Harry Potter and the Daoimear de Dán

Chapter Four- The Past is Revealed & Futures Are Shared

"Well, are you talking to us now, Ron?" Hermione asked gently. Still looking a little shell-shocked, Ron nodded.

"Good," Hermione beamed. "Let's go to the common room. Everyone's in class, we should be undisturbed there."

Maura came out of the office.

"Dumbledore wants to talk to the Guardians on his own," she said, looking quite annoyed about it. "They said I should come with you."

"You want me to get some pumpkin juice from Dobby?" Harry asked. They each nodded eagerly. Harry grinned and disappeared towards the kitchens as the other three went to the tower.

Only five minutes later, they were settled down in the common room sipping pumpkin juice and eating the chocolate biscuits Dobby hadn't let Harry leave without. They then explained Ron's shamanic roots to him, and he seemed pleased and not a little bit relieved to be playing a real part in the war against Voldemort.

"It all seems very strange," he said. "After all, wouldn't Ginny and my brothers have the same thing?"

"Possibly. The question is, do they have the same relationship to Harry and Hermione?" Maura asked. "All the Guardians seem to do is drill into my head the importance of connections and stuff like that. I didn't really realise until now. It's not enough for the four corners to fulfil the requirements, they need to connect to each other,"

"Otherwise, it's just four unrelated points instead of a diamond," said Hermione, understanding. Maura nodded.

"Which is part of the reason I'm down here with you. They, and Professor Dumbledore think we need to bond," she grimaced. "No offence to you lot, but I've really never been one for bonding."

"Well, we never finished our conversation, thanks to the boy with two left feet, over there," said Hermione, nodding over to Harry with a grin. Harry, with maturity beyond his years, stuck out his tongue at her.

"What do you want to know?" Maura's face became filled with the suspicion usually to be found there.

"Well... Tell us more about Katerina," Hermione suggested. "Where did you meet?"

"In hospital, the day I was born. She was born three days before me. My mum and hers were in adjacent beds. You know what those East End women are like, never stop bloody talking."

"Did you grow up together, then?" asked Ron.

"Yes. She was my only friend. The only one who would put up with me, including my brothers and sisters."

"You have brothers and sisters? What are their names? How old are they? What are they like?"

"Slow down Hermione," Harry advised. "Before one of your lungs collapses."

"OK... Uh... Well there's David, he's twenty six. Then Marianne, she's twenty four. Next is Angela and she's twenty three. And I have a younger brother called Gene. He's sixteen. And I really couldn't tell you what any of them are like. I never got to know them," she paused. "I was a most unpleasant child. And according to reliable sources, I'm a most unpleasant adult."

"You can't be all bad," said Hermione reassuringly. "Otherwise, Katerina would never have put up with you."

"That's what she said at the time..."

"What happened to her?" asked Harry. Maura ignored him. Hermione picked up on this and changed the direction of the conversation.

"And George liked you, didn't he?" she asked. Maura looked down at the floor, having gone rather pale.

"You could say that."

"What was he like?" Hermione asked, determined to get this girl to say something, anything.

"Well, it turned out that, aside from being the descendant of St George, George was also the Heir of Conochobar with liberal helpings of Cu Chulainn and several other famous Ulstermen. He had more old magic and history in him than I did."

Maura now sounded equal parts sarcastic, proud and sad.

"You loved him," Hermione said, not as a question but as a statement of fact.

"Bloody Hell," Maura muttered. "I used to be much better at hiding stuff than this."

"Oh, you're very good at it. But I'm very perceptive."

"Yes, I did," she admitted. "But I didn't know. Then we found out about the prophecy. The blood between the Ulster and Connaught clans has been troubled for centuries, millennia really. Since Maeve left Conor. Since before that too, probably. In order to fight the Old Enemy with any degree of success, we had to repair the relationship between the clans."

"What exactly did the prophecy say?" Harry asked.

"It said that in order to defeat he who will rise, the clans must unite, heal all rifts and forget past grudges, and when this had been done, the ancient armies of the clans would rise to give us a hand. A pretty simple prophecy really. Or not so much a prophecy as a handy tip. Although it alluded to us in that we would be the ones who had to fight the Old Enemy."

"How did you do that, exactly?" asked Ron.

"Run-of-the-mill ritual. Some herbs and spices available at your local Tesco's, some runes and chanting. And of course, the blood that all prophecies require. It was easy, because we didn't know we were supposed to hate each other for the past of our people. It took two thousand years for the clans to forget and the rift to be healed. Can you believe that?"

"Sounds a little intense," said Hermione with a reassuring smile. "Did it work?"

"Oh it worked fabulously. Except that instead of just bringing Ulster and Connaught together and raising our armies to fight against the Old Enemy, it also opened my eyes to the fact I was in love with bloody George," she said with a sigh, sounding incredibly annoyed with herself.

"Isn't that a good thing?" Hermione asked uneasily.

"Not when your sweet little best friend is in love with him too. Not when you're supposed to be concentrating solely on winning a huge battle. Not when you can't have any distractions. Not when your heart's too stone cold and dead to appreciate it."

"Sounds like a lot of reasons," said Harry, with a surreptitious glance at Hermione that both Ron and Maura noticed.

"That's what I thought. Except that he loved me back," she said very softly. "And the berk told me. Right before the battle began. How was I meant to concentrate then? All I could think about was him. The Guardians had told me that women are cursed with the need to worry about the people they love. I didn't think I'd have a problem with it, because there wasn't anyone. But no! Bloody charming, magnificent hero George bloody Richards has to bollocks it up," Maura, perhaps sensing that she was about to embark upon a tirade of shouting and swearing, stopped there.

"He sounds like a good guy," said Harry.

"Oh, he was perfect," she said. "Total hero. He made Hercules and Achilles look like wimpy little gits. Although it turned out that his heel was me. Of all people, stone-cold bitch ice queen me."

At this point Maura, who had been sitting ramrod straight, now collapsed in on herself.

"If I was worried about him, he was worried about me. We both tried to fight, of course, but... Maybe if there was some, I don't know.... If we'd been together for a while, we'd have been all right. But you've really got no idea... It was all new and strange and.... How can you concentrate on saving the world with all that going on in your head?"

"I don't think it would be easy," Hermione said, with a surreptitious glance at Harry that both Ron and Maura noticed.

"Well anyway, we weren't doing too bad. But then it got to that point where we had to confront the bastard Old Enemy himself... I'm swearing like a trooper tonight, aren't I? My mother would be so proud," she said with a harsh laugh.

"He was weakened. See, the Old Enemy was a supernatural being and had invested a lot of his power in the army he raised. Our side killed so many of them that his power was depleted. All it needed was a quick incantation by me and George and he would've been sent back to Hell where he belongs. But then he shot at me."

Maura visibly flinched at the memory. Eagle-eyed Harry noticed that her hands had started to shake.

"With what?" asked Harry, sharing worried glances with Hermione and Ron. In the time she'd been at Hogwarts, Maura hadn't ever seemed this vulnerable. It hadn't even occurred to them that she was able to be.

"Oh, some curse of some sort. Whatever he managed to pull together with what power he had left."

"What happened?" asked Ron.

"What do heroes do to save the damsel?" Maura asked in a harsh, dry voice.

"They sacrifice themselves," said Harry in a very, very soft voice. Hermione looked at him for a very long moment.

"Exactly!" Maura said, jumping up from her chair. "That's what he did! Can you believe it? I'm meant to do it, and he takes it! He just died on me! But you should've seen me after that happened. I must've looked a bloody frightening sight, all that red hair flowing, face contorted into a battle cry. I must've looked and sounded like a psychotic banshee in a really bad mood. Isn't it written somewhere in the Villains Handbook that you never ever kill your enemy's boyfriend?" she demanded angrily. Then she sank sadly back into her seat.

"What happened to Katerina?" Harry asked softly. This time, Maura was prepared to answer him.

"Oh, she didn't die. We both kept her far away from the real fighting. She stayed and helped to look after the wounded. I suppose we both thought she was too much of a girl to fight. Funny, when you consider that a girl is exactly what I am," she laughed, harshly and without humour.

"She'd been prepared to accept that George was in love with me. Hell, she noticed before I did. She was even prepared to accept that I loved him back. What she wasn't prepared to accept was that he died saving me."

She paused for a very long time.

"Nor was she able to accept that, while he had died, I lived. And was pregnant with his child. It turned out to be a right bloody soap opera."

"Pregnant?" asked Hermione very gently.

"Didn't I tell you?" she said with a very slight smirk. "That was all part of the ritual. Some old druid's idea of a joke, I suppose. Strictly speaking, sex wasn't part of the ritual, marriage was: marriage between the heirs. I only agreed at the time to get the ritual done. But of course, for the marriage to be binding in all ways, it had to be consummated," she laughed genuinely this time.

"It's funny, but shagging someone really puts a new perspective on how you look at him."

"Didn't you have an idea of how you felt before?" Hermione asked gingerly.

"Yes. I don't suppose I would've agreed to the whole thing otherwise. But us stone-cold ice bitches aren't fully familiar with such emotions. We deal better with rage and violence. You might say I had an inkling that my heart skipped beats because he was close, not because I had some as yet undiagnosed medical defect."

"So, let me get this straight," said Harry. "You have to marry George and have sex with him, then fight a huge battle against an almost unstoppable evil, only to have him die just before the end of the battle. Then you find out you're pregnant?"

"Yes," she said, wondering where he was possibly going with this. He threw his hands up in defeat.

"You win! You've had to deal with much more than me. At least over the last couple of years." An uneasy silence filled the air as the Hogwarts Three waited for her reaction.

She laughed. Not a short, derisive laugh of the sort she seemed to have patented, but a full, throw-your-head-back, gasp-for-air laugh that lasted for minutes.

"It's bloody ridiculous, ain't it? I'm nineteen years old and I've done all that. Man, I should write a book. Get it made for TV."

"So, was it a boy or a girl?" Hermione asked when Maura stopped laughing.

"Girl. I was expecting a boy, actually, being that they'd be the Heir of Ulster. Found that out before she was born. I don't think it's usually hereditary though."

"Isn't the Heir of Ulster usually a boy?" asked Hermione.

"Yes. But I don't think the Heir thing matters so much anymore. Only in times of dire emergency."

"Like this?" asked Harry.

"Yes, that's true. But I don't think my six month old daughter will be much good in battle," she said with a laugh.

"What's her name?" asked Ron.

"Deirdre. She's named after another figure of the Ulster Cycle. Although I hope she's luckier in love than the original."

"Where does she live?"

"With her paternal grandparents," Maura said, sadness returning to her eyes. "Since she was born, I've been back doing stuff for the Guardians. I don't see her often, although I hope I will after this is all over."

She pulled a black leather wallet from her pocket. Opening it, she extracted a picture.

"That's her."

The little girl in the picture had red hair like her mother's and big brown eyes they assumed she inherited from her father. She was smiling sweetly at the camera.

"She's beautiful," breathed Hermione in an awe-filled voice.

"Girls always get all soppy over babies," said Ron sarcastically. Then he was handed the picture and his own expression melted.

Maura looked happier and prouder than any of them had ever seen her. Then, as if she knew that they were thinking this, she stood up.

"I think that's enough of that bonding stuff for now," she said quite gruffly. "I should probably get back to the Guardians. And I think your Gryffindors will be here soon."

With that, she left. The three students looked at each other, not quite sure how to digest all that information.

"Well... I don't blame her for being bitter," said Harry.

"Me neither," added Ron.

"I think it's terribly sad," finished Hermione. "He shouldn't have had to die like that."

"I don't know," disagreed Harry. "Dying to save the person you love and to keep the world safe, I think that's a pretty good way to die. There are worse ways."

As he said this, he was looking right at Hermione. She shifted slightly under his gaze. The silence in the room became deafening between the two and the young shaman watching them with interest.

"Hey!" a voice shouted. "Why did you get out of Potions?"

Dean Thomas stood in the portrait hole, several more Gryffindors behind him, looking quite displeased. At the sombre looks on their faces, he sighed. "Gawd, you haven't got to save the world again? Will it be before the FA Cup Final?"

"It's possible," said Harry in a particularly dry voice. He stood up. "I'm really hungry. Who wants lunch?"

"I wouldn't say no," said Ron in a particularly cheerful voice. Harry grinned, glad that he was back on good terms with Ron.

"Let's go, then! Coming Hermione?" asked Ron.

"I want to get a book, I'll meet you down there," she said in a quiet voice.

"All right," he replied. Then he and Harry went off in search of food.

***

Hermione finally emerged as lunch was beginning to wind down. She didn't have any books with her.

"Are you all right?" Harry asked before she'd even had a chance to sit down.

"Fine. Why?"

"No reason," he said, looking at her suspiciously.

"What?" she snapped. Several other students turned to look, but when they saw that it was just Harry and Hermione, they turned back to their own conversations.

"Have you been crying?" he asked quietly, so that no one else could hear.

"No."

"Liar."

"Leave me alone."

"No. What's the matter? Is it all that stuff that Maura told us?"

"In a manner of speaking," she mumbled. "I'm not going to talk about it, so you might as well give up now."

"Fine. For now," he conceded. She sighed and began digging into a bowl of hot tomato soup.

***

That night after dinner, they dutifully went to the large classroom down the Charms corridor where they could practice in peace. Maura was there already with the Guardians. Professor Figg was also there with Sirius.

"All right kids," Sirius began. All four bristled noticeably at the 'kids' label. "Fine, fine. All right, young people not yet old enough to be adults and but no longer children..."

"Guys would work just as well," Ron said with a smile. Sirius flashed that million watt grin at them.

"Thank you Ron," he said. "OK, guys. Ron and Hermione, you're going to go with Professor Figg and the, uh, Guardians... Harry, Maura, we're going to start you on some defence work."

"All right," Harry said, looking surreptitiously over at Hermione. Her face was impassive as she headed out of the room with the slightly mysterious Clara and Patricia and Professor Figg.

"What are they going to do?" Maura voiced Harry's own question.

"They're going to go through some tests," he said. "See how much potential they have, I suppose. And start on channelling whatever it is that shamans and druids do."

"Oh. OK."

"Now, Maura, you're not a witch?" asked Sirius.

"Well, I've been called one a couple of times, but strictly in an insulting sense,"

"All right," Sirius said. "That limits you on the magical defence you can use. But Snape's going to teach you potions with the others."

"Snape? Sirius, do we have to?" Harry whined. "I have enough of him during the day."

Sirius didn't bother hiding a grin.

"Sorry Harry. We all have to make sacrifices for the common good. Now, we could start with some physical defence. We can see how much you both know..."

***

It was a particularly tired Harry Potter who dragged himself back up to Gryffindor Tower much later that evening. Sirius had been an incredibly thorough and demanding teacher and Maura had been a more than able opponent. Even with cushioning charms and the like, he still felt like a walking bruise.

"Harry! Are you all right?" Ron asked as he came into the common room. It was so late that most people had already gone up to their dorms, and only Ron and Hermione remained in the common room.

"Maura's very strong," he said. Even his voice felt bruised, he thought.

"Didn't you use protection charms?" asked Hermione with an ill-concealed grin.

"Yes, Hermione," he said. "Funnily enough, if you hit someone hard enough, it still hurts."

"Wait till everyone hears that Harry Potter got beaten up by a girl!" crowed Ron. Harry glared at him.

"If you tell anyone in the world, ever, about this, I'll set her on you. That girl has some anger," he said, flopping down onto the sofa. "What did you do? Sirius said something about tests?"

"Yes, lots of tests," moaned Ron. "We had to go into trances, real trances and I had to use a crystal ball... It was like the Divination class from Hell."

"Except that Guardians clearly know what they're doing," said Hermione, clearly quite impressed by the Guardians. "They were just testing us to see the boundaries of our abilities."

"Yeah. Of course, Hermione did brilliantly in all her tests," added Ron.

"Ron did well too. He scared the older Guardian actually, by getting into such a deep trance."

"Like in class earlier?"

"Yeah," Ron said, looking at the floor.

"You went into a trance in class? What did you see?" Hermione asked.

"Nothing much."

"What do you mean, nothing much?"

"I mean nothing much. I saw me and you two and Maura. That's it. Standing in a square. Maybe a diamond. And there was a circle. I didn't know what it meant at first, but then when we went to see Dumbledore and Maura told us about everything, it made sense."

"Oh. Are you sure?" Hermione asked.

"Positive," he said.

"What about you, Hermione?" asked Harry. "What did you have to do?"

"Well, they got me to enter a trance too, but it wasn't that successful. I'm more of a philosopher, surprise, surprise. I'll be able to translate runes and heal you hopefully but don't ask me about the future."

"Oh. That's good." Harry said, smiling at her. She looked away.

"What's the matter?" he asked. He got the same response as previous enquiries: no response.

"Hermione!" he exclaimed, making both Hermione and Ron jump slightly. "Why won't you tell me what's so obviously bothering you?"

"Because I don't want to!" she shouted back. Ron stood up.

"And that's my cue to leave," he said.

"No, don't leave, Ron. I'll leave," she said, getting up and going up the stairs to her dorm. Harry stood up and went up to the boys' dorm. He retrieved the invisibility cloak and then went down.

"You're going out? Harry, you're going to be knackered tomorrow," Ron advised.

"Yeah I know," he said. But instead of going out, he went up the stairs to the girls' dorm.

***

"Harry!" Hermione whispered angrily, painfully aware that her roommates were asleep. "Get out!"

Harry crossed the room in a couple of strides and took her by the arm. She went to shout, but remembered that Lavender and Parvati were asleep. He dragged her out of the room, down the stairs and through the portrait hole. He didn't stop, in fact, until they were outside by the trees, where they'd been just the day before.

"What are you playing at?" she asked angrily. He sighed.

"I'm worried about you," he admitted.

"Why?"

"Because ever since Maura told us all that stuff this afternoon, you've barely said a word. To me, at least. I know it's getting to you for some reason, and I want to know what it is."

"Why?"

"I told you, I'm worried about you. I also know that you have a habit of bottling everything up until it gets too much for you. And I don't want that to happen to you."

She looked at him stonily for several moments before quite suddenly, she burst into tears. Not merely a few wet drops falling from her eyes but big hacking sobs that made her entire body shake. Harry's worried expression turned to one of shock and horror as he threw his arms around her. The two of them sank onto the cool grass and he rocked her back and forward very gently.

"I don't want you to die!" she sobbed noisily.

"I'm not going to die," he replied immediately.

"No? You're the hero of the piece. What do heroes do? They sacrifice themselves," she sobbed. "I don't want you to do that, I don't want you to leave me."

"Leave you? I'd never leave you, Hermione," he said. Her cries were so distressing to hear that several tears rolled down his own cheeks.

"Promise?"

"I promise. Honestly, Hermione, what's wrong? You can tell me anything."

Hermione pulled away from him and paused while she stopped her crying.

"It was everything Maura said. About worrying about the people you love, the way that he died before they even had a chance, the way that destiny just messed them around and..."

"And what?"

"I saw it in your face, you know," she said with a slight sniff.

"What?"

"That hero look. That 'I must be prepared to die for the common good' look. Well, I don't want you to do that. I'm all for destroying Voldemort, but not if the cost is your life."

"I agree."

"You do?"

"Of course I do. I don't want to die, you know," he said in a small voice. "But I need to think about all the 'what if' scenarios. I need to be prepared to die."

"No you don't! Harry, you're seventeen years old! You should be thinking about your future and what you want to do when you leave school, not worrying about whether you'll live to sit your NEWTs."

"I know."

"Do you think about the future? I know what you said yesterday, but don't you even daydream sometimes?" she asked.

"Oh, I dream about it all the time," he admitted.

"Tell me," she said.

"Hermione, I don't know..."

"Hey, crying girl here! You have to comfort crying girls, you know."

"All right. I dream about leaving school and getting a really cool job. Nothing like an auror or some desk job at the ministry. I've had enough of evil fighting already thanks. I don't think I'd want the attention you get in professional Quidditch either. No, I'd like to do something where I can spend most of my time at home."

"Where do you live? In a big house or a flat or cottage?"

"Well..." he looked down at the grass, quite nervous to be sharing his dreams, even if it was with Hermione. Especially because it was with Hermione. After all, she was a featured player in all of them.

"It's in the countryside, far away from everything else in the world... It's not a cottage really, it's quite rambling. A bit like the Burrow really. But it's not too big. And it has a big, wild garden full of all kinds of plants that only you or Neville would know the names of."

"Do you... live alone?" she ventured.

"No," he admitted, his gaze once more going to the grass. "I don't."

"Oh," she said. Now it was her turn to look at the grass. He had someone in mind, she knew he did.

"Maura said that it was a bad idea that George told her that he loved her," Harry said suddenly. She looked up, confused. What was he going on about now?

"What do you mean?"

"But I don't think so," he said as if he hadn't heard her. "I'd rather know... I'd rather tell the girl than die without her ever knowing, or finding out some other way."

Harry took a very, very deep breath.

"The girl in my idyllic dream... She's you," he said, exhaling sharply.

"What?"

"She's you. In my dream, it's always you."

"Really?"

"Yes."

"Oh."

"What do you mean, oh?" he asked anxiously.

"It's funny," she started in an unusually high voice. "That two people should have the exact same dream of their futures, without ever having shared them before."

"You mean it?" Harry's face lit up like Oxford Street at Christmas.

"This garden... It's full of trees too, and it's so wild it might've been left for a hundred years?"

"Yes," he said with widening eyes.

"And our house, it's in the hills, maybe in the Lake District?"

"Yes."

"I'm glad you told me," she whispered.

"I'm glad I told you," he whispered back. Then he looked at her mischievously. "Do we have children in your dream?"

"Whoa!" she exclaimed with a laugh. "I didn't think that far ahead."

"Me either." he paused for a moment. "Two girls and a boy?" he asked. She nodded.

"Uh huh. I don't really know why."

"I love you, you know," he said in quite a casual voice. She looked like she might cry again, but, remaining composed, simply replied:

"I love you too."

Then, he leaned over to her and kissed her, very softly indeed, their lips barely brushing. But all the same, it felt like sparks were flying between them.

"Do you suppose this is what Maura meant by a connection?" he asked with a grin. Then he leaned back in again for another kiss.

It was far more impassioned this time, no longer weighed down by the heavy mantle of 'first kiss'. This was every ounce of love, feeling and downright desire that had built up between the two over time. After what seemed like only seconds and an eternity, they pulled apart to catch their breaths.

"I.... We.... We should probably get back, you know," she said.

"Yes, you're right," he agreed, not moving a muscle.

"We've got a full day of classes, then you've got Quidditch practice, then we've got Sirius again," she said, trying not to notice the way Harry's fingers were tracing a pattern on her back.

"Again, you're right," he said, still not moving away from her.

"It's probably not even safe for us to be out here," she said. Now he did move.

"I didn't think about it that way. We should go back inside," he said, back in hero-protector mode. They stood up and he threw the cloak over them. This time, it wasn't her imagination- he couldn't have held her any closer as they made their way back to Gryffindor Tower.

He kissed her good night, then they both floated up to their dorms.

***

"What are you grinning about, Potter?" Ron asked. Harry had slept in later than the others and was now rushing around to be ready in time for breakfast. Normally, this involved much swearing on the part of the individual. Harry, however, was merely grinning like the Cheshire cat that got the cream.

"Nothing Ron, nothing," he said. He wasn't going to tell anyone, not even Ron, until he'd spoken to Hermione.

"So, I take it you finally kissed her?" asked Ron in a casual voice. Harry stopped.

"What?"

"Come off it Potter! Last night, you dragged Hermione off to some secret place, not returning for some time, and this morning you're grinning like a nutter. I may not be as clever as Hermione, but I'm not completely stupid. Or blind."

Harry merely grinned even wider. Ron let out a whoop.

"Finally! I thought after what Maura said yesterday, you'd never tell her."

"Just because Maura said it, doesn't make it so," Harry said. "She's not the boss of me."

"No. I think Hermione is the boss of you."

Harry blushed quite furiously.

"Come on, Harry, time for brekkie. I'm starved."

They headed downstairs and found Hermione already at the table eating her breakfast.

"Good morning," Harry said. Hermione looked up from her book and smiled a sweet, secret smile.

"Ron guessed," he murmured to her.

"I'm not surprised. He's much smarter than he lets on," she said with another smile.

"You two made up, then?" Lavender cut into the conversation. They looked at her with matching quizzical expressions.

"What?"

"Yesterday at lunch, I thought you were going to go ten rounds right here in the Hall."

"Oh. Yeah. We made up, Lavender. Don't worry about us," Harry said with a charming smile. It worked its magic on Lavender, who turned away, blushing slightly.

"You charmer, you," Hermione whispered. "We have to meet Professor Snape this evening, by the way."

He sighed very deeply, and wondered if making an appointment for root canal surgery would get him out of it.

"Don't look like that, Harry," she said. "It might be very useful indeed to know some healing potions and that sort of thing. Who knows what we'll end up against?"

"Don't give me the spiel. Sirius did it already. Nothing on the face of the Earth will ever make me glad for extra Potions with Snape."

***

After a full day of classes and not enough dinner (Harry and Hermione had ended up late after going to find books about druids in the library), the four points of the diamond trudged down to the Potions dungeon.

"On time, I see," drawled the Professor. "Wonders might never cease."

Harry tensed and prepared himself to walk out. Hermione stuck her foot in front of him and gave him a look that said 'Don't even think about it'.

"It's lovely to see you too, Professor," Harry said in a syrupy tone. "I've always wanted to know more about Potions."

If Snape felt the underlying tension in Harry's voice, he chose to ignore it.

"Let's get started, shall we? I'm sure none of us have any desire to be here all night," Snape drawled.

They settled down in chairs at the front benches. Rather than sit at his desk, Snape came and sat with them.

"You'll need potions for healing and things like that, if you can't use magic. Healing charms and spells are much more complicated than brewing a potion beforehand. Especially when one of your number has no explicit magical power."

Surprisingly perhaps, this was not said in a spiteful or malicious tone, but simply as the fact that it was.

"I'll also teach you some basic nutritional potions as well. Who knows what you'll have to do, and a few vials of them are more economical with space than food. They don't perish easily either."

He launched into a complicated description of various nutritional potions and after awhile, they began attempting to brew a couple.

"Professor?" Hermione asked. For once, Snape didn't roll his eyes, or make a smart comment about 'Know-it-alls'.

"Yes, Granger?"

"Well... If we added something benign to the mixture, say parsley, surely it would taste nicer?"

"The point of the potion is not to be tasty but filling and nutritional," he sneered.

"Yes, that's true," she said, not flinching under his glare. "But surely it's better if we don't spend five minutes gagging from the taste?"

"Yes Miss Granger, I suppose that may be true. Why don't you try it?"

His voice was malicious, but his face didn't show ill feeling. So, she tried it.

***

"That was... Almost pleasant," said Ron on their return to the already deserted common room. Maura was not with them. She seemed to be retreating into herself again as they stepped up their training.

"Not fun," said Harry. "But I didn't feel suicidal at any time."

"Honestly, you two. You have to look for the worst case scenario, don't you?" asked Hermione.

"Sorry, its a hazard of the job," said Harry, settling down into a chair beside the dying embers of the fire.

"What are we doing tomorrow?" Ron asked.

"No idea. I think Sirius mentioned something about Mad-Eye, so there'll be something to do with CONSTANT VIGILANCE!"

Hermione and Ron both jumped when he shouted without warning.

"Shh! You'll wake the entire tower up!" she hissed.

"Why not? I'm knackered, why shouldn't they be?" Harry asked peevishly. His eyes, however, sparkled with a smile.

"You'd be that mean?"

"Never," he said quite softly. Ron moved to the stairs.

"That's it! I'm not putting up with any more of this googly eyed stuff. Just snog her and have done with it will you? I'm off to bed."

"Aha!" Harry said, an evil glint in his eye. "I have the beautiful damsel all alone at last."

Hermione giggled in a quite un-Hermione like manner and batted her eyelashes rapidly.

"Call me a damsel again, and I'll have you," she said, still with the big smile and eyelashes. He immediately looked contrite.

"Sorry. Forgot that you're one of those feminist chicks,"

"Hey!"

He laughed and muttered something very softly. Hermione found herself flying through the air onto his lap.

"I should never have taught you to summon things, should I?"

"On the contrary, I think it's a brilliant charm that I can use fully to my advantage," he said, leaning back in the chair. She snuggled into him and for a while they just sat there.

"Harry?"

"Yeah?"

"What do you think about me learning how to fly better?"

"Where did that come from?"

"Well, I was thinking earlier, after Snape reminded us that Maura's a Muggle, to all intents and purposes. You and Ron are the only ones who can fly to any real level of skill. What if we need to use broomsticks? Surely it's best if only one of us has to hitch a ride."

"Oh I don't know, I like the idea of you riding my broomstick," he said with a lascivious grin.

"You're incorrigible!" she exclaimed, torn between laughter and righteous annoyance.

"You're beautiful. So?"

"You listen to Ron and Dean and Seamus too much. That scrawny little Harry I remember in First year wouldn't dream of being so coarse."

"I know. Clueless or what?" Harry grinned. She laughed now.

"Shut up."

"You got the line wrong," he said.

"What?"

"In the movies, it's never just 'shut up'. It's 'shut up and kiss me'."

"Oh. All right," she sighed over-dramatically. "Shut up and kiss me."

"If you say so."

***

This became their schedule every day: class all day, dinner, then hours full of extra-curricular classes, before heading back to the common room. Sometimes Maura would come with them and they'd all share amusing anecdotes of all kinds. Sometimes she didn't, but the nights always ended with Harry and Hermione alone in the common room trading smart remarks and kisses.

After a few weeks, they even got used to the routine and found themselves considerably less tired from their hectic schedule. What amazed Harry and Hermione most, though, was the way that nobody seemed to notice that they had become a couple. They'd decided to keep it a secret, and nobody seemed to notice. Either that, or they assumed the two to have been a couple already.

"Hermione!" whispered Harry. They were headed to dinner on this particular day when he suddenly dragged her into an empty classroom.

"What?" she demanded, wondering why he had suddenly dragged her into an empty classroom.

"Nothing," he said, his arms going around her waist.

"Harry! Someone might see us," she said.

"No, there's no one around. Everyone's already at dinner," he said, planting feather-light kisses on her neck. Finally, she gave into the inevitable.

"No!" another voice cut in suddenly. They sprang apart to see Draco Malfoy standing in the doorway, smirking broadly. "This is too good."

"Draco! Please don't tell anyone," Hermione asked in a sugary tone.

"Why not?" he demanded.

"Because if you do, I'll tell everyone what I saw down at the Quidditch changing rooms last week."

Draco's usually pale face went surprisingly pink and he nodded.

"All right, Granger. Done. But if you tell anyone, the deal's off."

"All right, Malfoy." Draco then sped off down the corridor, leaving Harry and Hermione to walk to the Great Hall.

"What did you see in the Quidditch changing rooms? Why were you there in the first place?"

"I was coming to see you and Ron," she said. "But you were still practicing. And I promised Draco I wouldn't tell."

"Come on!" pleaded Harry. "Tell me. Was he with someone? Male, female? Animal, vegetable or mineral?"

"I'm not telling you, so you can just stop trying," she said in what he recognized as her most resolved voice.

It had seemed like quite an innocent incident at the time.

***