The Collection

The Collection (3/4)

Hermione spent Christmas her seventh year nearly glued to Harry's side. She had a sense of urgency, a feeling that she had to make the most of every moment with him, and a terrible voice always saying in her head, "These are the last of your carefree days at Hogwarts. This is the end of childhood - this could be the end of life as you've known it."

Though she was nearly mad with apprehension, that Christmas was the best she'd had at Hogwarts. On Christmas Eve she fell asleep on Harry's shoulder, and she woke up the next morning to the nasal concerto of one Ronald Weasley. She was in one of the empty beds in the 7^th year room of the boys' dormitory (only she, Harry, and Ron had stayed behind in their year). Harry had carried her upstairs.

Her gifts had turned up at the foot of this bed, whomever's it was. Hermione smiled to herself. She could wake Harry and Ron, and they could open their gifts together for the first time. Though they were older and to the point where the excitement of Christmas morning had nearly worn off, revisiting their childhood and sharing Christmas, possibly for the last time, struck her as the perfect thing to do.

She woke Harry, then Ron, and after they got over their annoyance at being woken so early on holiday, they opened their gifts together. Hermione had knitted them both scarves and hats; Harry gave her ten skeins of yarn in five different colors, which gave them all a laugh.

They spent the rest of the day eating sweets, playing chess and Exploding Snap by the fire, having snowball fights, and eating more sweets. After a small lunch, Ron went off with Luna Lovegood again, and Harry and Hermione went back to the common room together.

"When are we going to tell Ron about the spell?" Harry asked after they'd settled in on the couch in front of the fire.

Hermione frowned. "Not today. We can tell him tomorrow, but not on Christmas. Let's not ruin the evening with it."

Harry nodded, more at the fire than at her. As usual, he was lost in thought.

"Hermione...how are we going to prepare for it? How can we practice the spell?"

She tried to appear confident in her answer, but it was something she'd worried about frequently. "We can't practice the actual spell, but we don't need to. All we need is to be able to master the...the connection it requires, which we can practice easily."

Harry let out a short, nervous sort of chuckle, but she could tell he wasn't comforted. "I'm glad one of us knows what we're doing."

She reached for his hand and squeezed it gently. "I'm scared, too. But we mustn't waste our time worrying. What will come will come - and we'll be ready."

Harry smiled. "How do you do it?"

"Do what?" she asked, confused.

"Ease my mind when I should be going insane."

"I just know you too well," she said quietly as he continued to look at her, the ghost of his smile still lingering on his face.

It could have been the pivotal moment in their relationship. The way he looked at her in that instant made it almost impossible for her to keep her feelings from him a moment longer. As luck would have it, Ron appeared in the portrait hole at that moment, scowling at them.

"All right, that's it. What's going on between you two?" he demanded. "You were both behaving strangely around each other this morning, and I ignored it, but now I'm positive there's something you're not telling me."

Hermione glanced at Harry, murmuring, "This is why I told you first."

Harry suppressed a smirk as Hermione began to explain.

"We're not...together or anything, if that's what you're thinking - and knowing you, I'm sure it is," Hermione said. "It's just that...I've had an idea, and I felt it would be better to explain it to Harry first."

Ron sat down with them, and Hermione explained everything to him - the initial idea, the research, and the final product.

"Why just the two of you?" he asked when she finished. "Why am I not part of this?"

She'd feared he would take it personally. "The energy wouldn't be right, Ron. It has to be Harry and I."

Harry frowned. "Energy?"

Hermione sighed, growing weary of explaining. "The way we feel each other influences the energy we exchange when we cast a joint spell. Our feelings for each other are different than the way Ron feels for us or we for him. It wouldn't be balanced."

Ron frowned. "So, you two will go and kill You-Know-Who, and I'll sit back doing nothing, I take it?"

"Of course not," said Harry. "Voldemort's going to try to take over Hogwarts; the Order is nearly sure of it. When he does, we'll go do the spell, and you and the Order and the teachers and members of the DA will all be fighting the Death Eaters. It's not like you'll all be having tea and biscuits while we do the hard part."

Ron nodded, still looking reluctant to accept the idea. "All right. Good luck, I suppose."

They avoided the subject for the rest of the evening.

The next day, Harry and Hermione went to the Room of Requirement and began practicing. Their connection, as Hermione had expected, was easy to make, and within two weeks, they were performing fourth-year level spells together. By March, they'd conquered nearly every spell they'd learned thus far, including ones picked up outside of class. In the meantime, the DA had reconvened with Ron in charge. He reviewed basic defense spells and taught them the more specialized ones he knew.

In April, intelligence came in that Voldemort would attack in May. Harry, Hermione, Ron, and the DA were told, and though they never spoke of it to anyone, the rest school seemed to sense their nervousness. As a result, Hogwarts was filled with a strange tension in the month they spent waiting for the attack.

Voldemort finally made his move two weeks before the NEWTs. They were studying in the common room, attempting to focus, when Dumbledore's voice filled the castle: "Students, please remain in your house dormitories until further notice."

Hermione and Ron both looked to Harry, who had closed his book and taken on the role of the hero again - he was resigned, resolute, and ready to end it.

"That's our cue," he said quietly, but in the dead silence of the common room, everyone heard him. Wordlessly, Harry, Hermione, and Ron went to join the battle, and the DA members followed.

On their way downstairs, students from Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff joined them, all silent and seeming to understand the magnitude of what they were about to do.

They stopped in the Entrance Hall and organized themselves. Ron and Luna went to the front to lead the others, and Harry and Hermione slipped to the back. The others would clear the way for Harry and Hermione, who would run to the back of the Death Eater's line, where Voldemort would inevitably be.

There was complete chaos on the grounds. The professors barely had the time to notice the students fighting amongst them and had even less time to care.

Hermione ran through the crowds with her hand in Harry's, dodging curses and doing her best to ignore those falling around them, hoping that they were Death Eaters falling and not any of their own.

It seemed like an eternity of running before they spotted him. Harry's hand tightened around hers, and she could feel his fear. "Oh god," she heard him say, "what if it doesn't work?"

"Have faith," she whispered. "Have faith in us - he can't overcome what we have."

They glanced at each other quickly in reassurance and exchanged the smallest of smiles before they charged forward, shouting their incantation in unison as they ran. Voldemort didn't see them coming until they were shouting the last two words. He had no time to fight back before they'd raised their joined hands to release the spell.

Hermione found herself in one of those moments when time slows down and one can take note of every little feeling. It was Harry's feelings that she noted in this instance - the sweatiness of his palm against hers, the tension in his arm, his rapid breathing, his typical smell of soap and grass, his fear, his anxiety. A surge of energy shot through her. She felt in that second that she could read Harry's mind and heart, as though he'd given himself wholly unto her and she to him.

With a blinding flash of light, the moment ended. Her hand slipped out of Harry's as she fell to the ground, unconscious.

When she woke, she was in the Hospital Wing. Looking to her left, she found Harry sitting in a chair by her bed. He was clutching her hand and staring fixedly at it as if it might suddenly disappear.

"This scene seems oddly familiar," Hermione said quietly. Harry's head snapped up to look at her; he seemed more relieved than she'd ever seen him before.

"I never realized how hard it was to be the conscious one," he joked.

"So what have I missed?"

He pretended to think about his answer. "Well...Ron caught Neville and Lavender making out..."

Hermione blinked. "I was thinking more along the lines of immediately after I passed out, and speaking of, just how long have I been out?"

"A week."

"A week? You've got to be kidding."

Harry shook his head. "The spell worked better than you thought it would. It killed him. Well, more like vaporized him, really. I can't describe what happened...it was just too...well, weird. I realized you'd fainted after that and carried you back."

"And the others? Was everyone all right?"

"Some were hurt, but nobody was killed. The Death Eaters were rather outnumbered, and once they realized their leader was gone, they scattered."

"Do you think he's gone for good?" she asked.

Harry smiled. "Yeah. I think it's finally over now."

To be continued