls would have just written out the spells to be put into place."
She began to flip through the book again, and this time Harry noticed things that he could understand. A few pages into the book's second half, he caught her hand and pointed out something scrawled into the margin. "There's something there."
"Hey Elena, check my symbols, will you? My fire is much too similar to my combustion," read Harry. He made a face. "Why would he need to know?"
Another note appeared several pages further. Hermione read this one. "Your fire is supposed to resemble combustion. It has three over-dots while combustion has two, though. You're doing it all right otherwise."
"Your guidance is always appreciated, my lady," read Harry. And, several pages later. "Hogsmead next weekend... what do you say? Go with me?"
Hermione laughed. "Let's see if your parents had anything to say to each other," she suggested. She flipped past the work done by the next Head Boy and Girl to the start of the fourth section, where a few lines had been inked on the very first pages. The script was very much like Harry's own.
"Hey Lily-love, what do you get when you cross a vampire with a mosquito?" James had written.
Hermione read Lily's response. "I'm not sure I care to know, James, but I'm sure you'll tell me anyway."
"You get a very itchy neck!"
"That might be the worst joke ever."
"Yeah, but it was awfully fun to make up. Padfoot and I wrote a whole list in detention last week."
"I wasn't even aware that you had a detention last week."
"Oh, well, you know how things go. We charmed ol' Sev's robes to flash `Slytherin Loser.' Probably shouldn't have done it in front of Professor Flitwick, although he did compliment on us because it was such a nice piece of magic."
"James, that is terrible! Poor Snape."
"`Poor Snape' lit my robes on fire after lunch that day, or did you miss the display?"
"You weren't hurt, were you?"
"Nah. Anyway, that's why we were writing vampire jokes."
"Vampire jokes? Why? Because you have it in your mind that he might just be a creature of the night?"
"Don't tell me the thought never occurred to you."
"Never once until Sirius mentioned it last year."
"Well, he is unnaturally pale, and I've never once seen him out in the daylight."
"Oh, well, do all those Quidditch matches and Hogsmead weekends not count?"
"Minor technicality, but if you want to go that way, there are other jokes."
"James, that really is disgusting. I'm stopping this now."
"Stopping what? You can't stop this, you don't know what you get when you cross a sleeping draught and ol' Sev's hair grease yet!"
Hermione flipped straight through the next few pages, all done by Lily, without seeing a single note from her to James. There was however, one from him in his next bit, which Harry read as he had been.
"Lily? I didn't mean to offend you with my Snape jokes. I'll even apologize to ol' Severus for transfiguring his hair into a mess of snakes yesterday if it means you'll talk to me again. I miss you, Lily-love."
"The flowers you sent me this morning were lovely, but I know full well you nicked them from the greenhouse last night. It was good of you to apologize to Snape after Potions, but the vampire jokes still weren't necessary. The Muggle candy kisses you went at dinner were tasty, but I'd much rather have a real kiss from you."
"I love you, Lily."
"I love you too, James."
"Marry me, then? After graduation?"
And, instead of a response the next time Lily worked on the wards, "I can't believe you proposed to me in a note scrawled in the margin of a book as part of a conversation that began with a joke about itchy necks."
"Hey, you didn't have to come dashing up to my room in your dressing gown to throw yourself at me and ask whether or not I was serious, and you didn't have to say yes, even then, although I would have been quite disappointed if you hadn't. And you act like it's just any book. Didn't you listen to Dumbledore? This is a very special book."
"I hadn't forgotten, but he said it much better than you did, which reminds me of something. Shouldn't we be working on the wards instead of writing back and forth in the margins? You are sitting about ten feet away from me, after all."
"Lily-love, you're taking all my fun away. What do you say to seven kids? I'm still sad that you shot down ten."
"James, I'm not even going to dignify that with a response."
"Three, then?"
Harry's arm tightened around Hermione. She squeezed his hand, and the rest of Lily and James's comments to one another were read in silence. There weren't as many as there had been in the beginning, but James would still occasionally ink a sweet line or two to Lily, and she would respond. Hermione reached up and touched Harry's face as the book went from all Lily and James had done to the beginning of Clara's work.
"Are you okay, Harry?" said Hermione.
"Yeah, I'm okay," said Harry. "I was just expecting a look at the wards protecting the castle, not another look at my parents' lives."
"Oh, Harry," said Hermione, and he felt her squeeze his hand again. "They sound just lovely."
"You really think so?" Harry said, twirling a strand of her hair about his fingers.
"Really," assured Hermione. "So you're sure that you're okay?"
Again, Harry promised her that he was before he said, "All these triangle things and circle shapes really make up the castle's protection, huh?"
"I think that they do," said Hermione. "I only read a few lines, and the impenetrable symbol showed up seven times. Wards, don't you think?" She shrugged. "Your mother even referred to it as wards."
"I believed you when you told me what this book was," said Harry. "I just can't believe there's a symbol for every spell."
"There's a symbol for every magical property, not every spell," Hermione corrected gently.
"Still hard to believe," said Harry, shrugging. "So we know what this book is now, and who wrote in it, and even why it was sealed, but we still don't know how it landed..." His eyes focused in on the inside cover with its bookplate. `What's with that?"
"What?" said Hermione.
"The bookplate. It obviously hasn't been there since the beginning, and the only name on it is Sagesse Bom's, but he certainly wasn't the only person that used it. If anyone's name is in it, shouldn't it be the guy how originally wrote these wards?"
"Goodwin Dryvhorn," said Hermione. "That's who wrote the original wards."
"Hogwarts, A History?" Harry asked, grinning.
Hermione didn't cite the source of her knowledge; instead, she stopped running her finger around the bookplate and glue. "Do you have a pocketknife or something that I could use?"
Leaning forward, his brow furrowed in a bit of confusion at her request, Harry fished the penknife Sirius had given him for Christmas of his fourth year out of his trouser pocket. He handed it to her, watched her eye its attachments, and said, "Be careful."
Hermione finally chose the part meant to unlock any lock, and she slid it into the glue around the bookplate. With very careful motions, she separated the bookplate and the cover. The glue went with the bookplate, and she squealed quite suddenly.
"Goodwin Dryvhorn," read Harry. The ink was fading with age, but eight hundred or so years would potentially do that. (He had a feeling that, like most magical books, this one had protective spells on it to save it from the usual wear and tear.) "Well, if we'd been unsure of this book, I think that would have told us."
"Yes, it would-" Hermione stopped, her hand flying to her mouth. "Harry this is the original book of wards to this very castle!"
"I know," said Harry, returning his penknife to his pocket. "Hagrid said that... we've known it since then, haven't we?"
"But Harry!" Hermione said. "We shouldn't have this! It should be sitting on a magically protected shelf in Dumbledore's office, if not a vault in Gringotts! It's nearly eight hundred years old, but besides that, it's what's keeping us safe at this very moment. We could be in so much-"
"Hermione," said Harry firmly, "no one's noticed this book was missing in all the months that it has been. It must not be one of Dumbledore's greatest concerns because it had to have been sitting in that blue box for quite some time. We can't be in trouble for having this book if no one even knows we have it."
"But Harry-" said Hermione, her voice rising with just two words.
"Hermione," said Harry firmly, again, this time grabbing her shoulders gently. "Don't you reckon it's a lot safer for us to have it than whoever had it for those weeks in between?" Finally, she nodded slowly, and he let go of her. "Good girl."
"Just keep in mind that the last thing I want now is to be expelled," said Hermione, which Harry couldn't help but laugh at.
"You're not going to get in any trouble," said Harry. "I promise. If anything happens with this book, I'll say it was all me. They'll probably doubt that I could have figured it all out on my own, but that's their problem."
"You could have," said Hermione. She picked up the bookplate from where she had set it down between them, her eyes scanning it as if she were looking for any clue or explanation. She started to turn it over in her hand but stopped suddenly, flipping it back to Bom's name. "Well, that's one mystery solved."
Harry kept his amazement of how her brain worked to himself, and he glanced back at the name. "What is?"
"Well, this is in Dumbledore's handwriting," said Hermione, and she laughed. "I would know. You would not believe the number of times I read my Hogwarts letter. To this day, I could probably recite what it said from memory."
"Dumbledore wrote your Hogwarts letter?" said Harry, glancing up at her as he took the bookplate from her. "McGonagall wrote mine. "
"Well, there's an awful lot of letters to write every year, wouldn't you say?" said Hermione matter-of-factly. "It's probably different parts of the alphabet. Anyway, I think that explains a lot. If the book had gone missing in the castle at any time, the person that found it would automatically assume it was just a student's journal. Of course, it wouldn't have worked outside of the castle-"
"Like if Voldemort got a hold of it?"
Hermione's nose wrinkled up. "Yes, like if Voldemort got a hold of it. He probably doesn't know it exists; otherwise, I'm sure he would have. I bet anything that other protections on this book prevent it from leaving the castle."
Harry nodded, although something deep within his mind reminded him that neither of them had any idea of where the book had been during the majority of the time since they had found it. He didn't say anything, though, because the look in Hermione's eyes told him that she was trying to think through the exact same thing. The stakes were certainly higher now that they knew what the book contained.
"I can't believe you were able to figure it out just from a little detail about the magically bound pages of the book," said Harry at least.
"The sections were really an afterthought," said Hermione absently.
"What do you mean?" said Harry, his brow furrowing.
"Well, it just sort of came to me," said Hermione, shifting uncomfortably. "One minute I was walking with you, having just convinced you that it there was something to be hidden about the book of wards, and the next it had just come to me."
"It just came to you?" said Harry, still confused. "Like, you just pieced it together all at once?"
Hermione bit her lip. "I don't know."
* * *
Harry and Hermione might have been planning to inform Ron of all their recent discoveries during dinner or at least directly after, but things didn't turn out exactly as planned. There had been one problem-their redheaded friend had not been at dinner, nor had they been able to locate him directly after. It seemed that their newfound knowledge of Sagesse Bom's book would have to keep, at least for a little while.
"Where do you think he's gone off to?" said Hermione, almost a little worriedly, grabbing Harry's hands and letting him help her out of her chair in the Gryffindor common room. Upon her mentioning that she had a headache, he had suggested that they go up to the prefect common room, where it was a little quieter. "It's not like Ron to miss dinner... he's something like a human... human... human garbage disposal."
"Forget what you were saying there for a moment?" said Harry quietly, slipping his arm around her waist and ignoring the snort of laughter that came from the couch where both of the Weasley twins and some of their friends were sitting. He figured it was George, or maybe even Lee Jordan. The last time he had glanced in their direction, Fred had been so busy with Angelina that Harry doubted he would have noticed.
"No," said Hermione, laughing a bit herself. "I'm so used to catching myself before saying Muggle expressions in front of Ron that I did it just then. It's just not worth explaining it to him, you know." She settled into Harry's embrace. "Then I remembered that the reason why I was saying it in the first place was because Ron wasn't there."
"I'm sure he's just with Anna," said Harry, picking up on her worried tone for the second time. It wasn't unlike her to get nervous about such small things.
"Anna was at dinner, though," said Hermione. Her nose crinkled up a bit. "I'm really not that worried. I just want to show him the book of wards. Maybe his input is just what it will take to discover all of its remaining secrets."
"It's possible," said Harry, and he found himself tilting his head to let his lips meet hers for a few seconds. It was really remarkable how quickly his and Hermione's relationship was progressing. It was almost as though they were meant for this, that it was something eventual. It really wasn't even that different from the friendship they had shared up until that morning, but Harry already couldn't imagine having anything else with her.
When they got to the portrait hole that led into the prefect common room, it wasn't the first time that Harry had given Godric Gryffindor's daughter the password since dinner. They had gone up once before, right after, thinking that Ron might have been up there. That time, he wasn't-the room had been undeniably empty. Now, there was no mistaking the tall, gangly redhead pacing between the comfortable couch and matching chairs.
Hermione's relief was visible. "Ron, we have so much to tell you! We tried at dinner, but you weren't-"
"Oh, you noticed, really?" said Ron in a nasty sort of voice, suddenly snapping his head up so that he would face them. He continued to pace, his eyes flashing all the while. Harry and Hermione shared a look. What had gotten into their friend? In a high-pitched sort of voice, he said, "What wonderful, wonderful friends I have!"
"Are you mad about something?" said Harry cautiously.
Ron snorted. "No, everything's just great, Harry. Of course I'm mad about something!"
The two calmer members of the trio shared another look. It certainly didn't seem like their normally agreeable friend talking, so it was more likely that something had caused his fiery temper to get the better of him. Of course, as long as he was on about whatever had him so mad, neither Harry nor Hermione had a chancing of knowing what that something was.
Harry dropped his arm from around Hermione, trying desperately to remember anything he might have done recently that would have Ron so angry. Then again, it was entirely possible that it had been something of Hermione's doing that had Ron fuming, and probably even more likely that it had absolutely nothing to do with either of them. Ron could have been fighting with Anna for all Harry knew. He studied Ron for a moment, and asked, "And what would that something be?"
"I just had the greatest talk with Ginny," said Ron, clenching and unclenching his fists. "Finally got around to telling me what's had her so edgy all year, my sister did. Remember how curious we all were about that? Remember your assurances, Hermione, that she was just growing up? And you, Harry, remember trying to talk to after that fight with Seamus that we didn't understand?"
Of course. It had been ages since Ginny had promised the youngest of her brothers a full explanation of her odd behavior over the course of the last year, so long that Harry had almost forgotten about it. It seemed that the littlest Weasley hadn't a reservation about telling Ron who knew and didn't know of her problems. Harry opened his mouth to speak, but his pacing friend cut him off.
"As it turns out, Ginny's been devastated since the attack on Durmstrang at Halloween because of the loss of a certain Bulgarian Seeker, a certain Viktor Krum that she had been carrying it on with for months. She kept it secret because of one person," said Ron accusingly, rounding in on Hermione, "who ended up being the only person that she told."
"Ron," said Hermione patiently, though Harry could tell that the tone was a difficult one for her to maintain at that moment, "the only reason that I didn't tell you was because Ginny asked me not to tell anyone."
Ron glared at her. "It seems to me that you, of all people, would have enough sense to tell me something about my own little sister."
"You need to calm down," said Harry carefully. "Hermione was just doing what Ginny told her to. You can't fault her for-"
"Didn't hear her, did you?" Ron interrupted. "She wasn't supposed to tell anyone, but just as I thought, I'm sure that she told you. Didn't she?"
Harry was taken aback. "Yes, but-"
"But what?" said Ron scathingly. "I thought that the three of us were the best of friends, but anymore it seems like the two of you are, and I'm the mate left out. Maybe that's how you feel-fine! See if I care, but you should at least have some consideration for the fact that Ginny is my sister. I can't believe that you didn't say a thing to me when she was carrying on with a nineteen-year-old. Ginny is fourteen! Fourteen!"
Hermione's bottom lip began to tremble. "Ron, please. I didn't know anything about it until after it was over! You're being completely irrational. If you want to talk about this, that's fine, and I'll be totally willing, but you have to calm down! This is exactly why Ginny didn't want to tell you. I know you're mad, and upset, but you can't just let your anger get-"
"WHO SAID ANYTHING ABOUT BEING ANGRY?" demanded Ron.
He advanced on Hermione.
She screamed.
And, the color leaving his face, Ron dropped back. He swore, rather loudly, but the next thing out of his mouth was a quiet, "Merlin, I just really messed up, didn't I?" He suddenly sounded quite miserable. Clearing his throat, he said, "I'm so sorry-are you okay?"
"I'm fine," said Hermione tearfully, managing a thin smile. Seeing that Ron had scared her and made her cry, it was Harry trying to keep his anger at bay now. "You just startled me."
The look on Ron's face was enough to make Harry forgive him. He cleared his throat and made an awkward gesture. "I-er, kind of lost it, didn't I?"
"Yes, you kind of did," said Harry, actually smiling a little when Hermione did. He looped his arm around her. "Want another chance?"
"Er, yeah," said Ron sheepishly. Through with his pacing, he dropped heavily onto the couch and sighed. "I really am sorry. I didn't mean to yell at the two of you. I just can't believe it, that idiot going after my sister."
Hermione sat down on one side of Ron, Harry on the other. She said gently, "Ginny's going to date someday, Ron. She's already dating again. You can't tell her what she can and can't do."
"She's not going to date guys five years older than her," said Ron darkly, "at least not now she isn't. Besides, if you ask me, he used both of you."
At this, Hermione looked away, which only made Harry give her an intent look. If Ron knew what had happened with Ginny and Krum, it was certainly time for him to know what Krum had tried to do to Hermione. Harry cleared his throat, but Ron wasn't finished.
"I'm still sorry that I scared you," said Ron. "I was just mad that I hadn't been told about something so important. And I was mad that I'd been lied to-you told me that you didn't go to Bulgaria last summer, but Ginny said that you did."
"I did," said Hermione carefully.
Ron seemed to consider this for a moment, but he finally said, "I'm sure you had your reasons. I don't care about that, I guess. I'm just mad at Krum. Dead or not, it sure sounds like he hurt my sister and my best friend. I don't like that."
"Then you're not going to like the rest of the story," said Hermione.
"The rest of the story?" Ron's nose crinkled up, but Harry remained silent. He looked across Ron to her, silently willing his girlfriend just to get it out.
Hermione looked away and began quietly. "There was a reason why I didn't want you to know about my time with Krum in Bulgaria. Ron-he turned out to be a Death Eater."
Ron's eyes bugged. And he screeched, "What?"
"Viktor Krum was a Death Eater," said Hermione in a calm tone that amazed Harry. "He wasn't the same person that we knew at Hogwarts, or even the same person that had chased madly after the Snitch at the World Cup. He was vicious, and cold-hearted. He wanted me to give more than I was willing." Her hands were shaking in her lap; she didn't have to verbalize what it was he wanted. "Krum tried to make me give in, and I managed to hex him just before he could. He started ranting madly that he could do so much better than me. That he had another girl. That she was more willing than I.
"Then Krum remembered that, as a Durmstrang student, he hadn't a restriction on using magic in the summer. He used me to get closer to Harry. He probably used Ginny to get close enough to me to get to Harry. I guess he was working for Voldemort all along." Hermione trembled. "He wanted to kill me, but he failed to work the Killing Curse on me. It's probably good that he's gone now."
Hermione looked quietly down at her lap. Harry was leaning forward, looking around his other best friend to see that she was okay. Ron was watching Hermione just as intently. Suddenly, he jumped up, beginning to pace, at which Hermione slid closer to Harry. She leaned her head against his jumper, and he wrapped his arms around her.
"That story doesn't make any sense," Ron declared. "My sister is a better judge of people than that. You're a better judge of people than that. The two of you wouldn't end up with some Death Eater. You just wouldn't." He looked slightly forlorn all of a sudden. "You wouldn't, right?"
"I have the Dark Scar to prove it, if you need to see," said Hermione softly, her cheeks turning red. Harry was immediately filled with a hope that Ron wouldn't demand to see it. It was a situation that had an awful lot of potential to be awkward.
"Where is it?" said Ron at last.
"My chest," said Hermione. It was enough to change her slightly pink cheeks bright red with embarrassment. It was also enough to bring a similar patch of coloring to Harry's face.
"Er, well," said Ron uncomfortably, "you don't have to show me then." Suddenly, though, his face lit up with an almost wicked grin. "So she really has it, Harry?"
"Er," said Harry, and that was it. He gave a sort of shrug as Ron laughed. However, as quickly as it began, the same laughter ended. Their redheaded friend stopped in his tracks, his eyes growing wide.
"Wait, wait, wait," said Ron, holding up his hands. "Hermione, did you say that Krum was allowed to use magic over the holidays as a Durmstrang student?"
"I did," said Hermione, and she quickly covered her mouth with her hand. "Merlin! How did I not see it before? It's not the schools at all! It's the Ministry!"
Ron nodded grimly. "The Decree for the Reasonable Restriction of Underage Sorcery-you're not supposed to do magic outside of school-any school-if you're underage."
"How did I not see that?" said Hermione, sounding furious with herself. "He mentioned it so casually, but I still should have know!"
"It's okay, Hermione," said Harry, biting his lip. "So how did he do what magic he did without getting a warning? Is it like Fred and George in the summer-too close to other wizards and witches of age for the Ministry to notice?"
"I reckon," said Ron, and he began his pacing again, reaching up to stroke his chin. Again, he stopped. "What am I talking about? What are you talking about? Viktor Krum would have graduated last year! He wasn't at Durmstrang at the attack!" He shook his head. "What were we thinking?"
"No, Ron," said Hermione, although she looked distressed. "Krum was at the start of his final year at Durmstrang. He was going to take a year off after that, and then he was going to sign with a professional Quidditch team... or at least that's what he said. It's what he said all along."
"But he already graduated, Hermione," said Ron.
"He couldn't have."
"He did, though," Ron insisted, "and that year off between school and Quidditch is this year right now!"
Harry looked from his girlfriend to his best friend. "Er," he said. "How do you know, Ron? Maybe he turned seventeen early in his seventh year... I know Angelina did. It's not that unusual."
Ron sighed, and he took his wand from his pocket. "Accio Quidditch clippings!" He pocketed his wand. "You might want to duck."
Sure enough, a heavy-looking volume whizzed into the room. Ron caught it easily, and began flipping through it. Most of the pages pasted inside were from the Daily Prophet, but others had come from various Quidditch magazines. Well over half featured Chudley Cannons players and games, and some dated back before any of them were even born. Harry had seen Ron using paste and Spellotape on several occasions to add new bits to the collection. He had even looked through it before, but never had he noticed anything about Viktor Krum. Apparently, though, there was something, and Ron was doing his best to locate it.
"Aha!" said Ron at last, and he dropped the book on the table before the sofa, shoved it towards Harry and Hermione, and pointed out a particular paragraph. "It's all right there."
Krum, though best known for his performance in the 1994 final of the Quidditch World Cup, has decided to take a year away from the sport now that he has graduated from Durmstrang School of Sorcery.
It was one of the clippings from a magazine rather than the Daily Prophet, which gave Harry a bit more confidence when it came to its validity. He slowly leaned back on the couch, glancing at Ron. He gave Hermione a gentle squeeze when he noticed the very stunned expression she was wearing.
"I feel so stupid," she said at last.
It was Ron who was quick to dispel her worries this time. "You couldn't have known," he said soothingly, finally sitting back down. He threw an arm around her shoulders to compliment the hold Harry had on her waist. "There wasn't a reason to doubt him until you found out he was a Death Eater, right? And after that, you were probably too shocked to-"
Suddenly, it was Harry who sprang forth with a new realization. "That's it!" he said. "Remember our Defense essays?"
"How could I forget?" Ron grumbled, and then he seemed to cotton onto what Harry was saying. Hermione was already nodding along. "That's why the Sorting Hat assigned you to the Dark Scar!"
Harry nodded. "Of course that's why," he said, "but that's not the point. Look, one of the things about the Dark Scar is this-it's tied somehow to the Affinity of Relations. Hermione, I know you remember that day when I had to have you explain it to me for my own essay. It's a very, very weak form of it, though, but don't you think it would have been enough for Krum to make you not notice his lies?" Concentrating very hard on his theory, he had absently begun to twirl a lock of Hermione's hair. "It's not like you would have had reason to think twice about anything he said before, right?"
"Right," said Hermione, uncertain at first, but then she nodded. "I doubt it would have been enough for him to put thoughts in my head, but just keeping me from thinking about something sounds entirely possible."
"Well, that's settled then," said Ron after a few moments of silence. "If I ever see Krum again, I'll kill him once for being a Death Eater, once for leading Ginny on, and once for trying to hurt you. Now, didn't the two of you have something... All right. I give up. I'll stop pressuring the two of you to just get together already, but you're going to have to stop all the cute gestures, Harry. I can't take it. It's been forever since I've seen Anna, and you're making me wish she were here."
"Didn't you just see her before dinner?" said Hermione, catching Harry's hand in hers, forcing him to stop his absent twiddling. She gave him a friendly peck on the cheek.
Ron's ears went pink. "I might have," he mumbled, at which Harry grinned. He tightened his arms around his own girlfriend while his best friend cleared his throat. "So... er... what was it that you were saying? You and Harry had something to tell me?"
"Loads, actually," said Hermione, and she launched into the most thorough explanation possible of their talk with Hagrid and discovery of the book's true identity. She went so far to tell Ron of James's proposal to Lily but excluded all mention of the talk she and Harry had had that morning as they headed deeply into the Forbidden Forest, a moment that seemed so far away now. By the time she had finished, Ron had reopened the book and was turning it over in his hands with the same awe that Harry had.
Ron blurted, "These symbols really make up the wards to the castle?"
"Really," said Hermione.
"Bloody hell," Ron muttered, quickly flipping through the pages. "This thing goes on forever."
"It's like that enchanted tent your father borrowed," supplied Hermione helpfully. This was something that she had already explained to Harry as they walked down to the Great Hall for dinner. "It appears to have a few hundred pages, but I think the actual number is much closer to a few thousand." She smiled sadly. "It's amazing what magic can do."
Harry, used to such comments but more impressed by how well she was holding up otherwise, kissed her temple. He knew that Hermione wasn't looking for pity. Ron seemed to realize this as well, but he hadn't spent as much time with her and certainly didn't have the same connection with her that Harry did, so he just cleared his throat.
"So, er, you can read this stuff?" Ron's question, though said in awkward tones, was enough to get the trio going again. "That really doesn't look like it would be easy."
"Oh, it's not that hard," said Hermione, and smiling sweetly, she offered, "I could teach it to you if you're interested."
"That's okay," said Ron hastily, which caused Harry and Hermione to exchange a small smile. "What kind of modification do you think they were making to the wards, then?"
Hermione took the book from him when he offered it to her. Opening it carefully, she went back to studying it as she had when she and Harry had originally unlocked the book's secrets. She ran a finger down a page in the new part-it was within the section that Clara had done.
"Well, obviously, Dumbledore would have wanted the wards strengthened when Voldemort was first such a threat," said Hermione at last. "The only magic I know that doesn't weaken over time is a Permanent Sticking Charm, hence it's name. Still, the original magic to the wards would have been so powerful that it was probably just falling into disrepair then, after seven hundred years. Yes, probably reinforcements, and improvements..."
"Any interesting improvements?" Ron wanted to know.
"Well, Bom used the combustion symbol repeatedly," said Hermione, amused. "He probably had the consequence for triggering an element of the wards as that. Imagine coming in contact with it accidentally-you'd end up singed!"
"How would you come in contact with it accidentally?" asked Harry, tying but failing to come up with a possible scenario.
Hermione shrugged, her eyes still not leaving the page. Her brow was now furrowed in concentration. "It certainly wouldn't be likely. I'd say that you'd have to make an effort to `accidentally' penetrate a ward. Then, of course, it wouldn't be..."
She trailed off without continuing. Looking up now, her eyes seemed to glaze over a bit. Finally, Ron waved a hand in front of her face. "Wouldn't be what, Herms?" he said.
"You okay?" said Harry nervously when she didn't say anything, even then. He was strongly reminded of their way back into the castle from Hagrid's hut. The look of not being quite there was rather the same.
"I wasn't there, but the day in Care of Magical Creatures that the hursles tried to run Malfoy off the school grounds!" said Hermione excitedly without a word about her trance-like moments. "Don't you remember Dumbledore going on about some `surprise' for anyone who tried to stray off Hogwarts's grounds? I was still in the hospital then, of course, but Harry told me all about Malfoy running right into an invisible barrier."
"Dumbledore's eclectic fence?" said Ron excitedly at once.
Harry had his own question. "What happened to that, anyway?"
"What?" said Hermione inattentively "Oh, Ron, yes, and it's really `electric' not `eclectic.' But you see what I mean now, yes? It has to be related to this book. It just has to."
"It would make sense," said Ron, obviously mistaking Harry's concern for Hermione's odd behavior as skepticism. "The box with the book had just been thrown into the storage dungeon. I think you even said at the time that it would have been the perfect place to conceal something so valuable-or maybe it was Hermione. Still, if the book had been put there for safekeeping, then it would only make sense to put it back once the wards had been put up. I think it explains a lot."
"Yeah, it does," said Harry, never taking his eyes off Hermione. She had pulled away from him and was flipping intently through the book of wards yet again. "So why were they put up and taken back down? Is there some kind of glitch in them, Hermione?"
"I'll have to see," said Hermione quickly. "What do you mean though, taken down?"
"Well, when Harry and I came after you in the forest after... well, you know," said Ron, shifting uncomfortably and giving her a bit more space, "we broken into a run and prepared for the shock of our lives. Never came, though, and Dumbledore said that it would protect against students entering the Forbidden Forest."
"That's strange," said Hermione. She bit her lip, looking nervously from her boyfriend to her best friend. "It's also quite worrisome."
"In what sense?" said Ron automatically.
Harry, on the other hand, knew at once what she was talking about. "It was working at the beginning of the year, Ron, when Malfoy tried to escape the hursles, but a few months later, it wasn't. That's..."
"Right when the disappearances were going on," Ron filled in. It wasn't what Harry was about to say, but it was an even better point. The redhead swore.
"Ron!" scolded Hermione.
"Sorry," said Ron quickly. "That's it, though. Someone obviously figured out the wards and took them down so that he could get into the school. That's when he started snatching people. It's the only explanation that there is."
"Not necessarily," said Hermione. "I know you're not familiar with this way of writing, Ron, but it's so much different than the spell-casting that we know. It was unbelievably handy during the time period because one could write his own spells. Let's say someone did take down the new wards-he'd need to know about the book, first, and he'd need to be able to access it. Even all that is dependent on whether or not one of the students wrote the wards in question, the invisible barrier around the school."
"Well, we've already determined that, haven't we?" said Harry.
Hermione shook her head. "No... what makes you think that we have?"
This time, it was Harry and Ron that shared the look. "Well, you were reading the book," said Ron reasonably, "and then you realized that invisible barrier wards came from it. Isn't that because you read its magical properties in that book?"
"No, not exactly," said Hermione. "It... well, it just kind of came to me again."
"Just kind of came to you?" Ron's nose crinkled up.
"Earlier, Hermione just sort of saw the connection between what Hagrid had said about Clara's work on the wards and Sagesse Bom's book," explained Harry. He glanced at Hermione. "I didn't know that it happened again."
Hermione looked very nervous. "It just happened," she said. "I wouldn't look into it if I were you."
"Why's that?" said Ron, narrowing his eyes. "I don't want to be rude or anything, Herms, because you're really smart, but you're not that smart. You always run off to the library for hours upon end. You don't just sit down and have things `come' to you. It's not normal."
"Maybe not," said Hermione, still sounding very uncertain.
"I'll say," Ron snorted. "You're not at all worried by the sudden parallels you seem to be making between things?"
"It's not like she hasn't looked into all of this stuff a thousand times before. Maybe, now, she's just putting-" Harry started to say, but Hermione waved for him to stop.
"A little," she said squeakily.
Harry wasn't sure he wanted to explore what Hermione's momentary lapses meant. "I'm sure-"
"Bloody hell, you're not surer than she is," Ron interrupted. "We can't just have this keep as it is, mate. Hermione, you aren't going to ignore it, are you? You've lapsed out twice in one day now, right?"
"And it was like I wasn't even thinking for myself," said Hermione hesitantly.
Ron's eyes bugged. "That's it. We've got to do something. It must be that bloody Affinity of Relations from the-"
"What Affinity of Relations?" said Hermione, obviously confused. "I know you wouldn't believe it, but Draco's honestly tried to keep out of-"
"No, the arse that raped you," said Ron, giving her an odd look for only a second before realizing what he had said. Harry had realized it at once even though he had very nearly forgotten discussing the Snape's words and Halae Sueuorum's book with Ron. In fact, he'd done his best not to think about it for several days now. "Er, I mean-"
"What do you mean?" said Hermione sharply. There was a moment of silence, followed by a crisp accusation. "You've been hiding something from me."
Harry shot Ron a desperate glance. "No, not hiding..." he muttered vaguely. "It's just... well, we found out that an Affinity of Relations occurs when... you know, a wizard r-r-rapes a witch."
"No it doesn't," said Hermione. "My Defense essay was the longest of anyone's. If it were so, then I would have come across it. I know I would have! I have every resource available..."
"Er, not quite," said Ron, tugging at the collar of his shirt. "I guess there was a day that Snape kept you from checking out a book on a library. It's the only of its kind."
"Then how do you know?" said Hermione. By this time, she had wriggled farther away from each of the boys and looked ready to jump up from the couch. "It would have been a book from the most restricted of the restricted section books."
"It was in that detention I had for being in your room," said Harry reluctantly. "Snape sort of ended up showing me the book, and he let me have it after that."
"You showed Ron?" said Hermione quietly. "You showed Ron but not me?"
"Yes," said Harry. She slid forward to the edge of the sofa, facing him. He looked pleadingly at her.
"You were going to tell me," said Hermione, almost hopefully, "but you had to wait for the right-" she stopped and said flatly, "You weren't going to tell me."
Hermione slipped off the edge of the sofa, the accusation apparent in her eyes. Harry found that he was suddenly very hoarse, wishing very much for Ron to come to his aid. Ron looked equal parts stunned and scared.
"What's it going to do to me?" Hermione said. "What does it mean? It's more than just mind manipulation, isn't it? It has to be bad, or you would have told me."
"Hermione..." said Harry, but he couldn't go on.
"That bad?" Hermione had begun to blink; it was a motion Harry knew well. She was on the verge of tears. He couldn't tell, however, whether the tears were for her sudden knowledge of the Affinity or for his silence on the subject.
"Hermione," said Ron at last, "please don't be mad at us. Harry and I were just looking out for you. I think Snape even advised Harry against telling-"
"Snape's opinion suddenly matters more than my own?" said Hermione, her cheeks wet. "Did you not think I'd want to know about something that could kill me?"
Harry felt very hollow, suddenly very dead. "We didn't say anything-"
"Exactly," said Hermione tearfully. "Thanks so much, Harry, and you too, Ron, for looking out for me. For protecting me. We'll see now, I reckon, how I fair on my own."
And, with that, she fled the room.
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