The Corpse behind the Hourglass

This chapter has some Ron/Hermione moments-but it most certainly will NOT stay that way as I am not the biggest of Ron/Hermione fans. (Just read my lovely rant of a bio at fanfiction.net:))

Next chapter features:

The ball! Yay! Ron/Hermione no more...yay! *evil looks from all Ron/Hermione fans*...ermm...I mean...darn?? and the return of the central plot and choices that were never easy to begin with having to be made all over again.

Lots more Evilyetdroolinglyhandsome! and confusedandtormented! Draco to come.:)

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Two months had passed since Snape had given Hermione, Ron, and Harry detention for being in the hallways after hours. Two months. Two very monotonous and tedious months when you already knew everything everyone was going to say and do, which Hermione and Draco both did.

Sometimes, Hermione found herself mouthing along with what someone was saying. Even Fred and George's jokes weren't all that funny when you'd already heard them five years ago. Plus, there were classes. When she had truly been fifteen, Hermione hadn't needed the teachers to explain a single piece of information twice-she'd learned fairly quickly. But now, reliving her adolescence all over again, Hermione didn't need anything explained so much as once. Sitting in a chair for an hour listening to information for the O.W.L.s when you had already taken the NEWTS was-there was no doubt about it- boring.

Hermione found herself almost wishing Voldemort would hurry up and attack Harry just to speed life up a little, as much as she hated to admit it. Draco, speaking his mind freely, had said exactly the same. If they had to have gotten sent back to the past, couldn't they at least have gotten sent back to a time just a tad more closer to the part they had to change?

Both Hermione and Draco were looking forward to two more weeks much like the first two months they had already gone through. Hermione was using her time to study up on everything about time traveling and dark curses in preparation for facing Voldemort and Salazar Slytherin. She was perturbed to find that Draco wasn't doing the same. In fact, Draco wasn't doing much of ANYTHING aside from being his usual annoying git of a self.

Perhaps annoying git wasn't strong enough a word, Hermione reflected as she watched Draco kiss Parvarti, Ron's ex girlfriend from the fifth year if Hermione remembered correctly, in free abandon....and of course, right in front of Ron.

Sitting atop a pile of pillows and grading that day's exam, Professor Flitwick gave a noisy cough in the direction of Draco and Parvarti, trying to give them a hint to get a move on. Get a move on was obviously something they didn't plan on doing for a good number of hours.

Ron obviously didn't plan on moving either. Hermione and Harry were both tugging on his arm, trying to get him to budge away from the frame of the doorway, where he was staring, looking as if at any moment he was either going to punch Draco and Parvarti, or, as Harry had prevented him from doing by instantly grabbing his wand, cast the nastiest spell he could think of on the both of them.

"Lemmigo!" Ron hissed angrily at both Harry and Hermione. "I can take care of myself."

"I don't doubt that. I'm not worried about you. Just your mental health," grunted Harry as he tried once again, fruitlessly, to push Ron out the door.

"Come on Ron," encouraged Hermione. "Much as I see the merits of you setting Malfoy on fire, I have a feeling Professor Flitwick wouldn't feel quite the same way."

"What about turning him into a ferret?" asked Ron, his teeth clenched. "I could always say he was an animagus-they always change into their animal form when they get really excited...."

"Not a chance." Hermione and Harry finally got Ron out the door. "Though, come to think of it, he would look rather nice as a blast ended screwt."

"What would Ron want to turn him into that for?" demanded Harry. "From the look of things, Malfoy and Parvarti are already gobbling each other up."

Ron was walking at a furious pace, his strides covering twice as much distance as both Hermione's and Harry's. " Can you believe it? And right in front of the teachers too! Honestly, how low can you go? I hope Professor Flitwick takes off twenty points from them both."

"Errm," ventured Harry. "But Parvarti's in Gryffindor, remember?"

"So?" asked Ron, far too angry to think straight.

"That'd be point taken away from your own house," pointed out Harry when Ron failed to make the connection for himself.

"I-I...I...They can take one hundred points away from Gryffindor for all I care. She deserves it."

"Honestly, Ron, can't you just forget you ever saw the two of them together? It's not her fault her brainlessness is only matched by Malfoy's. There are plenty of other girls who would go out with you, Ron...and well, kissing isn't illegal, you know."

Hermione felt a bit shocked-where on earth had that come from? Perhaps it was because she was upset as Ron over seeing Malfoy and Parvarti kissing. Or perhaps it was because she was sick of Ron moping over losing Parvarti. Hermione raced off ahead of both Ron and Harry, feeling both embarrassed and VERY like a fifteen year old-instead of the twenty year old she knew she was on the inside.

"I'm beginning to think it should be," muttered Ron just at the same time as Harry asked "What's with her?"

Shrugging at each other and blaming it on some crazy female mood swing, both Ron and Harry were about to enter the Great Hall themselves when the white piece of parchment that Hermione had failed to notice on her way in caught their attention.

"THIS is what's with her," said Ron wisely, nodding at the paper, which was tacked on to one of the massive, carved wooden doors.

"Ball? A ball? But since when does?-"

"Since we became fifth years, I'm guessing," said Ron excitedly, all trace of anger and wrongdoing at seeing Draco and Parvarti kissing having vanished...probably at the prospect of finally having a chance to ask Hermione to a dance, thought Harry without much of a sense of threat. He was planning on asking Hermione himself...but if it meant hurting Ron's feelings...

Still, he was going to ask her. They could simply say they were going as friends if Ron asked. No harm in that. Besides, everyone, himself included, knew Hermione had had a crush on him since last year, Harry reassured himself.

"Well, I hope we've at least got a week or so to try and ask a girl. Remember what happened last year?"

Ron groaned. "I rather not, if that's alright with you." Harry could sympathize. He had wanted to go with Cho Chang, a very pretty seeker on Ravenclaw's quidditch team, but she had refused him, going with Cedric Diggory instead. Whereas Ron, Harry figured, had wanted to go with Hermione, but simply couldn't work on the nerve to ask her-until too late when she had already been asked by Krum. Not this year. Harry wasn't going to waste a moment in asking Hermione to the ball. Even if Ron hadn't learned from last year's ball, Harry had.

Harry read over the rest of the parchment before suddenly giving a cry of indignation. "November fourteenth? But that's today! They expect us to get a date in less than eight hours??"

"Guess they don't believe in advance warnings," Harry said under his breath as he stared at the paper.

Ron shook his head. "Bet you the sign's already been up for a week and we were the only two people dim enough not to notice it. Ugh. If I hadn't been studying for my OWLS so hard...."

"Oh well," said Harry miserably. "There's always bound to be someone that hasn't gotten asked yet."

"Yeah, there is." For a minute Harry thought Ron was going to say Moaning Myrtle. "Hermione," Ron stated simply. "And now she's going to go through that whole speech on how we didn't notice she was girl until it was too late blahblahblah."

"Not that I mean to ask her or anything," Ron added hastily as Harry gave him a strange glance. "It's just you'd have a better chance with a rock."

* * * * *

It was for that reason that the minute Hermione excused herself from the table, saying she was going to the library to study, Harry jumped up as well, pouncing on his chance to talk to her alone. Ron raised an eyebrow as he watched the two of them leave, but said nothing and simply went back to munching on a jelly filled donut.

She had been going to go to the library to find out more on Salazar Slytherin, but Hermione couldn't now. Not with Harry tagging along. How could she explain checking out "Daring Derriem's book of Deadly Spells" to him? She couldn't.

Half an hour later, Hermione had scanned the books from start to finish. Useless. Of course, the only reason she was reading them was to put up the appearance of studying in front of Harry. Too bad she hadn't sneaked the first volume of "Curses for the Careful" from the library shelf. She could have put it inside her copy of "OWLS-What Every Student Needs To Know" and read it instead.

One look at Harry's face as he pretended to read through "101 Tips for the OWLS" and Hermione groaned inwardly. She knew exactly why he was so nervous he looked as if he was about to bite his fingernails. Bugger. Was it that day already?

Finally, after sneaking several side glances at Hermione throughout the course of their studying, Harry cleared his throat.

"Umm...Hermione...you know about the ball?"

Hermione sighed. Apparently, it was that day already. "Yes," she said in a resigned sort of voice, counting down the seconds it took until Harry would frame his next question.

"Well. Youhaven'tgotadateyethaveyou?"

Harry coughed and tried again. "I mean, you haven't got someone you're going with?"

Hermione shook her head and Harry looked overjoyed. "Well, you will go with me then, won't you?"

Her book fell out of her hands with a loud clatter to the floor, but Hermione didn't even notice. She was reliving an experience she wasn't all that keen to remember. How could he just presume she was going to go to the dance with him? She had never thought as Harry Potter as arrogant, but at that moment, his statement seemed to be full of it.

I said yes to him in my fifth year, Hermione reminded herself. I said yes and we went and we had a wonderful time. Don't go changing the past, Hermione told herself fiercely. Or you'll end up changing the future as well. Maybe that wouldn't be such a bad thing, hinted a sly voice in her head. Maybe Ron was the-

No! thought Hermione. I saw Harry when I looked in the Mirror of Erised, didn't I? Not Ron. Not Ron. Harry. It has to be Harry.

It was a thought Hermione had to keep repeating to herself over and over even as Harry studied her face, waiting for an answer. She couldn't not go with Harry. She had a baby with Harry in the future, for god's sake, even if the baby was still yet unborn. If she so much as even dated Ron in the past, the baby might never end up existing...

But Hermione didn't want to go with Harry. Her feelings about him were quite different from when she had truly been fifteen and asked her to the ball. Then, she had been excited. So excited she hadn't even noticed the words coming out of Harry's mouth, only that he was asking her to the ball. Her. Not Cho, or one of the numerous other girls that yearned to go with him, but her.

Now, she found herself looking him right back in the eye, trying to think of the right words to put into a refusal. She felt nothing if not confused.

And she knew who she wanted to go with. The one she had shunted aside-unknowingly, but still- the minute Harry had proclaimed his liking for her. The one that would still feel shunted aside five years later when she and Harry were married with a child of their own. She had treated Ron terribly after this very upcoming ball. That, Hermione tried to convince herself, was why she didn't want to go with Harry. Ron deserved to experience the thing he had been dreaming of forever, even if it only lasted for a few hours.

Nothing serious. She could go to the party with Ron and her future with Harry would remain the same, married and all. Right?

Harry's glance had gone from confident, to nervous, and was now settling on worried.

"No. Sorry, Harry, but I can't go with you."

Harry nodded. He didn't look terribly upset. " Why, if you don't mind my asking?"

"Because," Hermione said clearly and plainly, not wanting to mince her words, even for Harry's sake. "Because I have someone else I want to take me."

Harry's brow furrowed. "But you told me you hadn't been asked by-"

"I wasn't." With a last apologetic sorry, Hermione swept out of the library, completely forgetting all of the books she had been reading, including the one that had fallen out of her hands and was still lying prone on the floor.

Harry sat in the chair as if frozen to the spot, simply staring aimlessly at nothing before he too made his mind to get up and left abruptly. Strangely, he didn't feel all that disappointed. He hadn't expected Hermione to say no, that was true, but it wasn't the end of the world. He could ask Ginny. She and him had become quite good friends over the past months-and besides, she was pretty. With her flaming red hair and dark brown eyes, even prettier than Hermione, in Harry's opinion.

* * * * *

Hermione had found just who she had been looking for. Ron, languidly sprawled out on his bed in the Gryffindor Boy's dormitory. The instant he saw Hermione, he hastily crawled under his covers.

"Hermione! This is the boy's dormitory. What are you doing in here?"

Hermione stared at Ron. "What are you doing here yourself?"

Ron shrugged, only his long nose visible over the quilt. "Oh that. I didn't ask anyone to the ball. I'm not going. My robes are horrid, anyhow." Ron gestured to the gilded chest in front of his bed, where a set of bright orange robes were folded. "They were pink, so I tried to dye them blue," he told Hermione miserably. "But thanks to my rotten wand, they ended up orange instead."

"I don't see what's so bad about them. They're the color of your favorite quidditch team," pointed out Hermione.

Her words had the opposite effect she had intended. Ron glared. "Right. Just what I always wanted. Robes to go with my hair. They'll probably end up red in the end, from all the punch Malfoy'll splash on my robes claiming he thought I was on fire."

Hermione didn't say a word about the fact that if Ron truly wasn't going, he shouldn't be worrying over Malfoy's reaction to his robes. Instead, she took out her wand, gave it a hasty wave in the direction of the offending articles of clothing, and muttered a few words under her breath.

Slowly, the robes turned from orange to blue. "There," said Hermione. "Better?"

"Thanks. But you didn't have to exert yourself. I'm not wearing them."

"Of course. I'll just nip down to the kitchens and get Dobby's tea cozy for you to borrow, shall I? It'll look lovely with a pair of tights and a little set of shoes with bells on them."

"You'll need Dobby's stuff more than I do if you don't hurry and get ready for the ball. It's starting soon." Ron pulled his blankets all the way over his head. "Go ahead. Have a good time. I'm not stopping you."

It was at that moment the grandfather clock in the corner of the room chimed. Only an hour and a half left. She had to hurry it up.

Hermione sighed. "Ron, why do you have to be so pig headed?"

"What are you getting on about?" demanded a muffled voice from underneath the covers. "All I'm saying is that you ought to hurry and get dressed for the ball. I'm sure Harry's waiting for you."

So that was why Ron was so mad, Hermione realized. The summer of her fourth year-how could she have forgotten? Her and Harry's first kiss. At the burrow. The fleeting form of Ron after he had seen both of them. All three of them awkwardly spending the next few weeks pretending it had never happened.

The never had spoken of it-not even after Harry and Hermione were married and Ron had begun dating Lavender. Well, this time Hermione wasn't going to pretend.

"Ron," she said gently. "That kiss with Harry at the burrow didn't mean a thing."

"Just like you visiting Vicky in Romania, I suppose." Ron's voice was still muffled, but Hermione could now see the top of his head of red hair peeking out from underneath the mound of blankets.

"For goodness sakes," Hermione exploded. "I don't need a mother. I already have one, thanks all the same."

Ron's head promptly disappeared back underneath the covers. "Lovely to know I'm appreciated."

He's speaking the truth, thought Hermione suddenly. Always Harry's shadow. Even after he's been made a prefect and all, it's still the same way.

"You can be so dense!" she yelled out loud, glad that the Gryffindor Boy's dormitories at least seemed to be empty save for herself and Ron.

Ron's face had now appeared, along with his arms and chest-both of which were, Hermione noted bemusedly, bare.

"No, 'Mione, you can. Dating every boy that kisses your royal feet. Might as well buy Harry a crown and scepter, yourself a tiara, and get it all over with."

Hermione stared straight at Ron without so much as batting an eyelash. "Trust you to bring up analogies to chess at a time like this. Ron, can't you just say flat out what you feel? Because it's obvious and I'm pretty sure I already know."

Ron's ears and face turned bright read and he gave an odd sort of half choke, half murmur. "Oh you do, do you? Fine. I've liked you since last year when I acted like such a addlepated git. Still am acting like one, actually, considering I'm telling you something I swore I never would."

Hermione fiddled with her hands, sitting down on the edge of Ron's bed. "Listen, we've been talking-"

Ron gave a snort. "-Constructively disagreeing-"

Ron snorted again. "-Oh, fine. Flat out arguing, for half an hour now. All because you want to ask me one question but don't have the guts."

"Don't have the guts?" asked Ron. He still sounded angry, but a good deal less so. "Did you have a Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Bean stuck in your ear when I told you I liked you a minute ago?"

Hermione gave a laugh. "Sure. I keep a few in my belly button and one stuck up in my nose for extra supply, but you're right, ears are by far the best place to store them."

Ron gave a slight smile, looking a bit cheered up, though his ears were still a most brilliant shade of crimson.

"Ron," said Hermione, turning serious. "I can't honestly say I like you-"

Ron's face dropped. "I know. Harry. That's why I wasn't going to tell you."

"-because," continued Hermione as if she really had a Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Bean stuck in her ear and hadn't heard a word Ron had just said. "I've never seen how you would act other than as a best friend."

"A jealous one," she added.

Ron just blinked. "I'm confused."

"Ron, you dolt! I'm giving you a chance to ask me to the ball."

"Ooh. Oh. Well then." Ron didn't seem quite sure how to react. His ears were turning, if possible, even redder, and a smile stretched across the length of his similarly colored face. "Well. Will you?"

The smile on Ron's face suddenly vanished. "Wait a minute, if Fred or George put you up to this by paying you so much as one canary cream-"

Hermione smiled. "They didn't. And I will."

"Ummm...right. You had better get out while I change, then."

Hermione, having caught a glimpse of what Ron was wearing-or, to be more exact, not wearing- grinned to herself. "What? You aren't going to go in your plaid boxers?"

Ron gave a start. "How did yo-?" He stopped midsentence, looked at Hermione sheepishly, and then decided to get out of bed, plaid boxers and all.

He began pushing Hermione towards the door. "Much as I'd love everyone to see me in flannel, I don't think the multicolored toe socks would go over quite as well."

Catching a glimpse of Ron's rainbow clad toes, Hermione couldn't refrain from laughing. "No. They wouldn't."

"But you're bare chest would!" she whispered to Ron as he closed the door, causing him to turn red more than ever. Hermione herself blushed as she realized what she had just said. Arrgh. I'm five years older than him! What was I thinking?

You may be five years older, but you're stuck in a fifteen year old's body-might as well enjoy it, Hermione reminded herself.

* * * * *

Ron, dressed in his best robes, walked down to the Gryffindor Common Room, only to be greeted by George, Fred, and Lee. All three took one look at his unsure expression and started practically having kittens over the whole thing.

"So Hermione finally asked you to the dance. Congrats! I knew she would!" stated Jordan.

Ron sank into a chair in confusion. "Am I that transparent?"

"Yeah."

"You're pretty much all the way see-through," remarked George.

"Ah, I wouldn't say that." Fred winced. "Not a pretty mental image. Let's just stick with gullible, shall we?"

"First I was transparent, now I'm gullible. Make up your mind."

Both twins shrugged good-naturedly.

"We could make up our minds," said Fred. "But by the time we did, there would be a large imprint of your butt on the chair you're sitting in," added George.

"Soo," said Lee. "Hermione likes you? Or doesn't she?"

Ron prepped a bit in front of the mirror of the fireplace, running a hand through his hair nervously. "That's just it. I have no clue."

"Well, you did ask her to the dance," said Lee.

"Goyle did the same thing with a blow up doll," muttered Ron.

"So? You're saying you'd rather spend your time making eyes at your figurines of the Chudley Cannon team?" asked George.

"No! I'm just saying..."

"You don't know what you're saying, " put in Fred helpfully.

Ron shook his head. "You'd be befuddled too if a girl whose never shown any interest in you was suddenly asking you to a ball."

"Not if I was wearing boxers and nothing else when she asked, I wouldn't," snorted George.

Ron turned around to give him a glare. "You were spying on me, weren't you?"

"Who? Me? No, of course not."

"All of us were," said Lee Jordan.

"Good strategy with the , by the way. Maybe I ought to use that on Angelina when I ask her," pondered Fred. "Minus the boxers."

George, Ron, and Lee all snickered. "'You'd blind her," pointed out George, forgetting that he and Fred were twins, and therefor, looked exactly the same.

"Tsk...tsk...you and your self pity," said Fred with a fake sigh. "It's really disturbing, George."

"I don't have any boxers, anyway," Fred continued.

"How about long johns?" asked Lee.

George snapped his fingers. "Oh yes, that's it. The flap in the back is a major turn on. And they'll be all nice and form fitting considering they're what? Eight years old?"

Ron chorkled. "They wouldn't so much as fit over your arm, Fred."

Fred, George, and Lee, who were STILL not dressed up yet for the dance, made for the exit of the common room. "If you'll excuse us," said Lee. "We have a dance to get ready for."

"And some girls to snog...ermm...we mean ask," said George.

"Snog first and then ask or ask first and then snog? That is the question," proclaimed Lee as he and the twins opened the door to leave the room.

Fred and George shook their heads. "Reciting Shakespeare," said George. "Badly modified, of course, " added Fred.

Lee smiled proudly. "It brings in the ladies, what can I say?"

"Just don't start reciting poetry," said Ron. "Or the ladies will rapidly run, trust me."

Fred and George pulled Lee out of the room, Lee exclaiming dramatically as he left in a pretend high pitched voice. "Alas! That brother of yours doesn't understand the true art of stating one's emotions eloquently!"

"Neither do we," said Fred. Ron could hear every word the twins and Lee spoke as they made their way to ask their respective interests to the ball.

"But we don't have to," said George, already thinking of Alicia. "We've got girlfriends."

"That depends," said Lee, who was planning to ask Katie. "On if we get there in time to ask them at least thirty minutes before the ball starts. Otherwise, we'll look like we were avoiding the whole thing."

* * * * *

Hermione was rounding the corner to the girl's dormitories when she ran into someone very unexpected. Draco. Hermione was not on good terms with Draco at the moment, to say the least. He seemed to have no plan for either defeating Voldemort, or saving his life, and he certainly had no plans for defeating Salazar Slytherin as well.

"What are YOU doing here?" asked Hermione pointedly, making it clear that Draco was the last person she wanted to run into at the moment.

Draco shrugged. "Aren't people allowed to roam the halls?"

"Right. You were just going for a walk in the halls-in front of the Gryffindor Girl's dormitories, might I add. Unless you can see through walls and wanted to get a peek at everyone in their undies, I don't quite grasp your motive."

"Am I that shallow?"

"Yes. Now why were you pacing in front of the girl's dormitories?"

Malfoy's eyes flashed indignantly. "I was not pacing. I was walking. Walking past as fast as I could to try and avoid a certain bushy haired girl coming around the corner."

Hermione sighed. "You really aren't going to tell me, are you?"

"Covering up Voldemort's tracks with a broom. Want the steps leading the Gryffindor Girl's dormitory to be nice and spic and span, you know."

Hermione gave him a horrified and unamused look. Draco laughed harshly. "Own up. You couldn't be more suspicious of me if I carried stick of dynamite instead of a wand."

"I have every right to be suspicious!" protested Hermione.

"Oh come on, we were both sent back here to defeat Voldemort and Salazar Slytherin and you know it," hissed Draco in a low voice.

"No, I don't. In fact, I think you're highly more likely to be working for them both."

Draco looked at her with a face of no expression. "What would you say if you knew I wasn't a death eater?"

Hermione just gaped at him. "What?"

"We can change the past, can't we?" He gave a tightlipped grin as he glanced at Hermione. "Oh, don't get your hopes up, Granger. I said 'yet'."

And without further ado, Draco Malfoy walked off, his pale blonde hair vanishing with the rest of him into the shadows. Shadows, that Hermione couldn't help thinking as she watched Draco walk off, her mind a tumble of emotions, suited the sort of person he was very well.

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