Timber!

"Do you believe in trees?"

It was late at night, and the Quidditch game had been exhausting. Ron Weasley looked out the window of the Gryffindor common room before answering his sister's question.

"What kind of question is that?"

Well, it functioned as an answer.

"Do you believe in trees?"

Ron looked out the window again, then turned to face Ginny.

"I see a whole bunch of them out there. I don't see any in the common room. Why?"

"What would you say to someone who said he didn't believe in trees?"

"I dunno . . . . How could anyone not believe in trees? Look out the window. There are lots of them."

"You and Hermione are just as obvious."

"I don't get it. Does someone think we don't exist? Could be fun."

"No, but I'm tired of watching the two of you pretend you don't love each other. You're my brother, she's a good friend, and you're being embarrassing prats."

"We never pretend we don't love each other. We squabble a bit, OK, but we're good friends, and that's pretty obvious. . . . What are you on about? I mean, I love you, don't I"--Ginny started giggling madly--"and we've had our share of fights."

"Ron! That's not what I meant! You don't love Hermione the way you love me--great Merlin, I hope you don't love me that way!--you love her the way I love Harry. And you have for years. And everyone knows it except you."

That was how it started. When the next Hogsmeade trip was announced, Ron asked Hermione to go with him--with only him. She agreed. By the end of that day, Ginny finally had what she'd wanted for years: a date with Harry Potter.

*

Teenage love can bring trouble from parents, but Hogwarts was a boarding school, and there were none of that ilk around. It can bring trouble from faculty, but the Headmaster always smiled on it--love, he said, was a deeper magic than any taught in class. In the early months of Harry, Ron and Hermione's penultimate year at Hogwarts, the magic of love so enlivened Gryffindor Tower that the Astronomy Tower got jealous and tried to stop the sixth-year Gryffindors from leaving after class. It took Professor Flitwick all night to get them free . . . although Snape was heard to wonder whether his colleague might not have been more efficient if he had cast an Anti-Cheer Charm on himself.

Two couples were formed that night--but unfortunately, the Gryffindors had been studying Astronomy with the Slytherins, and the inter-House couples were doomed. Snape could have told them, but why? It would only have annoyed the Headmaster.

The morning after the unfortunate event was a Saturday, and Harry had planned a lie-in; he hadn't gotten much sleep in a tower full of Slytherins. But while he was very much aware of the fact that he had been trapped with Slytherins and fellow Gryffindors (and he looked on with hopeless hope at the couples that were forming), he had not thought through the consequences of being trapped with only sixth-year Slytherins and Gryffindors. Among those consequences was that the fifth-year Slytherins and Gryffindors had spent the night in their respective dormitories, and that a certain fifth-year Gryffindor was not planning a lie-in, at least not in her own bed.

*

Ssssnape is not really on your sssside, Missster Potter. But I sscertainly wisssh to be.

"Why, Nagini?"

Do you know how my massster treatsss his human ssservants?

"Yes."

He treatsss his sssnake ssstill worssse. And besssides, you're ssso sssexssy.

Nagini kissed him. Harry hadn't known a snake's kiss would be that moist; it felt much more like a girl kissing him than like a snake. And while he had heard Voldemort talk about milking Nagini, he was pretty sure the massive serpent didn't have breasts like the ones he felt against his chest.

Oh. He was awake now. That would explain a lot. "Ginny?"

And then he was definitely awake, as the redhead clobbered him with a pillow--a pillow that just a moment before had been under his head, not on top of it. "Hey!"

"You'd better not have so many girls climbing in your bed that you have to ask who it is!" But she couldn't have been very angry; her pout quickly turned into a grin, and her face was so close he could see it without his glasses. She kissed him, and he felt her leg in a spot not normally occupied by anything that firm except his broomstick. He wrapped his legs around hers and tried to enjoy the sensation, or perhaps not to enjoy it too much. She kissed him again, on the lips, then on the chest, then on the arm, then on the forearm.

He placed his other arm around her and began to press gently on her back. He felt the warmth of her skin and the motion of her breath beneath her ribs. That wasn't good enough for Ginny, though; she seized his hand and placed it on her breast. She closed her eyes and moaned, and Harry was glad, because the fact that her eyes were closed meant that she could not see the look on his face. He didn't want to offend her.

He turned over, moving her beneath him. She gasped, with an expression Harry took to be a smile, except that her mouth was too far open. He closed it with a kiss, then slid out of bed.

That was a mistake, he realized, as he grabbed his wand to cure himself of the first runny nose he'd ever encountered that had tried to bite him. The "Bat-Bogey Hex" might sound childish, he reflected, but that didn't mean it was fun. Harry thought he'd have preferred the slugs Ron had once inflicted on himself.

*

While Harry caught up on sleep in the Honeydukes tunnel and put his invisibility cloak to good use as a blanket, Ron and Hermione were snogging in the common room.

Well, sort of.

"Ron! I appreciate that you love me, but this Potions essay is not going to write itself."

"Neither is mine."

"Well, some of us care about our schoolwork! How do you intend to learn Potions with your lips in my face?"

"'Care about our schoolwork?'" Ron mimicked. "Are you trying to say you like Snape more than me?"

Hermione burst out laughing and gave Ron a peck on the cheek.

*

Good times can't last forever, not when you have a world to save. Halloween arrived as it always did, and, as usual, it would not leave Harry Potter unscathed. Sometimes Harry thought the date of his conception had regretted the event and was on a campaign to make him pay, but then he remembered that Halloween hadn't just been the beginning of his biological existence and the beginning of his struggle with Voldemort two years later, but also the beginning of his and Ron's friendship with Hermione.

This year's attack took sixty seconds. Harry had been discussing the theory of Unforgivable Curses with Hermione when he was interrupted by a demonstration. The sinister shroud of a masked Death Eater appeared just above the mashed potatoes on the table before them, and a flash of green light marked an event that, if he had not been terrified, Ron would have celebrated: the death of Argus Filch.

"Happy Halloween! The Dark Lord sends his greetings and has ordered me to assure you that there is no minimum age to be a Death Eater or be killed by one . . . and the time is coming when you must all know whom you serve. The Squib's death is just the first of the Dark Lord's bounties--and now you've seen the power that can be yours, the power the great Mudblood-lover keeps from you. There is no safety except in power, and there is no power that can resist my master's! Pleasant dreams to . . . some of you." He kicked the potatoes at Hermione and vanished with a popping sound.

"But--but 'you can't Apparate or Disapparate at Hogwarts'!" complained Ron, looking at the girl he was quoting.

"That's why it's called Hogwarts: A History, Ronald. In 1945, Professor Dumbledore set up wards to prevent Apparition. Until tonight, no one had been able to defeat those wards--and a history book can't very well tell us what will happen after it's been written, can it?" Hermione paused, then, scarcely drawing her wand, added, "Evanesco."

Ron looked distinctly unsettled.

It wasn't till the mumblings of the students began to rise toward screams that Dumbledore called for silence and adjourned the feast. Hermione looked at her watch. Twenty seconds had elapsed since the Death Eater's disappearance.

It felt like much longer.

But it didn't feel as though a day had passed when the following night at dinner, a Hufflepuff died. The Death Eater who did it was in the Great Hall for fifteen seconds.

The night after that, no one died, and the school began to feel relieved. But after ten days had passed without an attack, there was another strike. This one was at the Ravenclaw table, and it happened so quickly more students saw the green light than the Death Eater.

Dumbledore wanted to forbid all but those who had been closest to the victim from attending her funeral, but he knew it would be futile. Instead, he warned certain Gryffindors to be on their guard. They spread the word. And thus it came to pass that nearly every student in nearly every House--and even some of the Slytherins, though Ron grumbled about their motives--marched with wands drawn behind the coffin of Luna Lovegood.

It was no empty ceremony. Walking behind the war's latest victim, thinking of the memories she had left them, knowing any of them could be next--walking through a world in which they knew there was no safety--if there was any comfort to be had for anyone, it was in the tingle of his own ready wand, and in the sight of his equally ready friends. By the time the procession reached the cemetery, there was no one to whom it appeared that Luna was being borne to her grave by a horseless carriage.

*

"To everything," Harry had once heard Luna sing, "there is a season." She had learned the song from her mother. "A time to love, a time to hate; a time of peace--I swear it's not too late."

But it was too late, and there wasn't much time left to love. The time Ron wanted to spend with Hermione, he spent with Ginny instead, devising, at Harry's request, strategies for the students to protect themselves and one another next time a Death Eater Apparated into the Great Hall. Ginny had suggested drilling Expelliarmus till all the D.A. members could cast it immediately at anything untoward, but Hermione had warned that if a few hundred students all swiftly pointed toward something they could scarcely have time to locate and cast the disarming spell, dozens of wands at least would go flying, and the enemy's might not be one of them.

Ron wanted Hermione on his planning team--he offered his sister in trade to Harry--but Harry needed Hermione for something only Hermione could do. Either must die at the hand of the other, for neither can live while the other survives, Professor Trelawney had prophesied, and so Harry had to kill Voldemort. The only problem was, Voldemort seemed to be not fully alive and therefore incapable of dying. Further research was indicated. Harry would kill Voldemort, but Hermione would have to help him figure out how. Thus the evenings that in time of peace would have found Ron kissing Hermione and Harry entangled with Ginny instead found Harry and Hermione in hushed conference in the library, while Ron had no one to kiss but his sister, as the two youngest Weasleys hunched over the Marauder's Map, perjuring themselves by being up to a very great good.

*

"AVADA KEDAVRA!" Harry whirled at the yell to see none other than Vincent Crabbe facing him with his wand drawn and a somewhat embarrassed look on his face. Then Crabbe disappeared.

Harry recovered quickly. "Does this mean I'm now the only person to have survived the Killing Curse twice? I hope this scar isn't going to be as much trouble--I'd hate to be linked to Crabbe for the rest of my life!"

"There's no scar, Harry," answered Hermione. "There was no green light, either. He didn't successfully cast the curse, so you've still only survived it once."

"That's a relief," said Harry, with a smile. "I won't have to start talking to boxes of rocks--that's probably the only power Crabbe could give me."

But Ron was pale.

*

Most of the school was planning to go home and spend Christmas with family--it seemed the safer course this year--but Dumbledore was not about to end the term on a note of fear. To the chagrin of certain fourth-years who believed the biggest troublemaker in a Hogwarts without Fred and George Weasley was the Headmaster himself (and to the great pleasure of a certain Miss Weasley), Dumbledore had announced a dance.

"Look, Goyle, it's the reverse Animagus," said Malfoy as Hermione entered the Hall, and indeed Hermione had transformed herself. Normally, it took a man of character to see Hermione Granger as beautiful--she looked like something between an action-heroine and a librarian, anything but a belle. But when she thought it appropriate, she put as much work into her appearance as she did into other projects on other days, and she presented it with as much pride. The result was a splendor everyone had to acknowledge, and a poise through which only a few could see her constant readiness for both thought and action.

She led Ron to the dance floor; Ginny followed with Harry. As the music started, Harry realized how exciting it was to be dancing with Ginny. The first dance, she guided him through with light touches of her fingers and firm motions of her whole body, and Harry realized he was dancing as he'd never danced before--not that that was saying much, he thought.

The second dance was slower, and exciting in a very different way. Ginny put her hands on Harry's chest. Her hands and her eyes applied a gentle pressure. As Harry let his hands drift upward along her back, something in her eyes seemed to tell him she would rather they were drifting downward instead. He raised his eyebrows. She moved her hands to his back--dragging the tips of her fingers sensuously over his ribs along the way--and squeezed him to her. He smiled, and she did just what she had wanted him to do. Merlin, thought Harry, I'm having my bum felt in the middle of the Great Hall. He grinned.

Hermione's hand was still on Ron's shoulder when she noticed his envious look at his sister. Hermione smiled at him and put her hands on his chest. He smiled at her as his eyes roved over the room, their message plain: Eat your heart out. Hermione, he thought, was the most beautiful girl in the room.

At the end of that dance, the two couples walked together to the buffet line, then sat down to eat. Finishing first, Ginny excused herself and walked away with an expression reminiscent of her twin brothers; Ron finished next and went for a second helping. As he was returning, Hermione asked Harry whether he'd like to dance.

"Ron, may I?"

"Ron doesn't own me, Harry." The look on Hermione's face was dangerous.

"Of course not, Hermione, but Ron is my friend, and I am not going to get between you."

"I'm your friend too, Harry, and it's just a dance. Besides, Ron can't dance with me right now--he's eating."

"Ron, may I?"

Ron laughed. "I think you're going to be in more trouble with Hermione than with me. Go dance already!"

"Thank you."

Harry and Hermione moved out to the dance floor. The music had turned classical. He took her right hand in his left and placed his own right hand neatly on the small of her back; her left hand rested gently on his shoulder. With some thought he kept to the steps of a proper waltz.

"Why did you insist on having Ron's permission to dance with me?"

Suddenly, Harry realized how difficult it was to waltz without watching one's feet. "I'm not going after my best friend's girl."

Hermione rolled her eyes and opened her mouth to argue. But the familiar look of the top student concentrating on a difficult problem soon faded from her face, resolving into the smile of a woman proudly flaunting her beauty. Harry felt a gentle pressure on his shoulder, pulling him just a little closer to her. She smiled. He smiled back, feeling reassured.

The song ended, and the two smiling friends walked back toward the table where Ron was sitting. He looked up and smiled at them; he had observed that their hands had never left the standard positions. "I'm still eating. You keep dancing. I'm sure I'll dance with you again before the end of the night."

"Well," said Hermione, "it sounds like Ron has given us our orders."

"I just hope that last order was meant for you."

Hermione laughed. "He did say 'again,' so unless I missed something, it must have been."

This time, the dance was a swing. It was remarkable, Harry noticed, how easily Hermione responded to his lead, spinning out under his arm and coming back to him as if for once he were thinking for her. He noticed as well how effectively her movements communicated to him when she wanted to try a move--and he noticed that, following the rules of the dance, she nonetheless waited for him to cue her. They didn't talk, they didn't struggle--they just danced. And Harry had never realized how comfortable dancing could be.

At the end of the dance, they found Ron standing next to them. Harry backed away guiltily, at which Ron gave a snort and half a smile before taking Hermione in his arms. As they moved past Harry, Hermione's hands on Ron's chest, Ron called out to him: "See, Harry! Everything's OK!"

Then about two dozen bats flew in and fought each other for perching space on Snape, the lights on the Christmas trees turned into tiny angels and escorted the bats (and their bat-like perch) away, the candles that lighted the Hall began shooting sparks like red and green sparklers, and Professor Dumbledore, getting into the spirit of a Christmas a la Ginny Weasley, Transfigured his own robes into Father Christmas' red suit and boomed out the final words of the term: "Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good night!"

*

Mr. and Mrs. Weasley had invited Harry and Hermione to spend Christmas at the Burrow. They had declined, citing work to be done, and after some argument, Molly had conceded that she could not force them to go. She had granted her own children no such concession, and so, the morning after the dance, the couples kissed and the boys asked each other to look after their girlfriends. The girls made similar requests of each other, though Hermione asked Ginny just whom she was to keep off of Harry--Madam Pomfrey? ("They do spend an awful lot of time together," said Ginny.)

Day after day, night after night, Harry and Hermione sat together in the library, trying to figure out how it would be possible to destroy a Dark wizard who didn't seem able to die. But one night, after discarding yet another idea, Hermione started to cry.

Harry hugged her. "Come on, Hermione, it's just another theory. We'll find one that can work."

"That's what I'm afraid of."

Suddenly Harry felt a deadly calm.

"Harry, do you know what the prophecy logically implies?"

"What does it imply?" he asked, dreading the answer.

"You're going to die." She slumped against the table, sobbing harder than he'd ever seen anyone sob. He pulled his chair around to hers and held her against his shoulder. Her bushy hair tickled his nose.

"How does it imply that? It says either I or Voldemort will die."

Hermione tried to answer, but she was crying too hard to get words out.

"Hmm, this isn't helping. Why don't you just relax--right now I'm alive, and I'm with you, and neither one of is dying. We'll talk when you're ready."

Something seemed inexpressibly right about the feel of Hermione's head on his shoulder, and Harry was horrified to find that there was something warmly pleasant about one of his dearest friends crying. He bit his tongue and moved his palm gently over her back. Eventually, she raised her head to look him in the eye. The sobs had stopped racking her body, but the tears continued to flow, and she still shook from time to time.

"Harry, the prophecy says, 'Neither can live while the other survives.' That means you can't both be alive at the same time. You're definitely alive. Therefore he isn't. But you have to be alive in order to die."

"We've been through this before, Hermione, haven't we? We know Voldemort's not fully alive--he's a construct made in a graveyard with my blood, his father's bone, Wormtail's hand and the filthiest thing I never wanted to see."

"But if that doesn't count as 'alive' as the prophecy means it, he's not alive enough for you to kill him as the prophecy means it."

"But if that's the case, Hermione, the prophecy is wrong from the beginning. It says I have the power to 'vanquish the Dark Lord.' How can I have the power to vanquish him if it's guaranteed he'll kill me?"

"That's what I'm afraid of, Harry. Christmas got me thinking about this: My parents used to tell me about how Jesus' death was his victory over Satan. Harry, what if you have to defeat Voldemort the same way--by dying?"

"That's religion, Hermione. Let's stick to what's real--magic."

"You mean, like your mother, Harry?"

"My mother died to save me, so Voldemort couldn't kill me. You're suggesting that if I die for the whole world, Voldemort won't be able to kill anyone?"

"That might be it, but it doesn't explain how your dying makes it possible for him to live, or why making him live would be vanquishing him."

"And the world doesn't want a scar like mine!" Hermione laughed through her tears. "Hermione, what has the world done for me that I should sacrifice my life for it? Locked me in the cupboard under the stairs for ten years. Called me a murderer and a madman. Put me on trial for defending myself and my git of a cousin. I'm willing to fight for my friends. I'm willing to fight against evil people. But if Dumbledore wants a sacrificial lamb, that's just not me. So let's not worry about any way of defeating Voldemort based on my death. Because I'm not doing it."

"And if it's the only way?"

"Then I'll go down fighting, like a Gryffindor lion--not like a lamb."

"Ron was willing to die for you."

"Well, maybe that's why he's dating you, and I'm not."

Hermione didn't answer.

"I'm sorry, Hermione, I shouldn't have said that." He could tell she was hurt. He could not tell why.

*

The Weasleys returned and classes resumed. First up was Care of Magical Creatures. As the Gryffindors and Slytherins approached Hagrid's hut, Malfoy suddenly froze as if he'd been petrified. A snake was curled around him.

"I wonder what he'd have done with a basilisk. How could we have thought he was the Heir of Slytherin?"

"It's the symbol of Slytherin, but the Slytherins can't stand it!"

Harry, however, approached the snake.

"Get off him!"

The snake gave Malfoy a gentle squeeze, and the boy fainted. Then it approached Harry.

Relaxsss... Don't you recognize me?

"Nagini?"

Yesss, Missster Potter. Sssurprised to sssee me?

"How did you get here?"

I Apparated, of courssse. You didn't think Voldemort'sss sssnake had no magic powers, sssurely? I thought you could use me as a ssspy.

The snake curled several times around Harry's left leg, extended herself between his thighs and up his chest, and placed her head beside his ear with a gentle pressure all along his front. He turned a color more commonly associated with Ron, who pointed his wand at Nagini.

"Ron, don't!" exclaimed Harry. "Nagini, stop it!"

He had spoken English, but the snake caught his drift.

But it'sss ssso much fun!

"That's You-Know-Who's snake?"

Suddenly, all present were all ears. Harry thought fast. "Of course not, Ron. Snakes have common names too."

I heard that!

"Yes, I know you did," said Harry, trying to focus on the snake while watching the other students' faces for any sign he had lapsed from Parseltongue into English again. "But it would be very bad if everyone knew who you are."

Sssadly true, Missster Potter. I ssstill get to tease the sssilly boy, though.

The snake began to transfer herself to Ron's shoulders, curling around his neck. Ron began to tremble, and Harry observed that nearly all the students in the class had drawn their wands and were watching with confusion and no slight terror. Harry wasn't sure what to do--could Nagini be trusted? Could his classmates be stopped from killing her? Would Ron be hurt if they tried--or if Nagini continued with what she was doing?

"Nagini, Disapparate NOW! I'll see you in Gryffindor Tower later, OK?"

The snake vanished. Ron looked at Harry warily.

*

It was late at night when Harry and Hermione returned from the library, but when the Fat Lady swung aside, they found themselves looking directly into Ron's eyes. He had been watching the portrait hole and waiting for them.

"Where have you been?"

"The library, of course," answered Hermione.

"With Harry?"

"Yes, of course, Ron, figuring out how Harry is supposed to kill a wizard who isn't alive--as you know perfectly well."

"How come you keep spending every evening with Harry?"

"Because he needs me, Ron, and he's my friend. And there's a little matter of a war, too."

"So you'd rather be with Harry. Bloody hell, I can't compete with Harry for my own girlfriend!"

It sounded to Harry as though Ron had been rehearsing the conversation and was insisting on speaking his lines.

"Ron, it's not like that. I'd rather be with Harry because it's a matter of saving his life."

"All I see--all anyone sees--is you and Harry, all night. You and Harry, you and Harry! It's getting to be obvious--like trees!"

Hermione took a deep breath and sighed. She approached Ron and extended a hand to draw his face down for a kiss--but he shoved her away. Harry caught her.

"You want her, Harry, you can have her! It's not like I could stop you anyway, since you're the great world-saving hero!"

"Ron--" they both started in, but he was already storming off.

He tripped over the snake.

Nagini began to curl around Ron, hissing out a message to Harry as she did: It'sss ssso much fun ssslithering around Hogwartsss. Ssserving Voldemort, everything was always ssso ssseriousss . . . It'sss ssso much more fun ssscaring people when it'sss jussst in sssport.

"Nagini, stop it! He doesn't understand it that way! He thinks you're going to kill him!"

The snake returned to the floor, and Ron returned to the dormitory. Harry was about to tell Nagini that he knew a pair of twins who might be the perfect friends for her, when he realized he had a more pressing concern, a concern that was pressing against his side, crying gently: Hermione.

"I wish I knew what to say, Hermione."

"There's nothing you can say, unless you can convince Ron you don't love me that way."

"Is that really what you want?"

Hermione choked back her tears and put her weight back on her own two feet. She turned to look Harry in the eye.

He willed his eyes not to water, not to plead, so that he could face her calmly.

"It wouldn't be true, would it?"

Harry didn't fully realize it until he heard himself say it: "No, Hermione, it wouldn't. But if you need me to lie for you, I will. You know that."

"Yes, Harry, but it wouldn't be right."

"And it's right to get between my two best friends?"

"You didn't do that, Harry. He just dumped me. You did everything you could to stay out from between us."

"I kept you out all night. I told you how I feel just now."

"No one can blame you--well, no one should blame you--for trying to keep yourself alive and defeat the most powerful evil wizard in half a century. And I put you in a position where you could hardly stop me from knowing how you feel. It's Voldemort's fault and mine, Harry. Not yours."

Hermione approached Harry, intending to hug him. But Harry backed swiftly away. He tripped on Nagini, who Disapparated immediately, and got back to his feet before Hermione could offer a hand. "I don't want to be your second choice! You love Ron, not me, and I've accepted that. Don't do this to me!"

Hermione's voice was low and furious. "I do love you Harry--more than anyone else in the world. I don't know why I never loved you as more than a friend--but Ron is right, I did choose you over him, even though I fancied him and not you."

Harry felt as if he'd taken a Bludger full-on in the chest. Weak, struggling to breathe, utterly puzzled as to how to respond, he sank onto the couch. Hermione sat down next to him.

They awoke to Ron's words: "Sleeping together already? Bet it isn't the first time, is it?" And in the first minute of her day, even Hermione could not find an answer before she heard the Fat Lady's portrait swing closed behind her ex-boyfriend.