Harry Potter and the Fifth Element

Chapter 7 - So Close, Yet So Far

It was early Sunday morning on Privet Drive. It had rained overnight, and the mist still hung heavy in the pre-sunrise gloom. In Number Four, Harry was already awake, and despite what promised to be a rather cool morning, he was dreading the day. Sunday was when the Dursleys were due another check-up visit from the Order. Whilst these visits were supposed to ensure that his relatives treated him well (or at least as well as could be expected), all they had succeeded in accomplishing so far was infuriating them. He could not avoid thinking that the Order's periodic visits had become more trouble than they were worth.

He was restless and unable to fall back to sleep. He threw on a pair of jeans and his runic T-shirt. What to do now? Harry had read his latest owl post: a couple more of what he had taken to calling "Dear Santa Claus letters," and more importantly an enthusiastic thank you note from Ginny signifying that she and Harry were on friendly terms again - but hopefully not too friendly.

There was gossip in the letter as well. Harry smiled at the thought of Ron scandalising his little sister - she was reporting that Ron "was now on very friendly terms indeed with Cho." Ginny expressed worry that Harry would be jealous; he and Cho having taken an unsuccessful stab at romance during the just-completed term. But there was no issue. Harry wished Ron and Cho only the best. He was over her. He felt no jealousy at all upon hearing the news.

What else could he do? Harry had finished the book on Muggle electricity - or at least the chapters Dumbledore had wanted him to read. The assignment had been interesting enough, but he perceived no great insights. There were no summer reading assignments for school. He had not yet been formally notified of his O.W.L. results. Thus he had not selected his N.E.W.T.-level classes for the coming year. No classes meant no homework.

Harry's alarm clock sounded. Annoyed, he transfigured it into a tangerine.

He went pacing around his room absent mindedly whilst running his hands through his permanently disheveled hair. Then he trod on a plastic bag and nearly took a purler. He picked up the bag. It contained a copy of the current issue of Teen Witches' Weekly. Tonks had jokingly given it to him on Friday, during a break in his Ancient Magic lesson at Auror Candidate School. She had bought the magazine on a lark because it had Harry's face on the cover. He "might get a kick" out of it, she had told him.

Harry got a kick all right - straight to the head. He started reading, but not really comprehending, until... "Oh bloody Hell!" Teen Witches' Weekly had put together a feature length article from Harry's "I don't have a girlfriend" statement at his press conference. Entitled "Look Out Girls, Potter's Hotter Than Ever," most of the article was a thinly disguised exhortation to the magazine's readership ("sophisticated witches, 12 to 20") to take their chances at being "the lucky one," that is, to try to attract his romantic interest.

Along with the article was a list of the "Top Ten Hints for Getting Harry Potter's Attention." These ranged in subject from "Let Harry find you in danger" - because he supposedly liked to rescue damsels in distress - to "Dress in your best Muggle clothing" - because he was raised by Muggles and supposedly fancied girls who wore revealing Muggle togs.

There were interviews with a "panel of experts" (purporting to be "anonymous" girls "on the scene" at Hogwarts) about Harry's life at school. He winced at the idea of some air-head like Lavender Brown posing as an "expert" on "what girls do that turns Harry Potter on." The interviews mentioned the D.A., Harry's friends, his nightmares, and worst of all, his abortive relationship with Cho Chang and the supposed conflict between Cho and Hermione for his affection. Those rumours that Rita Skeeter started just would not die. Rather, they had morphed in any number of new, and outlandish, directions,

"I don't want to read this rubbish," Harry raged aloud, as he flung the magazine under his bed with the dustbunnies. "If this is what being famous is all about, I wish I'd never been born." He could not shake bizarre images of himself - surrounded by girls in short shorts and tube tops about to fall out of third storey windows and begging him to rescue them - just so they could get a "ride on Harry's broomstick." He was not amused by the double entendre.

Maybe he should show the article to Blackie Howe.

The article surfaced one of Harry' hidden worries - that his fame meant he would never be able to take at face value what any girl claimed to think of him. If a girl ever came on to him as strongly as the magazine suggested, he had no idea what he would do. He thought he might just turn tail and run. Most seriously, he wondered how he could ever trust anyone in a romantic situation again, with so many girls chasing after him, putting on phony airs, and wanting to be "the lucky one."

He put on his running clothes and pounded on Dudley's door. That boy, however, had been out late boozing with Muggle friends from his gym, and skived off today's run. That was fine with Harry. He slapped his favourite CD in his borrowed Walkman (fortunately he now had Muggle money to pay Dudley, as he was not about to chance Dumbledore's wrath by using Orgasimos on his cousin again) and ventured out into the misty morning.

The route was second nature now, and Harry had some time to think about his predicament. Girls. Why was everything about them so difficult? From what everyone else was telling him, directly or by implication, he could practically write his own ticket. But what good was that having all the choices in the world when he had no idea how to choose?

There was deeper discomfort too. Harry speculated that his anxiousness around girls reflected a deeper problem - because of his upbringing, he had no idea how to accept and return love. His relatives showed him no affection, and he had learned long ago that they did not want his. That could not be a sharper contrast with the Weasleys. Watching them, Harry understood that he had hardly known love in his own life - everybody that loved him seemed to die.

How could he tell if a girl really loved him, was just in love with this overblown media image of him - or worse, was only cynically out to use him? One way, Harry supposed, was to stay with girls who were attracted to him before that image existed. That left a very limited universe.

There was Cho, but she was now with Ron. Anyway, Harry had hardly enjoyed what little time they spent together.

There was Ginny, who had once had a crush on him. But Ginny had just told him to his face that she no longer had any interest in him. Most of the time, he thought of Ginny as more of a little sister anyway. She deserved better than his stringing her along because he had no idea what else to do. She was very pretty though....

There was Hermione - but she was his best friend, and Harry had no desire to lose her friendship as the price of a failed romance. Hermione was without question the cleverest person Harry had ever met. He needed to borrow her brain every now and then when the schoolwork became overwhelming. More importantly, incalculably so, he needed her wits and support in his fight against Voldemort.

But was that really a reason - or at least a good reason? Or was it just an excuse for being scared? Harry thought back to the way he felt when he first read Hermione's plea for help. He had been desperate almost beyond measure. The tone of her letter certainly did not rule out similar feelings. His mind wandered to the last time she had kissed him. It was barely more than a tap on the cheek, but he remembered how light-headed and barmy he had felt afterwards. Yes, Harry admitted, he certainly had had feelings for Hermione for some time, but he had kept them resolutely to himself. Why was that?

One reason, Harry had to admit, had always been Ron. Harry suspected that Ron might also fancy Hermione. Beyond that, Ron was also given to fits of extreme jealousy. His jealousy had nearly destroyed their friendship in Fourth Year, when he had been convinced that Harry had engineered his entry into the Triwizard Tournament. Ron had sulked (or worse) for weeks, and Harry did not want to risk that again. What else could explain Ron's angry reaction when Hermione had dated Victor Krum? Harry still remembered finding bits of Ron's plastic Krum action figure all over the dormitory.....

But his best mate was otherwise occupied now. And Hermione's relationship with Victor seemed restricted to exchanges of letters (long letters - but just letters) through the post. Harry started giving himself a pep talk, with emphasis on Ron now being with Cho. After the Ministry, Hermione could hardly be in more danger from Death Eaters than she already was. There was no longer any good reason for him not at least make discreet inquiries to find out if Hermione might be interested in something more than friendship.

But there WAS another reason, even if not a particularly good one - Harry was positively terrified that Hermione would rebuff his advance. Even in the abstract, the thought of rejection by Hermione left Harry gasping for breath. Sometimes a good dream was better than harsh reality. He could always dream....

Throughout his childhood, the Dursleys had brushed off his hopes - his need - for affection. Two years ago almost the entire school (including his pathetic attempt to ask Cho to the Yule Ball) had turned away from him in favour of Cedric Diggory as the "real" Hogwarts Triwizard champion. Last year practically everyone in the wizarding world, even Dumbledore, seemed to push him away. With Sirius now dead, Harry admitted that he was not sure how much more rejection he could face.

Still, his left brain thought, Hermione was worth the candle, was she not?

The response came back from his right brain - two-thumbs-up affirmative.

Moreover (Harry smiled), if Hermione was, in fact, going to have Auror training with him over the holiday, there would undoubtedly be plenty of opportunities.

Harry ran somewhat farther than he usually did with Dudley. The weather was quite brisk, making the run pleasant, and he was lost in thought much of the time. Many of the thoughts he was thinking were not particularly happy, so after he finished, he spent a half an hour clearing his mind through meditation. Being as it was Sunday, and he was due another visit from the Order, Harry's sense of impending doom soon returned.

Because he was still restless, Harry decided to go over the shield spells he had learnt on Thursday and to get a jump on the restraining spells he would be learning on Monday. After half an hour he had finished revising shield spells and gone over the simpler restraining spells (Petrificus totalus and ropes, chains, fire, etc. coming from his wand) that he would be performing tomorrow. He was studying a more complex Magneto Curse - one that bound the target instantly to any large iron object in the vicinity as if held there by a powerful magnet.

The doorbell rang.

It was 8:00 in the morning. Zero hour, Harry shuddered, had come a little early. Evidently whoever had been assigned to visit him today wanted to get it over with as soon as possible. A capital idea, he thought.

Almost instantaneously, he bolted from his seat and went racing down the stairs three at a time. He thought that if he were able to answer the door himself, and keep his most unwelcome visitor out of the house, this would have the best chance of forestalling further unpleasantness. If the entire visit took place on the front garden, where the neighbours could see, it should be less likely that the Dursleys would cause another scene.

Catlike, he leapt the remaining five stairs to the hall. Three long strides and he reached the front door. He had beaten the Dursleys. Aunt Petunia's horsey face had only just appeared at the far end of the hall, and Uncle Vernon's obnoxious self was not yet in view, although Harry could hear his footsteps. He flung open the door, stepped outside - and stopped dead in his tracks, speechless.

It was Hermione.

It was Hermione, as Harry had never seen her, in casual Muggle clothes - a light yellow anorak over her shoulders, with a light blue stretchy t-shirt underneath bearing the lime green slogan, "Talk nerdy to me." She wore a dark denim blue skirt (with two incongruously large pink pockets) cut a couple of inches above the knee, and comfortable-looking flats.

Still a couple of inches shorter than he, she was positively beaming. Her brown eyes sparkled, her brown hair (not as bushy as in school) was kept out of her face by slides and was cascading down her back in waves well past her shoulders.... She was practically bouncing with excitement.

"HARRY!!"

Wham! That was all he was able to take in before he found his face buried in her ample brown hair. Hermione launched herself bodily at him, throwing her arms around his shoulders and pulling him fiercely toward herself.

"I never thought I'd see you again," she blurted, and she started sobbing tears of joy. "I can't thank you enough!" Then she kissed him, square on the lips.

Harry was reeling, too happy for words. He lost himself in her scent - she smelled all soapy and clean, as if she had just given her hair a thorough wash and rinsing. Although Hermione must have been at least eight stone, she seemed light as a feather to him. In his excitement and intoxication, he just could not be still. He began spinning Hermione around and around, as he revolved off of the porch and onto the well-manicured (he had cut it just yesterday) front garden. Harry did not stop until he was dizzy and the two of them fell down in a giggling heap, oblivious to the rest of the world.

His gawping relatives watched from the front doorway, too stunned to say, or do, anything.

"I knew I'd see you again ... I knew it.... Even if I had to come for you myself," Harry choked out, as he prised Hermione's arms from around his neck so he could get a proper look at her. "I just didn't know when, or what I'd have to do to make it happen."

"Oh, Harry, I hope you weren't serious," gasped Hermione as she tried unsuccessfully to disentangle herself from Harry's still dizzily uncoordinated legs. She failed and fell still, revelling in Harry's familiar presence and less familiar feel. "I haven't told you anything, I'm afraid.... You don't even know my parents' names, let alone where we were staying."

"Try me when my head stops spinning," mumbled Harry, still attempting to convince himself that what was happening was real - that he deserved the happiness he felt. "I was as serious as death...."

He was also becoming all too aware of a distinct prickling sensation in his naughty bits. Harry was ashamed and embarrassed at the urge he was feeling, and he hoped it would escape Hermione's notice. 'I don't want to think about that right now,' Harry thought, trying to convince the rest of his body that this was true, and hoping it went away. 'This is a dream come true, and I don't want to ruin it.'

Hermione reluctantly brought the impromptu lie in to a close. "Harry, let's go inside," she suggested. "I could lie on my back in the newly mown grass forever, but we have so much to talk about." Less dizzy than Harry, she successfully extricated herself from the jumble of their arms and legs.

Her feelings for Harry were not all that different. She was also under attack by thrilling shivers in naughty places, but this came as no surprise to her. She had been aware of such feelings, generated by being near him, off and on for more than two years. But she was Hermione Granger, official best friend of Harry's - and she thought of herself as his conscience as well.

This Hermione Granger was much too much in control of herself to give vent to such feelings, except when alone. Until now, that is. The traumatic events of the past fortnight, much of which she spent worrying that she might never see him again, had given the girl plenty of time to think about how she really felt about him, and what she might do about it....

Her face still flushed with excitement, Hermione offered her hand and helped Harry rise unsteadily to his feet.

He noticed his relatives staring from the doorway and his ears went pink. He said the first thing that popped into his head. "Uncle Vernon, Aunt Petunia, Dudley, this is Hermione Granger, my best friend from school." Harry became acutely aware that Hermione had not released his hand.

His relatives mumbled what Hermione supposed were greetings. Dudley mutely continued to stare.

"Now if you'll excuse us, we have things we have to discuss in private," Harry said with as much gravity as he could muster.

"Your abnormality be damned," Uncle Vernon blustered. "You'll not be bunking up under my roof, boy. Am I understood?"

Harry's ears went even pinker, as did Hermione's. She abruptly let go of his hand. "Oh, no sir.... I mean yes sir." Harry stammered. "It's not at all like that. I wouldn't dream of...."

"That's enough Harry," said Hermione, taking charge. She addressed his relatives as much as him. "Now show me to your room so I can conduct my inspection - or I'll be forced to call upon my friends - my friends who watch Harry. I daresay you've already met some of them, such as dear old Mad-Eye Moody and the lovely Nymphadora Tonks. It's very nice to meet you, Mister and Mrs. Dursley." She gave them a half curtsey, and Harry a prod in the back. Quickly they moved inside. For once the Dursleys were too stunned to do or say anything to obstruct them.

"I'll talk to you on the other side," said Dudley with a wink at Harry.

As Harry and Hermione silently climbed the stairs, they each had remarkably similar thoughts - that maybe, just maybe, they would be able to go beyond being just friends - indeed, to move to a relationship more of the sort that Harry's uncle had so rudely implied. The way she had just responded to him, Harry felt certain that he would not be leaving his room without knowing, one way or the other, whether the two of them could be a couple. The thought intoxicated both his mind and his body. He stumbled slightly on the top stair.

Hermione's knees were weak with expectation as she followed him upstairs. He was even more handsome - more perfect - than she remembered him. Emotionally, he still seemed to be her a little like a lost puppy. Although he was so often depressed or angry, Harry seemed as overjoyed at their reunion as she was. Could there be more? More even than joy?

So many people - her parents, Viktor, the Daily Prophet, and now even Harry's relatives - already presumed she and Harry were more than friends, and Merlin knows she had suffered for it. But to Hermione, that was a small price to pay if only fiction could become fact. The moon and stars were aligning. Even her muse (her pet name for the unusual, seemingly self-possessed emotional surges she had been having since her parents had tried to ruin her life) was sharing in the romantic giddiness of the moment.

Tempering her excitement, Hermione's rational side cautioned her to treat Harry with extreme care. 'He's naïve, and probably hasn't outgrown the typical male view of how relationships start,' she reminded herself. 'I'll be sure he at least thinks he's making the first move.'

She felt that she had already exercised maximum self-restraint by keeping her lips closed whilst kissing him, instead of snogging Harry senseless right there in front of everyone. Nevertheless, she had reached some conclusions ... conclusions about him ... whilst involuntarily abroad.

Most importantly, she would deny him nothing. Hermione smiled and patted the magically shrunken handbag in the pocket of her skirt. The first step, she thought, was to make sure that even Harry - thick as he sometimes was about girls - understood that she was available. Now to do that....

"Oh honestly. Boys!" Hermione blurted out.

She had gotten her first glance at (and whiff of) Harry's room - the smallest bedroom on the second storey of the Dursley house. Aunt Petunia had hardly set foot in Harry's room after his return from Hogwarts. To Hermione, the room more resembled some sort of den than the residence of a human being. Dirty clothes hung from the foot of the bed and shared floor space with old copies of the Daily Prophet, bits of owl treats and owl pellets, various wrappers and miscellaneous scraps of paper. Harry's desk was littered with wizard quills and parchment haphazardly thrown together with Muggle biros, pencils and paper. Books were piled randomly on the desk and on the unmade bed.

Harry's trunk, still partly full, was on the closet floor, whilst almost nothing was hanging in the closet itself. Hermione took note of the opulent, albeit currently empty, portrait that hung on the wall - surely there was a story to that. But she was certain that the painting would look even better without a pair of boxers hanging from one corner. Part of Harry's lamp was entirely obscured, as it had Harry's Invisibility Cloak draped over it.

Hermione's nose wrinkled. It was also obvious that Hedwig's cage had gone at least a week without a cleaning.

"Harry, how can you live like this?" she chided. "There isn't even enough space for the both of us to sit. I think even Kreacher kept neater quarters."

Looking embarrassed, Harry started shifting everything from his bed onto the floor so there would be a place for Hermione to sit. She had one of her bright ideas and stopped him. "Don't you think you need a woman's touch?" she asked rhetorically.

While Harry gawked, she rattled off a series of spells that totally transformed his room. His dirty clothes danced in the air as Hermione scourgified them. They folded themselves neatly and disappeared into Harry's chest of drawers, the drawers opening of their own accord to accept them. A summoning charm brought the dustbin from the Dursleys' kitchen floating into the room, and assorted detritus from his floor and shelves was soon flying into it. Books arranged themselves on Harry's shelves (alphabetically by author) and Daily Prophets neatly stacked themselves on his desk in chronological order. His various letters followed suit. He winced as the copy of Teen Witches' Weekly soared out from beneath his bed and landed gently atop the newspapers. A whiskbroom and dustpan followed the dustbin through the door and began swishing away under the bed. The grime (and worse) in Hedwig's cage disappeared. A rubber window wiper appeared and went to work on both the inside and outside of the window to Harry's modest room.

Hermione asked him if he had clothes hangers or pencil holders. When no response was forthcoming from the thunderstruck young man, she closed her eyes, concentrated, and said "Aparecium chez Hermione 20 clothes hangers" and "Aparecium chez Hermione spare desk organiser." Almost instantaneously the items appeared. Another spell had them flying into place, the desk organiser shortly being filled with Harry's school supplies and the hangers supporting Harry's trousers, shirts, robes and cloaks.

As she was finishing up, she jumped when she heard a woman's voice say "very nice" behind her. Aunt Petunia, ever the snoop, had made her way silently upstairs - initially to see where her cleaning supplies were off to. She had witnessed well over half of Hermione's demonstration of domestic magic. "I approve," she said to the both of them, and then dropped her voice to a whisper, "but please respect Vernon's sensibilities."

Hermione needed only a moment to consider the situation. She offered Aunt Petunia a deal. She and Harry needed to talk privately, behind closed doors, but she offered to make his door transparent so Aunt Petunia could check on them "as much as you want" to satisfy herself that "nothing improper" was transpiring. She demonstrated the Vannoportus Charm for Harry's aunt, who pronounced herself satisfied.

As Aunt Petunia turned on her heel and disappeared downstairs, a grinning Hermione held up her arm to signal Harry not to do anything. Aiming her wand at the head of the stairs, she whispered, "Elggum departo." A beam of golden light jumped from her wand and left a softly glowing line across the upper staircase landing that gradually blended into the carpet.

Hoping that she had impressed Harry as much as his aunt, Hermione quickly beckoned him inside. After shutting and sealing the door, she rendered it transparent and then cast a silencing spell. Turning back to Harry, she fixed him with a sympathetic gaze and said, "now where were we?"

Harry visibly flinched, and Hermione bit her lip, annoyed at herself for evidently being too forward.

"What ... what did you just do?" Harry asked. "And where in the world did you learn all that?"

"If I didn't put your relatives' minds at ease, I'm sure you would never have heard the end of it, Harry," she said, in a slightly patronising voice. "I used a simple transparency charm on the door. But you needn't worry about being spied upon by your aunt...."

"You don't know Aunt Petunia, Hermione," he countered. "She's the biggest busybody in the neighbourhood. She's constantly spying on everyone, so why wouldn't she be keeping track of what goes on in her own house?"

Looking rather smug, Hermione replied, "Because I just put a Muggle Repelling Charm across the top of the stairs, that's why. You saw the same golden glow all over the stadium at the Quidditch World Cup. While your aunt certainly could try to spy on us, she won't want to. Whenever she tries, she'll remember something else that she urgently needs to do."

"As for the rest of it, I used some spells, like Scourgify and Accio, that I'm sure are familiar to you - if not in that context," she added, amazed at the filth boys could tolerate. "Mrs. Weasley taught me most of the rest whilst I was at Grimmauld Place last summer, but there's some that I've been doing longer than I can remember as accidental magic. My Mum told me I started at age four after watching Mary Poppins on the telly."

"Mary Poppins or no," warned Harry. "You shouldn't have done that. Not only is it underage magic, but you were acting in the presence of a Muggle. I almost got expelled for less."

"Oh no I won't, Harry Potter," she laughed. "Dumbledore came to visit last night, and I signed a contract like yours. He told my parents a most hilarious story about a series of unfortunate events involving certain wizards visiting your house whilst...." Hermione's smile vanished. "...whilst I was away. He more or less asked, and I more or less volunteered, to take over the Order's inspections of your relatives. The Headmaster is wonderfully skilled at putting people at ease, even my parents. They agreed to it, and here I am."

He moved closer to her as her face started to break. Putting his hand on hers, he asked, "What ever happened Hermione? How could your parents do it? They seemed nice enough to me. I was frantic when I got your letter."

"Not half as frantic as I was when I posted it," she answered in a faltering voice, tears falling freely now. "It was horrible.... I was sloppy. I left a copy of the Daily Prophet about. It had one of those stories about the fight at the Ministry - how brave all of us, but especially you, were ... how much danger we were in; how several of us including..." Hermione paused for emphasis. ..."Including 'your girlfriend' were hurt; and how S..., S..., somebody got killed... Oh I'm so sorry Harry, to be putting you through my silly problems when you must be feeling a hundred times worse." Hermione broke down completely, sobbing in his arms.

'Snap out of it,' her analytical side told herself. 'You're Hermione Granger, the cleverest witch at Hogwarts, not some human hosepipe like....' Recalling Harry's short and unhappy fling with Cho Chang brought her abruptly back to a more even keel - until she realised that her shoulders were not the only ones heaving. "Harry?" she whispered. She looked up into his red, tear-splotched face. "Oh, Harry!"

She held him even closer as Harry wept for Sirius. She had known Harry for almost six years. She had seen him face his own possible death several times; seen him after he barely survived Voldemort; seen him deal with the terrors of the Triwizard Tournament; seen him bear the brunt of Ron's jealousy; and seen him break who knows how many bones playing Quidditch. This was the first time that she had ever seen the impassive Harry Potter cry about anything.

"I killed him, Hermione!" Harry mumbled through his tears. "If only I had listened to you.... I'd remembered the mirror.... Not provoked Snape.... Hadn't let Wormtail get away.... Oh, if I hadn't ever been born!" He wept some more. Finally he managed, "Hermione, have you ever felt like you wanted to be dead?"

She had long worried about Harry's stoicism. The harder the exterior, the more brittle as well. She had intuited that he would need some form of emotional release from horrors such as his godfather's death, and she intended if at all possible to be his refuge. She now sensed that things were rapidly spinning out of control. Afraid that Harry might attempt something rash, she resolved to be strong.

"Yes, Harry, I have," she said softly but firmly. "The night my parents took away my wand and told me I wasn't coming back to Hogwarts. We had a tremendous row. I had such flashes of anger and despair that I surprised myself. I broke a number of knick-knacks with spontaneous magic and fled upstairs to my room. My parents thought I needed to be alone and let me go. My ... my ... my father watches too many American westerns. He keeps a pistol in his nightstand. Well ... you see ... our bedrooms share a common bathroom, and I went into his room. I held that pistol in my hand - but it didn't happen to be loaded.... If it had been, I honestly don't know what the outcome would have been. My parents found me aimlessly pulling the trigger of the empty gun...."

Harry's jaw dropped, but he was too shocked to say anything.

Hermione continued, "Basically, they freaked, and I can't say I blame them. For a while I thought that we would be going to Australia or New Zealand after Hong Kong, and that I would never see England again. They wouldn't tell me what they were planning to do.... Maybe they didn't know themselves.... Not knowing what was going on, I assumed the worst. I always do...."

Her soliloquy had a profound effect. At the thought of how close she had come to putting a bullet through that magnificent brain of hers, Harry stopped feeling sorry for himself, and instead started fearing for her. His hands went to her shoulders and he looked into her brown, tear-filled eyes. "If, If, If... you'd done it... You would have killed me too," he rasped.

They sat in meaningful silence for what seemed like a long time. "But why was this time so different?" he asked. "You've been in danger before. A Basilisk petrified you. I know Dumbledore told your parents at least something about that."

"They saw the affair at the Ministry differently," Hermione replied in a more normal tone of voice. "With the Basilisk, they accepted that I was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time - which wasn't exactly true, but I let them think it. This time there was no way to hide that I had voluntarily chosen to put myself in harm's way. And it's more than even that. I endangered myself because of you, Harry...."

She reached up to her shoulders and took both his hands, lowering them, in hers, between them.

"...The 'girlfriend' business bothered them greatly, even though I told them it wasn't true. They almost sent me to Muggle school a year ago, because of...."

Hermione's voice trailed off. The conversation had veered towards forbidden terrain. She cursed herself for not having told him about this episode before, but with Ron acting the way he did, there just had never been an opportune time.

Harry, who had been listening raptly, picked up the pause in her story. "Because of what, Hermione?" he prompted gently.

She swallowed, hard. If she was to win Harry Potter's heart, honesty was the best policy - he had been deceived and lied to so often that she vowed she would not do it. "Because of Victor Krum."

His eyes flashed dangerously, and he set his jaw. "If Krum's done anything to you Hermione, I swear I'll kill him. Ron will help. They won't find enough crumbs of Krum to give him a decent burial."

She gasped, and her hand went to her mouth, as she saw him intent upon mayhem. "Oh, no Harry! Please, it is nothing like that. Viktor has always been the perfect gentleman. Do you think I would have been writing to him all last year if he had...? Well, you know...."

Hermione had a point, and Harry calmed down - if anything he had said or felt since he had first seen her standing at the front door could be considered calm. "Well, if it wasn't that, what could Viktor Krum have possibly done that frightened your parents so much that they wanted to make a Muggle out of you?"

It was her turn to put a hand on his shoulder. "He... He... Krum asked me to marry him."

Harry was on his feet. That was not an answer he had been expecting at all, and the thought that somebody else had asked her that question - had threatened to take her away from him - was profoundly unnerving. "What? When? Where? How?" he spluttered. It had never dawned on Harry that, with Ron now ensconced with Cho, there might still be a rival for Hermione's affections.

She stood, put her arm back on his shoulder and gently, but firmly, pushed him back to a sitting position. It was convince-Harry-I'm-available time for Hermione. "Harry, don't get upset," she half smiled and half pleaded. "It was when I visited his castle in Bulgaria last June. I turned him down. He just wasn't my type. I told him that, although he'd swept me off my feet in the beginning, I'd thought better of it, and I couldn't see myself in that kind of relationship with him after all. But since I hadn't even turned sixteen, my parents thought I was entirely too young even to be getting such offers. My father said it reminded him too much of a Dracula movie."

The warm glow Harry had felt when climbing up the stairs returned. Hermione had turned down an international Quidditch player - apparently turned him down flat - and now she was in his room with him. "Why'd you do that?" Harry asked considerably more calmly. "I mean, he was the boy wonder Viktor Krum, wasn't he?"

Hermione also relaxed, seeing - almost feeling - Harry's release of tension. She launched into a lengthy, somewhat rehearsed explanation. "Well it all goes back to my being a Muggle-born witch. I've worked very hard, harder than anyone can possibly imagine, to accomplish what I have at Hogwarts, and I'm not about to have anybody cast aspersions on those accomplishments by saying that I didn't really earn them ... that they were somehow given to me because of who my husband was. I wasn't going to be another trophy for Viktor and live in his shadow. He seemed to think that he was somehow entitled...."

It was a good rant - too good - and Hermione began wandering off-script. "No, I'm sorry, but Viktor Krum is simply too rich, too famous, and too pureblood for me to deal with, particularly when I'm still in school. When he asked me, we were riding horses around his estate...."

She went on with her explanation, but Harry had stopped listening as a roaring noise developed in his ears. His warm glow had vanished. His mouth felt like ashes, and his insides went leaden - even worse, if that were possible - than when Cho Chang had refused his invitation to go to the Yule Ball in his Fourth Year. Hermione's words seared his psyche.

"Too rich."

If Viktor Krum were too rich for her, how would she react to his being the sole heir to the Potter fortune? That was worth around 35 million Galleons according to Howe - not to mention that he may well be the sole heir to the Black fortune, worth who knows how much.

"Too famous."

Harry cast a glance to his smiling face on the cover of Teen Witches' Weekly and silently cursed himself. Krum was a famous athlete, but Harry had little kids writing to him as if he were Father Christmas come to life. If Dumbledore were right, a word from his lips could bring down Fudge's ministry.

Then it dawned on him. He smiled a wry half smile. While not a happy thought, it could have been worse, he supposed. He understood what she had done. She was so clever and so considerate, he realised. She must have sensed his budding romantic feelings - he never was worth a damn at hiding his feelings - not from her. Not being able to return them, she had looked for a way to let him down gently and thus preserve their friendship. Through her discussion of Krum, she had warned him off any such ideas, and thus saved him the embarrassment of her rejection.

Then and there he resolved to be the best friend she could ever have - because he needed nothing less from her. He was fated to kill or be killed, and she was the brains of his operation. If he were ever to succeed in defeating Voldemort mano a mano, some plan that she dreamed up would likely be the vehicle to bring that about. And if not...? He could hardly blame Hermione for not wanting to be a widow, and a hunted one at that, before she was twenty.

And so the die was cast.

Hermione soon sensed Harry was no longer following what she was saying....

She sighed. "...and then Viktor said that he loved my new look with aubergines dangling from my ears...."

When Harry still said nothing, she had to react - but she made a mental note that she must tell Viktor that it was over between them. Harry seemed surprisingly jealous of the Bulgarian, in his odd, Harryish sort of way.

"Harry have you heard a word I have been saying?" she asked pointedly.

Harry jerked out of his daydream. "Truthfully, not for a while," he admitted. "I've been thinking, Hermione, of how wonderful a friend you have been ever since I've met you. You've never abandoned me, not once, and I want you to know that I will always be there for you - like I was ready to get you in Hong Kong - if I think you need me."

Hermione was at a loss. Friendship was fine, but.... She sensed her moment ebbing away. The moon and stars were no longer in alignment. She and her muse were no longer on the same page.

"Oh, Harry," she pleaded, "what have I done wrong?"

"You haven't done anything wrong, Hermione," Harry answered sincerely. "You never do. You're the most wonderful friend anyone could hope to have. I'm just telling you that I will be there for like you always have been for me...."

This sudden onslaught of weirdness left Hermione adrift. She floundered about verbally. "But what could you have done, Harry?" she questioned. "You didn't know my parents, you didn't know where I was, and you wouldn't have been able to get there anyway, with no Muggle money."

This time it was Harry's turn to surprise. "Your parents are Edwin O. and Eva LaFayette-Granger. They were in Hong Kong attending a meeting of the Commonwealth Dental Association and were staying at the Kowloon Shangri-La hotel. Your mother was one of the presenters, and she was speaking about some new treatment for gingivitis ... something involving a laser, I think."

Hermione goggled. After rattling off these facts, Harry never slowed down before surprising her again.

"I've got a Muggle bank account now, and there's over £12,000 in it. More than enough for plane fare to Hong Kong - I've checked. Then I thought we could do what you said in your letter ... secret ourselves in a cave somewhere until you turn seventeen this September. I was thinking about just keeping going to Hawai'i. I saw an old movie once on the telly about places on Hawai'i where people hid out and avoided capture for years...."

"Ko'olau and Pi'ilani," Hermione said dreamily. Hermione rather liked the image of herself and Harry alone together in some tropical paradise.

"Sorry?" said Harry, uncertainly.

Hermione explained, "You saw a movie about a man with leprosy, Ko'olau, and his wife Pi'ilani who escaped to an inaccessible Hawai'ian valley rather than being forced to move to a leper colony. You really were planning this weren't you?"

"I told you I was," said Harry flatly. "And I meant every word of it. It could have been an ice cave in the Arctic if necessary. Dumbledore told me to wait, so I did. But Dudley - my cousin whom you struck dumb earlier - said he knew somebody who could get me a false passport for £100. If Dumbledore had failed, I wasn't about to."

Hermione looked at him thoughtfully for a moment, took a deep breath, and shrugged her shoulders. She sensed that nothing was going to happen - at least not right now - and she resolved to make the best of it with her best friend in the world.

"Where did Godric Gryffindor come from?" she asked, trying to steer the conversation to something less disturbing than desperate rescues and more realistic than hidden island getaways. "I've seen a similar portrait at the Burrow."

"Dumbledore," Harry replied, appreciating the lighter conversation as much as she. "He uses portraits of old headmasters of the school, to keep track of things - things like me."

"So that's why he has all those portraits in his office," said Hermione with dawning comprehension. She had noticed the portraits, but failed to grasp their utility, when she had had meetings with Dumbledore. "And what's that thing on your desk?"

He went pink, "Oh, that's just something that Tonks bought for me the other day...."

"It looks fascinating," she said, getting up and going over to the desk. "How does it work?"

"Huh?" responded Harry. Then he figured out - to his great relief - that she was not referring to his face emblazoned on Teen Witches' Weekly, but rather to his communicator. "Oh, that.... That's how I can send and receive secure messages with Headmaster Dumbledore. Mad-Eye brought it, during one of those visits Dumbledore joked about with your parents. Actually, I guess I have you to thank for this as well. Dumbledore said that the device was your idea."

"The concept, that's all.... So it really works, then?" she asked.

"You bet. It's brilliant.... Er.... You're brilliant, really. Let me show you. I'll send a message to the Headmaster that you've arrived. He'd probably like to know that." She watched avidly as he showed her the various security features of the communicator. Harry scrawled rapidly:

Dear Headmaster Dumbledore:

Hermione arrived this morning. She is here right now, watching as I write this. I guess you thought I could use a good surprise. I almost had a heart attack.

Seriously, though, thank you for getting her back. I'm very much in your debt.

Harry

As Hermione observed his writing magically vanish on its way to Dumbledore, she recalled the meetings at which the Headmaster had pulled out all the stops to change her parents' minds. Not only had Dumbledore used her own O.W.L. scores in the argument, he had brought up joint Auror self-defence training with Harry, which meant that he knew Harry could be an Auror, which meant....

"Harry," she asked, "how often have you and Dumbledore been in touch since you got back here?"

Harry thought for a moment, and answered, "Two meetings face to face, and at least a half dozen messages. I used this thing to tell him what had happened to you."

"Then you must know too," Hermione said expectantly as she reached in her pocket to check her shrunken purse. 'One more try,' she thought. 'If he responds to the suggestion, jackpot; if not, there's a fallback....' "If you show me yours, I'll show you mine!"

"OK then.... What?!" Harry stammered. His mind snapped back to an incident in the third form when a girl had said the same thing and.... 'Oh blast, I don't even want to think about what happened next,' he though desperately. 'She couldn't be.... Not after bloody 'rich and famous'....' He must have misunderstood. "Hermione," he gulped, "you can't be serious."

Her shoulders slumped slightly. Even being extremely forward did not seem to help. There certainly was someone in this room who was not serious - but not her. "Oh, Harry, get a grip," she chided, "I was talking about O.W.L. results. Dumbledore gave me mine early, and since you've been meeting with him I thought he must have given you yours as well." She pulled a tiny black object out of her right pocket and pointed her wand. "Engorgio." The object swelled into a fashionable Muggle black patent leather handbag with a gold clasp in the form of two winged lions.

Harry looked on with interest as she fished for what she wanted. Hermione noticed. "Harry James Potter," she said in a dangerously low voice, "if you don't want to be shopping for eyeballs with Mad-Eye, you must learn not to go peeking into witches' handbags." She found what she was looking for and snapped the handbag shut decisively. "Reducio." She returned the shrunken handbag to her pocket.

"I'll go first," Hermione said excitedly. "Take a look." Harry did.

Hogwarts School Of Witchcraft And Wizardry

1996 O.W.L. Report

Student: Hermione Jane Granger

O.W.L.s Passed: 16*

O.W.L.s Failed 0*

Total O.W.L.s 16*

*Astronomy practical O.W.L. ruled "incomplete" due to external interference; make-up scheduled for Autumn 1996

You are _1st___ of 40 in your class.

You are _1st__ of 302 in the Western and Northern European Region.

Harry's eyes went wide. "Sixteen O.W.L.s! That's a new record isn't it? Congratulations Hermione! This is incredible."

Her voice softened, but lost none of its excitement. "Yes it is, but actually there's even more. Dumbledore told me that the present O.W.L. system has been in place since 1840, and the previous record for most O.W.L.s was fifteen - shared by ... er ... Dumbledore. Hogwarts and the West/North region added numeric scores almost eighty years ago, right after the First World War. My numeric is already the second highest score recorded, and is less than one point behind the all-time record of 104.1. And did you see the asterisk, Harry. Oh, Harry, I'm scared!"

She grabbed him around the shoulders once again and started shivering. Harry had not the slightest idea why. Extremely uncomfortable with this latest turn of events, he tried to find out what was wrong. "Hermione, the only thing scary about your scores is how terrific they are. You're great in Astronomy like everything else. So there's a retest because of that horrible Umbridge woman. It can't possibly hurt your average. The Astronomy practical score listed now is so out of line with your other scores that I'd bet my life your score will go up. In fact ... I'll bet you a Hogsmeade shopping spree that it does."

She flinched again. Harry's words had not seemed to help at all. Her lip kept quavering. "Please Hermione," Harry pleaded, "I don't know what's going on. There's obviously something else.... Can you tell me?"

She looked up. In hardly more than a whisper she said, "Harry, have you looked at the charts in the back of Hogwarts - A History lately?"

He had not even known that there were charts at the back of Hermione's favourite book. "Er..., no," he admitted.

She continued, "Well, after Dumbledore explained the record to me, I looked it up in those charts yesterday. The previous record holder for average had also tied Dumbledore for most total O.W.L.s - Thomas Marvolo Riddle."

Harry blanched as he heard Lord Voldemort's given name. "So you mean you have the chance to beat Voldemort twice?"

"Exactly," she said in a low whisper. "If my practical just matches my Astronomy theoretical score, I surpass his old record easily - and I was better in practical throughout the term."

"That's not scary, Hermione, that's wonderful," enthused Harry. "Think of the morale booster that will be in the war. Big, bad Voldemort beaten twice by a Muggle-born witch. That old pureblood bigot deserves it."

"But..., but..., like you said.... I don't want to bet my life ... or yours.... Don't you think that will make me and my family a target?" She went pale as she said the words.

"Hermione, you were put in Gryffindor rather than Ravenclaw for a reason, and that reason wasn't that you lacked the courage to excel," he said as he put both hands on her shoulders and looked her straight in the eye. "I'm sure Voldemort's going to be right chuffed about your knocking him down a peg, but face it, you're a target anyway just for being ... being my friend. He knows you were in the Ministry with me. I've been a target all my life. It's just something you have to accept as a fact and meet it if it comes.... Look, just a little while ago, you did more for me than anyone else to help accept that, that ... Sirius is dead and move on. Let me help you deal with Voldemort's threats the same way, OK. Together, we can beat him." Harry fervently wished that this would be true.

She looked into Harry's incredibly deep green eyes, which were now gleaming with emotion. "Harry, I... I... I..." She wanted so much to tell him to his face that she loved him - loved him more than life itself, but the words just would not come. How could she add that to the weight of everything else he was carrying? Not in the absence of any indication that he was interested. After an awkward silence, Hermione finally spoke, "I think you're right, I'm being foolish. I'm going to go for it if the entire Auror Corps has to guard Hogwarts Castle."

Friendship it would be.

"Are you going to start Auror training with me tomorrow, then?" he asked.

"Of course, Harry, don't be thick. I wouldn't dream of doing anything else. With you, it's always in for a penny, in for a pound. It will be so much more valuable than being a scullery maid for the Order like during last year's holiday." Hermione then changed the subject - or rather brought it back to where they started, "Now, Harry, you have to show me yours."

In for a pound, indeed, he thought. Again he had felt on the verge of feeling the earth move, but again he had come up half a crown short. Obediently, he strode to his desk, and started thumbing through his now neatly stacked pile of papers looking for his report. Hermione followed him, and this time her eyes found Teen Witches' Weekly.

"Oooh!" she squealed, grabbing the magazine, dancing out of his grasp, and making her way quickly to the opposite side of the rather small bedroom, "Harry Potter is a cover boy! HARRY POTTER IS A COVER BOY!!" she teased.

He went pink all over. "Cut it out, you, and give me that back. Tonks gave that to me, I didn't get it for myself." He grabbed at the magazine, trying to pull it out of her hands. All he succeeded in doing was knocking her off balance and into the bed. She flailed wildly, trying to keep from falling whilst also holding the magazine out of his reach. She tried to right herself by latching onto his shirt collar with her free hand. All that did was cause them both to topple onto the bed.

"Gerroff!" she cried, laughing all the while. "You're not getting this away from me until I find out what all the ickle girlies are learning about the famous Harry Potter! Did they interview Lavender?"

He gave up, and was none too happy about it. "Well go on then," he snapped. "I hope you have a bloody good time. You're more interested in famous Harry Potter than I am, that's for sure." He sat on the bed sulking with his back turned to her, glowering at the blank wall with his arms tightly hugging his own chest.

She read a little, but felt bad about it. Soon she put the magazine down and said softly. "Harry, you're really upset about this aren't you? I can practically feel it. I won't read it if you don't want me to, but my not reading it isn't going to change anything."

"I know," he sighed. "I can't stand it though. I didn't ask for any of this. I'd much rather be plain old Harry, but that will never be. Not as long as I have this damned scar." His stomach growled audibly, which brought about a change the mood.

"Oh, my," Hermione gasped. "What time is it?

"I have no idea," he replied. "My watch broke years ago and I've never bothered to replace it. From the looks of things," he said, staring out the window, "around noon.... Oh blimey, wait.... He pointed his wand at a tangerine on his desk. "Finite." The tangerine was instantly replaced by his alarm clock. "I forgot," he said sheepishly, "I do have a clock. It's 11:45, British Summer Time."

"I've got to call my parents. They were nervous about my coming to see you anyway, and they'll wonder where I've been. I didn't expect to be gone all day." Looking at him, she said, "but there's no place else I'd rather be than here."

She fished a mobile out of her handbag - Harry not looking, this time - and told her parents that everything was fine but that they should not expect her back before evening. It took some convincing, particularly with her father, but they allowed her to stay.

Harry continued feeling famished. He had missed breakfast, and now was on the verge of missing lunch. He made ready to go to the kitchen and brave his relatives. While he could handle his relatives' "hospitality," he was not particularly keen on exposing Hermione to any more of it.

Thus, he did a double take when she asked him matter-of-factly, "What would you like to eat, Harry?"

"I dunno," he said vacantly, "I don't know what Aunt Petunia has on hand."

"Oh, hang your aunt," she continued, "would you care for some sandwiches then? Perhaps ham and cheese...? Or salami? Tell me what you like best. I could even get kiwi marmalade."

He looked at her oddly, without a clue as to what she was on about, but played right along, "My favourite, although I don't get it much, is roast beef, cheese of some sort, and peanut butter."

She made an exaggerated face at the thought of his unappetising combination, "Are you serious, Harry? Is that what you really want?" She had her wand out again.

"Yes, I'm serious," he reaffirmed, very interested in what she was going to do next.

"Aparecium chez Hermione bread, roast beef, Swiss cheese, peanut butter," she paused, tipped her wand sideways, and looked at him, "smooth or crunchy?" she asked.

"Crunchy," he said.

Returning her wand to vertical, she finished, "crunchy peanut butter, and serving knife."

Within seconds everything she had recited popped into view around her on the bed. Harry gawked. "What is that spell?" he asked intently.

"The Aparecium spell is a cross between conjuring and a Summoning Charm. Professor McGonagall taught it to me last year after I noticed Dumbledore seemingly magicking squashy chairs out of thin air last summer. It turns out, he was really just bringing chairs from his quarters to him. Aparecium works only on inanimate objects, and you must know exactly where they are. I concentrate on visualising them and recite where and what they are, and they appear. I'm not nearly as skilled as Dumbledore - yet - since he can perform the charm silently and, Professor McGonagall says, wandlessly. Watch again," Hermione said as she positioned her wand, "Aparecium Chez Hermione yogurts."

Unfortunately, Hermione forgot to specify how many yogurts, and in a trice more than thirty yogurts filled her lap. "Oh bother," she complained, "I was distracted." Picking two yogurts (strawberry and rhubarb) for herself, she pointed her wand at the rest. "Evanesco," she recited, sending the rest of the cascade of yogurt back where it came from. Looking abashed, she commented, "I forgot that if I don't specify numbers, I will transport all that I am aware of from the location."

"Looks like your family likes yogurt," observed Harry through a mouth full of sandwich.

"Right in one," she replied, more cheerfully now. "Blast! I forgot to get a spoon."

Just as she was screwing up her concentration again with the intent of obtaining a spoon (just one, this time) he told her to wait. Rummaging through his desk drawer, he pulled out the knife Sirius had given him the year before. Harry gave it to her. "Door unlocking blade's shot, but the rest still works. It's got a complete table setting in it." She smiled gratefully.

They both ate in silence, but when she saw him finish ('He actually ate three of those disgusting sandwiches,' she thought) she was not about to let her curiosity wait any longer. "Now show me yours," she demanded.

Wordlessly, he got his O.W.L. report from the desk whilst Hermione used her wand to bin the scraps of his lunch and send the usable bits back to her house. He gave the report to her. Looking at it, she squealed in delight. "Congratulations, Harry! These marks are extraordinary." She gave him another big hug that rendered him speechless. He watched her as she studied his report intensely, her brow furrowed. Then she said, thoughtfully, "You know, I'd take a flutter that you have the best boy's marks of the year. You're fourth in the year, so I'd reckon that Su Li and Padma Patil are the others who outscored you. They're the brightest of the Ravenclaw lot."

"Who cares?" said Harry. "What's important to me is that I didn't let Professor McGonagall down. I can be an Auror...! Even if that means I have to take Snape's N.E.W.T. potions class," he added a little less enthusiastically.

"It matters, Harry, because it puts you at the top of the range for Head Boy!" Hermione enthused. The words continued to tumble out of her. "I've discussed this with Professor McGonagall. She tells me that O.W.L. marks count for about half of the decision. You're number one of the boys, as I am of the girls...."

"But I'm only number four overall," he interjected.

"That only goes to prove the superiority of the female intellect," she said with feigned hauteur in her voice. Harry gave her the prod she was expecting. "Anyway, then about a third of the consideration is for service to your House and to the school. I'd say you're even better situated in that department than I, since you have the Triwizard championship, and an Award for Special Services, and you teach the D.A. and you play Quidditch, and you pick up loads of points for your incredible bravery. I've only got a Prefect's badge and the points I pick up in class."

"Yeah, but that bravery," - he made the word sound almost like an epithet - "costs almost as many house points as it brings in; not to mention that it frequently gets people killed and injured ... like you, for instance."

She said seriously, "Harry, I wouldn't be here if it weren't for your bravery. I'd be in the Dementor's kiss ward at St. Mungo's, if not dead.... And Hogwarts probably would have been closed in our Second Year. Your bravery has saved a lot more than it's cost. If you go on knocking your courage around me again, don't be surprised if I thump you silly."

"Anyway," she continued, "the remaining consideration concerns services to wizarding society. I haven't done much, although Professor McGonagall said at the end of the term that she thought there would be some special project she'd want me involved with this year. You might have some problems in that category too, given how the Prophet went off on for over a year ... although it seemed to be coming around now. And I doubt the Ministry is too thrilled with our trashing the Department of Mysteries...."

He cut in, "You don't know, do you?"

She looked annoyed. If there was one thing Hermione did not take kindly to, it was being told that she was ignorant of something, no matter what the subject. "I don't know what, Harry?" she answered crossly.

"Dumbledore told me you hadn't been getting the Prophet lately," he said. "Accio newspapers."

She watched wordlessly as he sorted through the stack of old Prophets ("ugh, Dudley must have used that one when I barfed after my dream") until he found the headline he was looking for. He handed it to Hermione. Her eyes got wider and wider as she read.

"Oh, Harry! I hadn't dreamed of it...! The Order of Merlin! Congratulations!" She hurled herself at him again and he found himself lost in another bone crushing, and emotionally confusing, hug. Why was she doing this all the time when she did not want to be with him - that way? Presently, she let go, somewhat put off by the tentative embrace she had received in return. "And thank you for remembering the rest of us."

"This wasn't my idea at all," he said, put out that she also seemed to think he had somehow brought about the award. "Fudge did that. He says he did it because we raised the morale of the community, but I think he did it to save his ruddy neck." He then showed her the article about the Minister taking money from Lucius Malfoy.

She ravenously read the Prophet almost cover to cover, asking occasional questions. Occasionally, she noticed something he had thought was a minor detail and, to his discomfort, started getting excited again. "You're being awarded the Order, second class! Do you know what that means?" He had no clue. "That means you become an ex officio member of the Wizard Council for life! That's like Parliament! You can sponsor a bill to free the house-elves! You can be the Wilberforce of our generation!"

Again he was clueless. Hermione explained - at greater length and in greater detail than he thought necessary - that William Wilberforce had led the nineteenth century political movement that had resulted in the abolition of slavery throughout the British Empire in 1833. The name D'Israeli came up several times, which got him thinking about his solicitor ... which got him thinking about his inheritance ... which (gulp) he had yet to tell her about. When Harry got around to listening to her again, she was chattering about the particulars of the legislation that she was planning to draft for him to introduce.

"Um... Hermione, I think the house-elves are going to have to get in line behind the goblins." That stopped her, quite cold, allowing him to explain how he was going to be the centre of attention at a secret goblin treaty-signing ceremony taking place in less than a fortnight. Although he could tell that she was disappointed, as always, any unusual magical happening intellectually fascinated her. He promised to ask Dumbledore if she could attend the Ashrak.

"So, have you heard from any of them?" she asked, abruptly changing the subject again. Seeing his rather blank look, she added, "The others.... What are Ron and Ginny up to, for instance?"

"Er.... Both of them are away all summer at an international Quidditch camp in Denmark." Seeing her questioning look, he answered before she asked. "Dumbledore didn't want me to go. He thought it more important that I train with the Aurors. That's why I don't have my broom around. I loaned it to Ron. Then Ginny got mad at me for ignoring her. Not wanting to have bats coming out of my nose, I...." 'Oh bloody Hell,' he thought, 'now she'll wonder where I got the money....' "...I bought her a Fi... broom too."

She looked as if she was going to ask the question he hoped not to answer, so he quickly added, "It seems like Ron and Cho are getting along rather well."

"Ron and Cho are an item?!?" she blurted.

'Success,' he thought. "I think so, from his last letter. I'm all right about it," Harry hastily added. "I'm well over her. Umm ... Hermione...? Are you all right with it? Ron and Cho, I mean?"

"Of course I'm all right with it," she huffed. "Why shouldn't I be?"

He looked determinedly at his hands. "Well.... Er.... There were times over the last two years when I ... er ... thought that Ron was acting ... er ... acting like he rather fancied you. I thought you might have noticed it."

Hermione sighed. She thought, 'Damn you, Harry Potter. Why can't you talk about all the times YOU acted like YOU fancied me?' However, she replied, "Of course I noticed. He was so obvious at times it was painful. But I have no romantic interest in Ronald Weasley. He is a great and loyal friend - every bit as brave as you, only not as lucky. But he has the emotional range of a teaspoon, and an intellectual depth to match. Even worse, he has no social conscience at all. He couldn't care less that house-elves are enslaved. He told me last summer that if he ever came into enough money, he would get a house-elf for himself...." She paused slightly when she saw Harry blanch. "...Ron will have far more trouble with his mum over Cho than he ever will from me."

Harry found himself losing mental purchase again. "Why would Cho set off Ron's mum? Cho seems nice enough. A little weepy, that's all.... And maybe a little forward."

"You boys are so thick!" Hermione interrupted fiercely. "She's been at it ever since the end of your Second Year, when you saved Ginny from the Chamber."

"Who's been at what?" he asked just as blankly as before.

"Molly Weasley! She wants to bring both you and me into her big happy family," she explained, sarcastically emphasizing the adjectives. "In her perfect world, I marry Ron and guide him through life just like she guides her husband, and you marry Ginny and produce loads of grandchildren."

Hermione then let loose with a diatribe. "That's why Ron and I ended up alone together at Twelve Grimmauld Place for a month last summer. Molly arranged it. She convinced me to come, and my parents to let me.... They were disturbed about Viktor, and I was upset with them. Molly even made a point of telling them that YOU weren't going to be there.... So I arrive thinking I'm going to do my bit against Voldemort.... I end up playing housemaid to the Order; having Molly teach me 'magic that women need to know'; listening to Ron moan about his endless insecurities; and being kept almost as much in the dark as you were about everything that mattered. I was bored out of my skull, and the only thing worthwhile reading in the entire Black library was books about Dark magic. Only after you arrived did things start to get interesting. But to answer your question ... there were no sparks between me and Ron - not then and not ever."

Harry was utterly taken aback at her rant, particularly how it ended, since he did not remember asking her THAT question. He decided that the current topic of discussion was even scarier than the last one he had avoided, so he said, "Hermione, there's something I need to ask you, about...."

Her face brightened. "Really," she squealed, loudly enough to discomfit him even more.

"...About house-elves," he completed the thought as her face fell again. "I, er ... I ...."

"Well spit it out, Harry," Hermione said, frustration in her voice. Once again, his true feelings remained terra incognita.

"I've already talked to Dumbledore about this, and I thought you might be able to help, since you're interested in the subject and all...." Harry was painfully aware that he was stalling. "It seems, that I ... er ... I'minheritingalotofmoneyandIdon'twanttoownhouseelves," he said very quickly.

She had trouble understanding what he said, and what he meant. "You're getting an inheritance...," she said carefully, as if feeling her way. He nodded. "Yes, that makes sense - from your parents - they were an old wizarding family. That inheritance includes an estate." He nodded again. "The estate has house-elves...."

"Yes," Harry responded, mistaking her last statement for a question. He could feel himself getting warm, and he knew his face was going pink. He continued, "Not only am I more famous than Viktor Krum, but I'm probably going to be bloody richer than him too."

Hermione gasped and put a hand to her mouth. She was almost ready to respond with hearty congratulations when she comprehended what was behind his odd reference to Viktor. In less than the blink of an eye, her emotions went from thrilled to despairing. She understood that she had said something incredibly wrong before, and she had no idea what she could say now to correct it.

Hermione burst into tears.

Harry silently reaffirmed his belief that girls were impossible to understand. Whatever reaction he had expected from his sardonic reference to Viktor, complete emotional collapse was not it. He fumbled around for something, anything, to say that might make the girl in front of him - whom he wanted more than anything to make happy - stop crying.

"I want to free the house-elves, not own them, Hermione," he said. "I can't see myself owning anything that thinks and talks. Please, Hermione, I need your help to figure out how best to do it. I've got to do better than you did last year."

At his mention of the failure of her efforts last term to free the Hogwarts house-elves by surreptitiously giving them clothes, her lovesickness began being replaced by indignation. "And.... And what do you know about that?" she asked.

Even though he knew that talking to this particular girl about something she had not done well was dangerous, anything was better than her tears. So he told her what Dobby had told him many months before: The Gryffindor house-elves had been insulted by her trying to free them against their wills. They had refused to clean Gryffindor tower. Dobby had collected all the hats and socks Hermione had knitted. And Dobby had been forced to clean the tower by himself.

"So it didn't work at all?" she sniffed.

"No, I'm afraid it didn't," he said, relieved that she had returned to rational thought. "They've been enslaved so long, I think they like it...." Harry quailed at her fierce glare. "At least they can't conceive of anything else," he hastily added. "I don't think I can just walk into a manor house as the new lord - somebody the elves don't know from Adam - and throw clothes at them. The elves might react badly. They might do harm to themselves, or even to me. Do you think you can help me figure out a way to free any elves I might own and have them like it?"

"All right Harry," she said, smiling weakly. Her hand went for his and covered it. "We'll let that be our own little project - together."

"Yes," he said, very relieved.

"I'm so proud of you, Harry." Even though she was a witch, she was also a rationalist intellectual and did not like the idea of being emotionally out of control - especially when reason was Harry, AND she was with him. She sat up straight and rapidly set to the task of pulling herself back together.

"So this inheritance was how you got enough money to buy Ginny an expensive racing broom and 12,000 English pounds?" she asked.

He winced a bit. Even though she was acting strangely at times, she had plainly not missed a thing - even when he thought she might have. "Not entirely," he said as he got out his wand. "Accio Chocolate Frog card." Harry, however, miscalculated as badly as she had earlier with the yogurt. From almost every drawer of his desk Chocolate Frog cards of every sort came streaming at him. "Aarrrgh," he yelled, covering his head with his arms to fend off the blizzard of cards. Soon his entire card collection was scattered about him. That was the bad news.

The good news was that Hermione was practically rolling on the floor, she was laughing so hard. Although embarrassed, he grinned broadly when he saw that his magical slapstick routine had made her sobbing a thing of the past. "I forgot I had more than one," he said quietly. He started fumbling through the mess looking for the one card he had wanted.

"You're ... hopeless," she gasped, still laughing. "Use Evanesco."

It was not immediately obvious to him how that spell was going to assist his current predicament, but for want of any better idea he followed her instructions. Instantly, all of the cards returned to their prior locations. "Oh - right then," Harry said. He walked to his desk and picked up the proof card with his own image on it.

Handing the card to Hermione - who goggled at it - he explained, "I got the Muggle money for agreeing to this. I probably wouldn't have done it, but I needed some pounds fast in case I needed to come get you."

"That's sweet, Harry," she said, causing the pinkness in his ears to return. "So when are these going to appear in the hands of young witches and wizards all over England?"

"Dunno," he said. "Could be any time. This isn't exactly the card that's being used, it's more of a ... er...."

"Prototype?" offered Hermione.

"Yes, that's it," agreed Harry readily. "Cadbury's changed the portrait a bit, and I made them modify the language to be more modest.... And they insisted on adding the business about the Order of Merlin. I reckon that might make this one a collector's item. Would you like it, Hermione?"

"Why yes, Harry, I would," she said, very flattered. "The first Harry Potter Chocolate Frog card ever made - and one of a kind, too - just like you."

The boy looked away, shyly. Glancing outside, he became concerned about the time, it was getting well into the afternoon, and he had to get ready for Occlumency with Professor Dumbledore - and he still hadn't discussed the one thing he had promised to bring up with Hermione. "What time is it?" he asked.

"Oh dear, it's almost five," she said worriedly. "I've kept you all day, I'm sorry."

"I'm not," Harry responded, "but I have to keep you a bit longer. There's this ... er ... medical issue ... that I need to discuss. I promised Dumbledore I would. It's a little personal, so I hope you won't mind...."

Once again she knew where he was headed before he got there himself. "It's about me feeling your emotions, isn't it?" Although phrased as a question, she made it sound more like a statement.

"Yes, that's it.... How did you figure that out?" he said with a start. Once again he was caught flat-footed by his friend's exceptional insight.

"I've been feeling strange emotional flashes ever since I've been home from Hogwarts, possibly even before," she recounted. "But it was only sitting here with you all day - seeing you whilst all along sort of feeling you ... your emotions that is ... that I figured it out. I wasn't sure at first, because things seemed out of sync...." Actually his emotions had seemed in sync with hers, but out of sync with his own actions. "...But as the day went on, I became sure of it. I was meaning to bring it up myself."

"Hermione?" he said, with a worried look. "I felt suicidal too, on the first night of the holidays.... I was so disturbed about Sirius, and everyone who had died. I was ready to perform an unforgivable curse on myself, but thought better of it at the last minute. You don't think that I influenced you to...." His voice trailed off. "Anyway Dumbledore asked if I wanted to cut the link between us, and I told him it should be your choice. It could be dangerous, I guess."

She bit her lip, looked thoughtful (and, in Harry's quite biased opinion, beautiful). Although having an emotional link to him was worrisome in that it invaded HIS privacy, she quickly warmed to the idea of her mind being emotionally connected to Harry's. If she couldn't be intimate with him, at least she could share this unique form of intimacy. She thought about his confession of suicidal thoughts. If he had them again, she would know, and she would go to him. Hermione decided that she wanted to retain the link.

"I've been calling it my 'muse,'" she started, "not knowing what these odd, seemingly out of place emotional flashes were. I wouldn't be at all surprised if your suicidal thoughts reinforced mine, or that your anger and other strong emotions have done the same. But now that I know what's happening, there's no longer any danger in that. Now I can distinguish your emotions from mine and avoid being influenced. But more importantly, Harry, I can help you. If you're ever suicidal again, you won't have to deal with it on your own. I'll know - and if I can't come to you myself, I'll at least let someone like Headmaster Dumbledore know. It's the least I can do for you after you were so helpful with my parents. So you can tell Dumbledore that I've decided not to sever the link."

Having finally talked each other out after almost ten hours, Harry and Hermione said their goodbyes - she making sure that she first removed the anti-Muggle charm from the Dursleys' second floor stairs. Their parting was hardly traumatic, since they would be training together tomorrow at Auror Candidate School. She had to start the long journey home on Muggle public transport. He had to prepare for his Occlumency lesson with Professor Dumbledore.

* * * *

That night Harry suffered through his worst performance at Occlumency since his lessons with Professor Snape. Almost everything went wrong. He was unable to concentrate and clear his mind, which allowed Dumbledore easy entry. When that happened, he would overcompensate. After Dumbledore had his beard burned away for the fifth time, he finally called a halt to the proceedings.

"Is there something wrong, Mr. Potter?" the Headmaster asked. "I'm not seeing your uncle watching television as we had discussed. Instead I'm seeing Miss Granger talking about Viktor Krum. Godric has informed me that you and she spent practically the entire day together in your room. Did something untoward happen?"

"No," Harry spat, completely abandoning his usual silence before the Headmaster on personal topics. "Nothing happened at all. Abso-bloody-lutely nothing. I only found out that Hermione doesn't fancy rich and famous wizards. That's why she was never serious with Krum, and that's why she says she can't ever be anything more than my best friend. She won't be anybody's 'trophy' or stand for her accomplishments being discounted by whispers that somebody in her life paved her way...."

Dumbledore knew enough not to say anything.

Harry put his head in hands and said very softly, "I fancy her; I think I have for years. She's the one girl ... er ... woman ...er ... whatever, that I knew wouldn't want me for my fame and fortune. And she certainly doesn't. The more I learn about her, the less I feel that I know her."

"That is most distressing." Dumbledore said sympathetically. "Necessarily, I make it a practice not to concern myself with the romantic involvements of my students, but having observed both of you, I would have expected otherwise. You can either wait, and hope that she changes her mind ... which women often do. For instance, your mother detested your father until their seventh years.... Or you can move on and hope to find someone else. Only you can make that choice."

Harry then told Dumbledore about Hermione's desire to attend the goblin Ashrak. The Headmaster chuckled, since "that is a different aspect of the same issue" he had just raised. If Hermione were coming as Harry's "mate," Dumbledore explained, that was something the goblins would have understood and allowed. However, the goblins would not understand anyone wishing to attend their ceremonies out of "intellectual curiosity" - and if they did understand, they would probably be offended. Thus the Headmaster's answer was a polite, but firm, no.

Because no constructive Occlumency training was being accomplished that night, Dumbledore decided to dismiss the session early. By the time Harry got back to Privet Drive, he was mentally and physically exhausted. He had barely connected his Aural Pensieve when he fell fast asleep.

* * * *

For many of the same reasons, Hermione was also out of sorts when she returned home that evening. She brusquely told her parents that "nothing happened; we just talked for a long time, that's all." But that was the problem. Nothing had happened, and thanks to her flippant remark about rich and famous wizards, it looked to her as if nothing would. She was looking at quite an emotional readjustment. Unwittingly, she had shot down the very hope that had sustained her in Hong Kong.

There had been an owl from Professor McGonagall. She used that as an excuse to eat and run. Once she reached her room, she flung herself disconsolately on her bed and tried to read. For once reading did not help the girl. Harry's face, with those sad green eyes, kept swimming into view. His reference to being not only more famous, but richer, than Viktor kept ringing in her ears. "Oh, blast it," she thought, "I'm going to start sobbing again."

She fumbled in her handbag for a tissue, and came across what she had purchased that morning, when a combination of worry and anticipation led her to brave a Muggle apothecary's rather scandalised look. She laughed bitterly at how absurd that had become, in light of the day's events. Still, if her parents found it, they might withdraw her from Hogwarts again.

She had not received the highest marks in all Western Europe in Transfiguration for no reason. A flick of her wand turned the offending object into a scrap of paper. "Enflagrate." It burst into flames and was no more. "One less johnny in the world," she thought, as she contemplated the end of her romantic dream.

But she was still Hermione Granger. She would soldier on and be the best friend she could possibly be, since that was all the Harry could want now. "In for a penny, in for a pound," she thought, as she opened Professor McGonagall's letter.

- 50 -

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C:\Documents and Settings\Owner\My Documents\HP & The Fifth Element.ch7 so close yet so far.doc 05/02/04