Fractured Triangle

Kneeling on the floor of her bedroom, Hermione looked at the book lying beside her knee, ignoring the knocking on the painting, her shaking hands adding the ingredients of the potion as carefully as she could.

"Hermione? Hermione, are you in there?"

Harry again.

He came to the room and tried vainly to talk to her every day, but she had managed to avoid him since the previous week, when Lavender and Parvati had left, to go home for the Christmas holidays.

Five days without seeing him and even before then, when they still had classes ongoing, she had only seen him sporadically, in the classes or when she exited the Great Hall as soon as he entered it, alone.

He and Ron were still not on speaking terms.

Ron was still unable to accept that there was nothing going on, since Hermione tolerated Harry´s touch but not his, while Harry had gotten so frustrated at trying to get through to his stubborn friend that he no longer wanted to try until Ron was ready to listen.

It truly did look like the end of their friendship.

Ron was so absolutely certain that he had been betrayed.

Harry was unable to find a way to get through to him that nothing had happened, because he simply could not explain why Hermione would touch him, but would flee from Ron.

And Hermione...

She knew that she couldn´t honestly answer Ron, if he asked her if she had slept with someone else and, if Harry had asked her if anything had happened, she knew that she would not be able to tell him the truth.

The thought of the disgust on their faces...

It was more than she could bear, especially now.

Maybe after, yes, but not now...

Now, Hermione couldn´t face seeing either of them, the pain of knowing she was the one to separate them too great.

It was almost a week and a half since she had last seen Ron, face-to-face.

They had collided in the Great Hall, when she had been on her way out and he had been on his way in, and she had stared up at him, wondering if he was going to push her away, insult her or perhaps hit her as he had Harry.

His reaction had astonished her.

His eyes met hers and he seemed to stare at her for an eternity, as if he had never seen her before, as if she was some kind of wonder. She had started to reach out to him and the spell had been broken.

Stepping around her, he had lightly touched her shoulder as he passed her and she almost turned to go after him.

She had thought that maybe, maybe this time, he might just listen.

However, the thought of what she was planning on doing, back in her bedroom, out of sight and mind, was nagging at the back of her mind, forcing any thoughts of trying to win back Ron´s affections.

Not yet anyway.

She had to get everything out of the way, all the memories, all the evidence and all the issues still burdening her, before she could try and win him back, to prove that she was faithful to him and him alone.

Even Parvati and Lavender didn´t know what she had in mind.

No one knew.

The morning after the discovery that she was - indeed - expecting Lucius Malfoy´s spawn, she had woken from a nightmare that had been worse than any she had faced in recent days.

She had been haunted by the visions of the Professors blaming her for what had happened to her, laughing emotionlessly as Malfoy came and defiled her again, in the sanctity of the school.

She had been curled up in the window seat, shivering, her knees pulled up against her chest when Parvati had woken up. Chewing on her thumbnail, she had deliberated over telling Parvati what had happened.

Her body and mind seemed to be completely independent entities, though. Much to her abject horror, she saw her wand rise in her shaking hand and she heard her own voice whisper, "Obliviate!"

All memories of the pregnancy were wiped from the exotic-looking girl´s mind.

She had curiously asked if Hermione was right and Hermione had stunned herself still further, by smiling weakly and saying it was nothing more than a nightmare that had been bothering her.

When Parvati had gone to the bathroom to have a shower, Hermione was faced with the knowledge that the sleeping Lavender knew, still. Again, her body moved of it´s own accord and she heard the whisper of the forgetfulness spell again.

Neither girl remembered anything that had happened after they had seen Harry and Ron fighting.

It was with that leverage that she managed to convince them that she would be all right staying at school for Christmas. She had lied to them, saying that her parents had sent her word to say they had to go away on family business.

While worried about her, she had convinced them that she would be all right. After all, she had been having less nightmares and she claimed she felt ready to cope on her own for a while and, should anything happen, she would owl them, knowing that they would be able to get back via a floo connection if absolutely necessary.

There was a reason she had needed to get rid of them.

Had they known about her intentions, they probably would have tried to stop her, would have forced her to tell the Professors and she knew that she simply couldn´t allow that to happen, especially after the latest variation on her nightmares.

Nightmares that she had managed to conceal from them by casting a silencing charm over her whole bed and whatever happened to be in it at a given time. She had also resorted to burying herself so deeply into her blankets and pillows that she was barely visible, even while tossing and turning in the grip of her dreams.

Shivering, she picked up the ladle and carefully stirred the mixture in the cauldron in front of her.

A black flame was burning under the round pot, that colour specific and essential to this particular potion. She had secretly been arranging the ingredients for the last few weeks, out of sight of her two roommates and now, they were ready.

The potion had been brewing for nearly five days.

Only a little time more, she knew.

It was meant to take a week, if all went well.

Coils of wispy blue-black smoke, tinted with poisonous green flecks, curled thickly over the lip of the small cauldron, hissing as they came in contact with the hissing black flames beneath it.

It smelt vile, the bitter, acidic stench prickling in her nostrils and making her already-knotted stomach tighten, bile rising in her throat, as she continued to slowly stir it, trying to steady her hand to prevent any mishaps.

Drawing calming breaths, she looked in on the tar-like fluid.

It would work.

It had to.

***

She had tried to do it.

She had tried and failed, not strong enough.

Stolen Harry's cloak to gain access to the one place she could get what she needed, when he had been in class. Stolen ingredients for the potion she required while she had been there. Prepared the ingredients of the potion to the word, over three weeks. Skipping a few classes and avoiding her friends, who didn´t even know she was still in the school when the holidays rolled in, to do so.

Then, when it had come down to it, she had tried to drink.

It would take everything away, melt down all the hideous stuff inside her and flush it out of her system, get rid of all the evidence, wash everything out of her filthy, disgusting, loathsome body.

She hadn't cared how much it was going to hurt - and it would have been agonising, she knew, more painful than anything she had experienced - only knowing that she wanted rid of the physical memory that was growing inside of her.

It.

She had tried to convince herself that it was nothing more than an `it´.

Not an existing entity.

Not alive.

Nothing more or less than a simple `it´.

As she had raised the smoking glass to her lips, she had touched her stomach, the stomach that was already beginning to show the swell of foreboding, the swell of a life, a child, another human being growing inside of her.

`It´ was not it.

That was when she realised the bitter truth.

`It´ was a child, a baby, a life and here she was trying to...

Oh God.

Even the thought of that thought had made her baulk.

The first bitter, hissing drops of the thick, black substance had splashed on her tongue, burning down her throat, and she had been struck by the awareness of what she had intended to do.

Hurling the glass away from her with a sob, she had watched her one chance to be rid of it all splatter across the wall, pain surging in on her as those few drops of the potion ate their way into her system.

The pain had been horrendous, her body felt like it was splitting down the middle and she had been smothered by unconsciousness before she could even reach the door of her room to cry for aid.

How long it had been since that moment, she didn´t know.

All she knew was that she was lying in a bed in the medical wing and it felt as if her stomach had been thrust through with a red-hot poker, her whole form curled in on itself in agony.

The lingering taste of an enervation potion tanged her mouth and she forced herself to raise her eyes to the person who was gripping her chin.

"What do you think you were doing you stupid little girl?"

Pain still burning through her veins, Hermione pulled her chin free and shook her head, trying not to sob aloud, her arms clasped around her stomach. She was curled on her side in the bed in the hospital wing, Professor Snape looming over her.

If he didn´t know, then...

She couldn´t have been there long, if they hadn´t discovered her condition.

Madam Pomfrey wasn´t even present in the infirmary to tell him to treat her kindly, probably gone to get the Head Master, while Snape was left to bring her awake with his foul-tasting potions.

Well, she did believe that Hermione was just ill.

After all, she would simply have looked like she had a stomach upset. She could vaguely remember vomiting and tasting blood, then looking up to find the Potions Professor standing in her somehow-opened door.

How he had gained access, she didn´t know.

He had probably found just how badly she had done in her Potions essay, one she had written without even reading the question and had come to...talk to her privately, to avoid another scene like her emotional breakdown in the potions class, so many weeks before.

So, he had entered a moment before a black sheet of unconsciousness had dropped down around her.

Only he was aware of it being more than a simple illness.

If he had seen the cauldron and the empty cauldron lying on the floor, how could he think anything else?

"Leave me alone," she whispered hoarsely.

"I shall do no such thing, Miss Granger," he said coldly. "Until you inform me why you felt the compulsion to appropriate several valuable substances from my personal supply cupboard. Do not try to deny it. I was the one to find you and I saw them in your chambers. Was it some great, world-changing potion, you desired to make? Or did you simply find it amusing to become a delinquent and failure in your final year?"

She stared at him, then laughed, a strange, wild-sounding laugh. "If you know what I took," she challenged, her voice shaking with emotion. "Then you must know why I felt the urge to take it."

The Potions teacher studied her for a long moment and, behind his expressionless countenance, she could see that he was mentally working through the various potions she might have been making.

She could see it, the exact moment he understood.

His normally stoic face shifted slightly, betraying shock, disgust and clear contempt for her, which hardly surprised her.

"Well, well, the wonderful Miss Granger...this is a surprise."

Turning her face away from him, she pressed her stinging eyes closed, her stomach roiling and twisting painfully. She heard him turn on heel and walk out, his footfalls swift and angry.

The door crashed shut at the end of the ward and she was aware of a creeping numb feeling settling over her body.

Pressing her head against the pillow, she felt a tear trickling from her eye and puddling in the hollow on the bridge of her nose a moment before sickened sleep caught up with her.

***

"Is she awake, Poppy?"

Staring blankly at the ceiling above her bed, Hermione felt a sick sweep of humiliation pass over her at the sound of the Head Master´s voice, crossing her arms up over her chest, her fingers biting painfully into her shoulders.

She had woken from somewhere between sleep and unconsciousness, reeling and nauseous, a few minutes earlier, to find the Hogwarts Matron standing over her, a cool flannel draped over her forehead.

Sitting up with Madam Pomfrey´s help, she raised her knees up under the blankets, hugging them to her chest tightly.

She hadn´t been treated with anything more than a pain-killing potion, although she could see that Madam Pomfrey was longing to check her over, anxiety and concern etched on her face.

"Yes, Head Master."

The curtains around the bed were parted and the Head Master and Deputy Head Mistress both followed the matron in. Hermione didn´t look up, although her hands gripped tighter onto her upraised legs and she blinked harder.

A fourth figure entered silently a few short seconds after the first two teachers, approaching and standing just behind the Head Master, a grim look on his pale, sallow face.

"Miss Granger?" Professor McGonagall spoke, concern in her tone.

Unable to find her voice, Hermione shook her head, lowering her face and pressing her forehead against her knees.

"Miss Granger," the Head Master said softly. "Under any other circumstance, I would leave you to rest, but I am afraid that it has been brought to our notice that you are... not yourself and have not been for much of the term."

"Professor Dumbledore is right, Miss Granger," McGonagall added anxiously. "You have been to Poppy more times this term than in your previous six years at the school, your grades have fallen to the lowest in the class, your friends are..." Hermione lifted her eyes to her House Mistress. "They were very concerned about you."

"What Professor McGonagall is trying to say, Miss Granger" Dumbledore said gently. "Is do you have anything that you would like to talk to us about?"

She shook her head again, a choked whimper escaping her.

One of the Head Master´s hands gently touched her shoulder and she flinched. The hand was instantly withdrawn and she looked up cautiously to find blue eyes staring down at her with deep concern.

"Tell them..." her voice sounded strangled in her ears. "T-t-tell them."

"Tell who what, Miss Granger?" Dumbledore asked kindly.

Professor Snape stepped forward, his arms folded over his chest. "I believe Miss Granger was referring to me, Head Master," he said coolly, giving her a look that would have frozen flame.

"Severus?"

"I found Miss Granger to have ingested a potion of her own making," the Potions Master answered, his look of contempt never wavering. "She had stolen supplies from my private store and had brewed a Terminalus potion, which she drank a little of. Not enough to be sufficient to fulfil its purpose, but enough to make herself violently ill."

"Terminalus?"

Snape´s expression was ugly with distaste. "I´m afraid that the esteemed Miss Granger found herself to be pregnant and changed her mind about aborting the infant at the last moment."

What colour had been in McGonagall´s face immediately drained from it, her lips parting in a silent exclamation of shocked horror, while the Head Master´s blue eyes closed in an expression that looked close to pain.

Madam Pomfrey´s eyes widened and she looked from Hermione to Snape and back again. "Is...is this true, Miss Granger?" she asked.

Hermione lowered her face again, her chin resting against her knees, as silent, hot tears ran from her eyes.

"Does...does Mr Weasley know?"

Hermione flinched as if she had been slapped. "It´s not his," she whispered, so softly that she could barely even hear her own words, but she heard two gasps. Without lifting her face, her eyes rose to the four faces above her.

It was a fair question, she knew.

After all, she and Ron were, or at least had been, one of the more famed couples in Hogwarts.

Professor McGonagall´s already white face had taken a greyish hue, her lips pressing together into a thin line. Madam Pomfrey looked equally stunned, her expression one of confusion, her eyes flicking to McGonagall in silent question.

Even Professor Snape looked shocked. He had taken a step back from the side of the bed, his hands bunched in fists by his sides. His lips were pressed together as thinly as the Deputy Head Mistress´.

Professor Dumbledore slowly opened his eyes and looked down at her. There was no condemnation in his blue eyes, although she could see disappointment so deep that made her wish the floor would open up and swallow her whole.

"Would you mind telling us who the father is?" he asked quietly.

"N-no...please..."

"Miss Granger, we must know," he sat down on the edge of the bed, studying her gravely and she felt humiliation burning fiercely in her cheeks.

She had told no one, had been unable to tell anyone else.

No one but Lavender, Parvati and Crookshanks knew about what Lucius Malfoy had done, the man who had decided to use her and shame her and leave her feeling worth less than a piece of rubbish.

Even then, Lavender had only found out by chance and relayed the news onto the only other person who knew what had happened.

Now to be faced with the Head Master, his deputy, the Potions teacher she feared...

What if they condemned her for what had happened? What if they saw the filthy slut in her that Malfoy had seen? What if they could see why she had been treated the way she had by him?

"Please..." she whispered, shaking her head, staring wildly at him. Her eyes felt like they were about to burst into flame, flooded to overflowing with hot tears. "Please... don´t ask me that...please..."

One of Professor Dumbledore´s aged hands came up and gently overlaid hers, which was gripping her right calf tightly. His touch was strangely calming. "Miss Granger, what you tell us will go no further than our ears. We are only here to help you."

"I-I...I know," she replied unsteadily.

"Will you tell us?"

"But...I-I...please don´t be angry...please..." She felt like a child, a frightened little child begging not to be lectured. "Please...it...you don´t understand...I-I-I couldn´t tell anyone else..."

She saw a look pass between Professor McGonagall and Madam Pomfrey and it felt like the icy hand she had been awaiting locked around her heart and squeezed, making her gasp with the pain of it.

What if they had guessed?

What if they thought it was all her fault?

"Miss Granger...Hermione," Dumbledore said. His voice was warm, like a blanket enfolding her and making the sickening cold feeling that was spreading through her fade a little. Not completely, but enough. "Please, you must tell us."

Looking up timidly at him, she nodded, shakily trying to form the words.

Her eyes went back to the foot of the bed and she swallowed several times, a shiver running through her body.

When her voice slipped passed her lips, it was tiny.

"Malfoy."

Snape uttered a soft curse.

Professor McGonagall´s gasp of astonishment seemed deafening. "Miss Granger...I never imagined...Draco Malfoy..."

"N-no, P-Professor," Hermione stammered, swallowing hard. "L-L-Lucius Malfoy."

There.

She had said it.

The silence of the four adults standing over her was terrifying. She could hear every frenzied pounding thump of her heart in her ears and reluctantly lifted her eyes from the end of the bed.

Professor Dumbledore´s face seemed to have been drawn tight with fury, his eyes flashing with an emotion she had seldom seen in them before. His hand on hers gently squeezed her fingers, comfortingly.

Standing just behind him, Professor McGonagall´s hand was pressed against her mouth and she was shaking her head slowly, as if she couldn´t believe what she had just been told. Madam Pomfrey looked equally horrified.

Snape looked like he had just received a punch to the gut and staggered back several paces, shaking his head. His face had gone a sick yellow-grey, one hand convulsively clawing at the high collar of his robes.

They understood now.

"Oh, Miss Granger..." Professor McGonagall whispered. "Albus...how...how is..."

The Head Master raised a hand stilling McGonagall´s questions.

"When did this happen, Hermione?" Professor Dumbledore´s voice was gentle and calm, with only the slightest tremor that betrayed the outrage and fury she could feel radiating out from him.

Forcing down a sob, Hermione stared at a crease in the blankets over her knees.

"It-it was at the Leaky Cauldron," she whispered, her knuckles whitening as she gripped her calves through the blanket. "J-just before term started. He-he just came... into my room...I told him to leave...he-he didn´t."

Dumbledore lowered his head, closing his eyes. "You told no one?"

"I-I-I told Crookshanks," she mumbled defensively. "But...he already knew about it. And Lavender... she... she knows...and Parvati...not who it was...but they know what happened... I-I-I made them forget the baby..."

"Harry and Ronald do not know?" She shook her head.

"I-I couldn´t tell them," she said. Her voice sounded horribly reedy and thin in her own ears. "I-I-I couldn´t...they...they´re my best friends and I-I-I couldn´t tell them... I-I-I didn´t want to upset them..."

"You ought to have informed us, Hermione," Madam Pomfrey´s voice was shaking.

Shaking her head, Hermione whispered, "I couldn´t...I-I...it was my fault...it must have been...I-I must have done something...wrong...something bad...why else would he have picked me?"

Tears were spilling uncontrollably down her white face and she was trembling.

"Oh, Hermione," The grief and pity in the Head Master´s voice were palpable. "You did nothing to deserve this. No woman ever deserves such a fate."

"But I...why me...why me if I didn´t ask for it? What did I do?" she asked in a plaintive whisper. "I must have done something...something terrible to make him make me feel so...so horrible..."

To her surprise and shock, Dumbledore did something that she had never imagined any of the teaching staff to do.

He leaned in and gathered her in his arms, holding her in a way that her grandfather might have, warm and reassuring. He even smelled a little like her grandfather, a woody scent, old and familiar, that reminded her of visiting her relatives and of fun she had had as a child, although he also had the scent of magic on him.

"You did nothing wrong," he said softly. "Believe me, Hermione. You did nothing."

Burying her face in his thick robes, she allowed the sobs to come. Her body felt like it was going to tear in two with the force of her cries, her lungs burning as she gulped in deep breaths.

She could feel the Head Master´s hand soothingly stroking through her hair as he let her weep, also aware of the whispering passing between the matron and the deputy Head Mistress.

Snape was deadly silent.

"Albus, there are others involved in this..." Professor McGonagall´s voice was low, but Hermione still heard every word. "Potter and Weasley...they may have had a few problems lately, but this must be explained..."

She felt the Head master nod, his beard rippling against her cheek.

"Hermione," Dumbledore said gently, still holding her in the security of his arms, her face pressed deep into his warm robes. "Would you like us to inform Harry and Ronald of the situation?"

Hermione went rigid.

"I-I don´t know..."

"Head Master," Snape´s voice cut in, a little unsteady. "I-I´m afraid it may be a little late for that. After Miss Granger made known her condition to me, I found Weasley to inquire as to his position on the situation."

"No..." Hermione gasped, a rushing wave of nauseous sweeping through her. "Oh no... he can´t know...not Ron..." Her face pressing into her hands, she started to sob again. "No...no...no..."

Dumbledore´s beard shifted and she assumed absently that he must have raised his head. "Minerva," he said, his voice serious. "Go and find Harry Potter and Ronald Weasley. Have them both come here, if possible."

She heard the House Mistress hurry away.

"Poppy, do you have any chocolate?"

"Yes, Head Master."

"Severus, I would suggest that you leave for the moment."

There was a long pause, then Hermione was startled to hear the Potions Professor speak to her. "Miss Granger," It was a tone of voice that she had never heard in him before. "I-I am truly sorry."

His footfalls trailed into silence, leaving her held against Dumbledore´s chest as she continued to weep softly.

***

"Hermione?"

"Harry," Professor Dumbledore answered for her. She was sitting up in the bed, staring blankly down at her hands, which were resting limply in her lap, her eyes blood-shot and red. "Would you mind coming here?"

She had been plied with chocolate as a soothing mechanism.

All it had done was make her mouth feel sticky and taste bitter, as she cried herself dry of painful tears.

Half an hour had passed since Professor McGonagall had left the hospital wing and Harry had arrived on his own, wearing his Quidditch robes, apparently freshly arrived from practising on his broom, his favourite pass-time.

"Hermione, what´s going on?" Approaching the bed, the dark-haired boy took the spot that Dumbledore had just vacated, catching one of her hands in his. "I just had McGonagall call me down from practise and Ron..." The way he said the name was with a touch of sadness edged with anger. "He took off earlier..."

Her eyes rose from her hands. Her throat was tight, painfully so. "It´s bad, Harry..."

She didn´t get a chance to say more, her friend leaning forward and wrapping his arms around her tightly. He didn´t need her to go on to know that something serious had happened and she was grateful for a moment´s reprieve from having to tell her story again.

Her chin resting on his shoulder, she pressed her eyes closed tightly, drawing a shaking breath and taking in the familiar, down-to-earth scent of Harry. Smelling of fresh-air, outdoors and energy, he had the most cheering smell she knew.

Wrapping her arms around Harry´s chest and gripping onto the rough material of his Quidditch robes, Hermione felt two fat tears squeeze out from beneath her tightly shut lids, her throat burning as she tried to push down another wave.

"What happened, Hermione?" His voice was a hot breath on the back of her neck, his arms still wrapped around her in a protective mantle.

"I-I-I´m pregnant."

There was a silence only broken by the rhythmic thumping in her ears.

It felt like forever had passed in a heartbeat.

"Who did it?" He drew back from her, his expression dark with anger. His leather-gloved hands came up to frame her burning face gently. "Who was the bastard who touched you? I´ll kill him..."

Dumbledore made a sound of surprise, causing Hermione´s eyes to dart to him, the back to Harry´s face. Apparently, she was not the only one to be surprised that Harry knew she was not carrying a child by choice.

"Y-you don´t think I cheated on Ron?"

"Hermione, I know you," Pressing his forehead lightly against hers, he stared into her eyes. "I know you and I know Ron and I know how much you two love each other and you...who was it?"

Lowering her eyes, Harry´s rough fingertips still touching her cheeks, she drew a shaking breath. "L-L-Lucius M-Malfoy."

Harry´s eyes closed in anguish. "I should have known..." His eyes opened, locking on her face again. "Are you all right? I mean, I know you´re not all right that way, but you...oh God, Hermione..." She was pulled into another hug. "I´m so sorry."

Unable to reply or even form a word, she buried her face in his neck, tears burning down her white cheeks.

It was several minutes before she could manage to get the words out to ask him the question she had needed answered, ever since the moment that Snape had revealed what he had said to Ron.

"H-Harry, where´s Ron?"

"I...I´m not sure, Hermione."

"He..." She clung to Harry a little harder. "He knows, doesn´t he? He...he still thinks I saw someone else..."

She felt Harry´s lips press against her forehead, then his cheek against the top of her tangled hair. "He´s confused, Hermione," he replied carefully. "It...if he was told by someone else...he might still believe I...you and I..."

"Professor Snape believed Ronald to be the father and approached him about it without first consulting me," Professor Dumbledore said gravely. "I am afraid I should have interceded sooner."

"And now, Ron´s disappeared, so we can´t even tell him..."

Hermione´s face contorted in pain. "I...how can he think I would betray him?" she asked bleakly. "And you...we wouldn´t...can´t he see that..."

"Well," Harry shifted a little. "You have been kind of...distant since we met up with you at the Leaky Cauldron..." Brown eyes stared up at him bleakly. "And that´s why, isn´t it? That´s why you said you were ill..." She nodded. "When?"

"The night before you arrived," she whispered.

"And when we met the Malfoys in Diagon Alley that day..." Hermione looked away sharply, blinking hard. Harry´s face darkened, his eyes flashing with rage. "I´m going to kill that evil son of a bitch. I´m going to kill him myself. By hand. In as painful a way as I can think of."

"And it is a very nice day," Dumbledore said, gazing pointedly out of the window above the bed. "Can´t imagine having weather like this every Christmas...what was that you were saying, Harry?"

Drawing a slow breath, Harry´s hands were balled into fists as he drew back from Hermione and looked at the Head Master. "May I ask a favour?" Dumbledore inclined his head. "May I have a note of permission to punch Professor Snape in the face for being an interfering prat?"

"Harry..."

"Hermione, it´s his fault that Ron has gone."

She turned her eyes back to his. "I was just going to say hit him extra hard for me."

"If I break his nose, I won´t apologise for it," he promised, turning to the Head Master. "Sir, may I have a note with your permission?"

"Harry..."

Harry´s eyes flashed. "I´m going to do it anyway, sir," he said grimly. "It would just be a lot easier with your permission."