The Power of Three

Harry Potter had been best friends with Ron Weasley ever since the day that he had stood in the train station all by himself trying to figure out where platform 9 ¾ was, and with Hermione Granger since that same day when she had come into their cabin on the train looking for Neville’s lost pet. They had all been so busy fighting Voldemort in their last few years at Hogwarts that none of them had dated much, and they had avoided jeopardizing their friendship when they were always in so much danger by an unofficial agreement not to date each other until it was all over. They may not have found romance while at Hogwarts, but the friendship between them grew incredibly strong. After getting out of Hogwarts, Ron went into business with his brothers Fred and George selling tricks and treats. He spent most of his time travelling around the continent scouting new locations, setting up new stores, and checking up on the ones already started. After a year Harry and Hermione both returned to teach at Hogwarts. They enjoyed teaching and getting to spend time together without having to worry about saving the world. No one at Hogwarts was surprised when a romance sprang up between them. Headmistress McGonagall seemed particularly delighted with it. Harry and Hermione were happier than they remembered being in a long time.

* * * * *

Hermione stood at the head of her class lecturing about the Devil’s Snare. Her class, the first year Gryffindors and Hufflepuffs sat trying not to sleep. One boy in the front row raised his hand. Hermione sighed and rolled her eyes.

“Yes, Briton?”

“My uncle Severus says that when you were a first year, you saved Ron Weasley and Professor Potter from a Devil’s Snare plant while you were all trying to keep you-know-who from returning.”

Hermione closed her eyes for a minute and sighed.

“Yes, Briton, I did.”

A little girl raised her hand.

“What is it, Clara?”

“How did you save them?”

“By paying attention in Herbology!”

“What?”

“It’s easy,” said a voice from the doorway. Hermione whirled around to find Harry standing just inside the room. “She knew how to make the plant let go of us so that it didn’t strangle us.”

“Harry, don’t you have a class to teach?”

“Nope. And it’s about time for your class to go too.” Hermione looked up at the clock and saw that it read ‘time for lunch.’

“Alright. I’ll see you all tomorrow! Read the next chapter in your books for tomorrow. It’s on the magical properties of plants for potions.” She said as her class gathered up their books and filled out. The little girl whose question Harry had answered was the last to leave. She stared at Harry dreamily as she walked past him out of the room. Harry sighed and rolled his eyes. Hermione laughed.

“You seem to have a new admirer, Harry!”

“I know. She spends her entire Defence against the Dark Arts lesson staring at me. It’s irritating. It seems like there is at least one girl like that in every class! At least there are fewer of them than there were last year. Maybe after a decade or two there won’t be any. Then I will know that it’s safe to walk down Diagon Alley again without being stared at and worse.”

“I know the feeling. I’ve got a couple of students like that myself. I never thought that anyone would be star-struck over me!”

“How do you know that they don’t stare at you because you are the most gorgeous creature on the planet?”

“Harry Potter! You know very well that’s not true!” said Hermione, blushing from her neck to her forehead.

“Of course it’s true! I can’t believe that you don’t know that!”

Hermione laughed.

“Oh Harry! What would I ever do without you?”

“Probably not much on Friday nights!” They both laughed. He leaned down and pressed his lips to hers. She wrapped her arms around his neck and entwined her fingers in his hair. His arms reached around her waist and pulled her closer to him. After a minute of serious snogging, Harry broke away and smiled at her.

“I almost forgot why I came!”

“What?” asked Hermione with a mock hurt look on her face. “It wasn’t just because you wanted to snog me?”

“I always want to snog you, but I have something that just came by owl post for both of us.” He waved an envelope in front of her face.

“Why didn’t it come this morning when the regular post came?”

“It was a very familiar brown speckled owl who tends to sleep late.”

“Oh! Let’s open it!”

Harry opened the envelope and pulled out a letter. He read it out loud.


Dear Harry and Hermione,

I miss you both. I can’t wait to get back to England. The continent is always interesting, but sometimes I really miss you and my family. Travelling so much alone is really lonely, especially when you’re used to a house full of Weasleys! I do love my job though. It’s fun to watch kids who’ve never tasted candy like ours or imagined the kinds of things Fred and George come up it to cause mischief walk through one of our stores for the first time! Still, I sometimes envy the two of you for getting to stay at Hogwarts, even though we all stopped being students there two and a half years ago. It must be fun! I would make a lousy teacher though. Anyhow, I wrote to tell you that I should be back in England on the twelfth of November. I’ll come up to Hogsmeade the next weekend and see you. I will be in England until January. We have to spend some time together during the Christmas holiday.

Your friend,
Ron Weasley


“Oh good!” exclaimed Hermione. “We haven’t seen Ron in ages!”

“I know, he’s been busy on the continent for months.”

“I miss seeing him! The three of us used to spend so much time with each other, especially over our seventh year when we were fighting Voldemort.”

“We can finally tell him about us, beautiful,” said Harry as he took Hermione’s hands.

“Oh, that’s right! He hasn’t been back yet since…”

“Since we admitted how crazy we are about each other?”

“Something like that!” agreed Hermione, laughingly. Harry laughed too.

“So, beautiful, shall we go have something to eat? McGonagall wants us to join her in her office.”

“Alright. I wonder why she wants to see us?”

“She didn’t say, but we shouldn’t keep her waiting.”

They walked through the corridors together smiling as they passed groups of students. The girls giggled as they pass and the boys smirked. Hermione smiled as they passed two first year boys being lectured by a first year girl for not doing their homework. The girl looked so serious and it reminded her so much of Ron, Harry and herself. The girl looked up at Hermione as if to say ‘they are hopeless!’ Hermione stopped, bringing Harry to a halt as well. Harry smiled as well at the tableau before them.

“June,” said Hermione conspiratorially to the young girl, “take it from someone’s who’s been in your position before. Many times before.” She shot Harry a playfully accusing look. “It’s going to take and awful lot more than just a lecture or two (or fifty) to change them. Right, Harry?”

“Yeah. You might have to save their lives a few times first!”

“Just don’t ever give up on them. Eventually they’ll get it. And you will probably make two good friends in the process.”

“I won’t give up, Professor Granger!” exclaimed the girl.

“Good girl!”

“Good luck!” Harry counselled the boys in a loud whisper. “It might be easier if you just gave up peacefully!” They looked mournfully at him and each other as Harry and Hermione said goodbye and continued on their way to Professor McGonagall’s office.

Once they reached her office and were invited inside, Harry and Hermione greeted the headmistress. She gave them each a cup of warm herbal tea.

“So,” Harry inquired, “why did you ask us to come?”

“Well,” Professor McGonagall said carefully, “I would like to be able to say that it was purely for the pleasure of your company, but it’s actually to ask for your advice on something.”

Harry and Hermione looked at each other in confusion.

“We’ll give you whatever advice we can, but I’m not sure why you need our help!”

“I’m sure you can help me,” assured the headmistress. “You both underestimate yourselves too much! You are two of the most powerful people in the wizarding world! You just don’t realize how amazing you both really are! I will always sort of envy the amount of power the two of you and Ron Weasley have.” They sat across from her blushing and staring into their teacups. “It seems that we need to at least ask for your advice as we face potential danger again.”

“Danger?” Harry asked anxiously. “What sort of danger? We killed Voldemort three years ago!”

“It seems that the Death Eaters are regrouping.”

“What?” exclaimed Hermione. “How can they? All of the ring-leaders are in Azkaban!”

“Yes,” agreed Harry, “we made doubly sure of that!”

“I know, but they seem to have chosen new leaders.”

“They don’t have the rings any more, though,” Hermione said in as logical a tone of voice as possible. “Those rings were a major part of their power. If they don’t have that power, it will take them a while to build up to being a threat again.”

“That’s part of what we were worried about. We know that they don’t have the twelve rings. Do either of you know what kind of power the rings hold? It seems that no one knows and the knowledge could be helpful.”

Harry and Hermione looked at each other, neither of them sure what to do.

“You two know something,” accused Professor McGonagall. “Why are you hiding things from me?”

“Professor McGonagall,” said Harry uneasily as Hermione absently ran her fingers over the rim of her teacup, “we have to talk to Ron before we can tell you any more. We can say that they are probably not a major threat right now.” He stopped as though he was thinking.

*Harry, what is it?* Harry heard Hermione’s question in his head. *You’ve thought of something.*

*Yes, I have. We need to talk to Sirius right away.*

*We have to talk to him about the rings right away anyway. We have to make sure that they don’t have access to the power of the rings even when they are locked away. Why else do we need to see him?*

*Because my guess is that he has more information about this than McGonagall. Fred and George must know about it, and they have probably given the information to Sirius already. Maybe he can help us figure out what to tell her and what to do about it.*

*That’s not a bad idea. Ron will be here in a week. Should we wait for him before discussing it with Sirius?*

*No, I think that our best bet would be to speak with Sirius as soon as possible and then bring Ron in on it as soon as he gets back.*

*This could be a bigger threat than Professor McGonagall realizes. Death Eaters are dangerous, even without the rings. They must be planning something. I didn’t expect them to begin regrouping so soon.*

*Neither did I. We have to respond quickly.*

*Yes, we do. We will have to contact Sirius as soon as we leave here. What should we tell McGonagall now?*

*Not much.*

*Are you sure? They might be a danger to the school.*

*If they had regrouped enough to be a danger to the school, then we would know about it already. It sounds like she just found out about it, so I think that we would be safer just warning her to be careful for now. She can protect the school enough for now. We can tell her more after we figure out more about this.*

*Alright.*

"Professor McGonagall,” Harry said aloud, “we need some time to look into this, consider what threat it may pose and figure out what exactly should be done about it. Until then, we want to warn you not to underestimate the Death Eaters. Even without the rings and the ring leaders, they could be extremely dangerous.”

“You were discussing this telepathically, weren’t you?” inquired McGonagall curiously.

“Yes, we were,” Hermione affirmed.

“How interesting! I didn’t know that you were telepathic!”

“Yes, well…” Harry stammered. “I think that Hermione and I should go away from Hogwarts for a few days to work on this problem.”

“Of course. I will arrange for someone to cover your classes while you are gone. Leave instructions for what you want them to do. Report back to me when you return so that your substitutes may be notified.”

“Thank you, Professor McGonagall. We should be back within two or three days. Now, I think that we should go right away.”

“Of course. Do you need anything from me?”

“No. We’ll let you know if we do. Good afternoon, Professor.” Harry and Hermione stood up together. They left quietly, leaving Professor McGonagall sure that they hadn’t told her anything that they should have. She wondered what exactly they were keeping from her and why they had to keep it from her.