The Power of Three

Chapter Three

Harry paced back and forth across the floor of the library. He ran his fingers absently through his hair again and sighed.

“Harry,” Sirius said as he walked into the room, “either talk about it or don’t, but either way, please sit down. You are going to wear a trench in the floor.”

“I’m sorry, Sirius,” Harry replied.

“Do you know where Hermione is?”

“She went to the library at Hogwarts. Where else would she go? As long as I’ve known her, the library was always where she went there was a problem.”

“Harry, what is bothering you?”

“I just… I had a nightmare last night that really shook me up.”

“Do you want to tell me about it?”

“When is everyone else going to be here?”

“Later. Harry, are you going to tell me about it or not?”

“Tell you about what?” asked Ron as he walked into the room. “Sorry I just apparated in and overheard you. This is one hell of a house, Harry.”

“Thank you. And it’s alright. I had a nightmare last night.”

“I thought those stopped after Voldemort died.”

“They did. This was almost more vivid. It wasn’t like any dream I’ve ever had before, even those dreams during sixth and seventh years, it was so real.”

“But it was only a dream, right?”

“I think so. It’s really got me shaken up though. I wish that Hermione would get back already.”

“Where is she?”

“The library, of course.”

“Don’t worry so much, she’ll be here soon. I’ll be back as soon as I find the toilet.”

“Down the hall on the right.”

“Thanks.”

Ron left the room and walked down the hallway. He shut the door to the washroom and conjured a bit of paper and a quill and began scribbling a note. When he was finished he folded the paper and magically sealed it closed. A few minutes later he walked back into the library where Harry was still pacing with Sirius looking on.

“Harry, I forgot to send a note off before I left this morning. I wrote it, but forgot to send it since Pig was out playing with Marie.”

“I take it Percy and Anne are visiting.”

“Yes, and both are as annoying as ever!”

“Hedwig should be around here somewhere.” Harry whistled. A few seconds later, the snowy white owl flew into the room.

“Thanks, Harry.”

“No problem.”

Ron gave Hedwig the note, silently gave the owl instructions, and let her fly out the window. Then he sat down and waited.

~

Hermione sat at one of the tables in the Hogwart’s library pouring over a book. Several large volumes were scattered across the table, some open and some not. Next to her, a quill scribbled across an open scroll. She brushed a stray lock of hair out of her face as she worked. She quickly turned the page and kept reading. Suddenly a sealed note fell onto the open book. Hermione looked up to see Hedwig. Her forehead wrinkled in worry. Harry knew where she was and that she would be back before the meeting. What could he possibly be sending her? She opened the note and was surprised to find it was written in Ron’s messy scrawl instead of Harry’s. She quickly read it.

Hermione,

Did you know that Harry had a nightmare last night? He’s awfully shaken up by it. It didn’t seem like he’d told anyone about it, and since you weren’t here I thought I should make sure you knew about it. I haven’t seen him like this since Voldemort died. I’m worried about him. He seems really shaken up. Even Sirius seems worried about him, and you know how much it takes to make Sirius really worry. I don’t want to draw you away from important research or anything, but I’d recommend hurrying back as soon as you get the chance.

Ron

Hermione slipped the note into the pocket of her robes. She sent all but two of the books back to the shelf with a gesture and a word. Then she gathered up the two remaining books and her scroll and quill and hurried out of the library. As she rushed down a flight of stairs, she heard someone call her name.

“Hermione!”

She whirled around to find Severus Snape staring at her as he walked down the stairs after her.

“Yes, Severus?”

“Are you alright?”

“I’m fine. Why do you ask?”

“You and Harry have both seemed so preoccupied the last several days, and now you look positively scared.”

“It’s nothing you need to worry about.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes. If anything happens that you need to know about, I’ll tell you.”

“Alright. I’ll talk to you later then.”

“Goodbye, Severus,” Hermione said as she turned and continued on her way. She left the building and practically ran to Hogsmeade. As soon as she reached the edge of town, she apparated to Harry’s house. Once there, she hurried to the living room. No one was there, so she tried the library. She walked in to find Harry pacing back and forth and Ron and Sirius sitting and watching him uneasily.

*Thanks for coming so quickly,* Ron sent to Hermione. *Don’t tell Harry that I sent for you.*

*I won’t,* she replied. *Thanks for letting me know.*

*No problem.*

“Harry,” Hermione said gently, “are you alright? You seem upset about something.”

Harry stopped walking and looked at Hermione. He ran his fingers through his hair again.

“I have a nightmare last night. It was sort of like the ones that I used to have when Voldemort was trying to kill me.”

“Was it the same nightmare?”

“Not exactly. It was similar. I was tied to a statue in a dark graveyard, but instead of Voldemort himself, I was just surrounded by Death Eaters. I saw them killing people that I know. Both you and Ron were tied to monuments as well so that we formed a triangle around the Death Eaters and their victims. Somehow they were using our power in their ritual. They killed several people before our power started to run out. Then they put a spell on you and Ron that made it impossible for you to breathe. I screamed as I watched you die. They pulled you into the circle and dropped you at my feet. I was powerless to help you. I woke up screaming. It was so vivid. It didn’t feel like a dream at all, it felt like it was really happening.”

Hermione and Ron looked at Harry and then at each other.

“Wow,” Ron finally said.

“I’m sorry Harry,” Hermione said softly. Harry walked over to her and wrapped his arms around her waist, burying his face in her hair.

“Hermione,” Sirius said gently after a few minutes, “did you find anything useful at the library?”

“Oh,” she exclaimed, pulling away from Harry. “I found some interesting information.” She walked over to one of the tables and set down the two books she had been carrying. She unrolled her scroll until she found the place that she wanted. “I wanted to find out about Lucius’ suicide. I found out that it is virtually impossible for someone to commit suicide in Azkaban.”

Sirius nodded as she spoke.

“There have been two people who have killed themselves while prisoners in Azkaban before. The first one was two hundred years ago. I couldn’t find much information on him, but I did find several accounts that say that after his death he was found innocent of the crime he had been imprisoned for. The second occurrence was only seventy years ago. It was a woman named Mary Johnson and she was put in Azkaban for using AK on her two young children. She was there for seven years. Then she managed to kill herself. On the day that she died, her husband found a man about to kill the oldest and only remaining child. Less than a month later, Mary was found to have been innocent.”

“If the only people to ever manage it were innocent, how did Lucius manage it?” Ron asked. “I mean, we know very well that he was guilty!”

“I wondered about that too, so I kept looking. I found out that there are about a dozen instances of prisoners being murdered in Azkaban. It seems that it is a much easier thing to kill someone else than to kill oneself while there. So it seems to me that it is far more likely that someone murdered Lucius Malfoy, probably at his request, than that he killed himself. It changes the power of the action a little bit.”

“I think that we would be able to find out more,” Harry said, “if we had more information. I’ll owl the ministry for more details.”

“Perhaps there’s no power behind Lucius’ act at all,” Ron suggested. “I mean, it wasn’t a righteous act, so it might mean nothing.”

A bell sounded, startling them all a little. Harry strode out of the library, his shoes clicking on the hard wood floor in the hallway. As soon as he had left, Ron turned to Hermione.

“Am I just being ridiculous,” he inquired, “or does he not seem any less upset?”

“It’s not just your imagination,” Hermione responded. “Something is definitely eating at him. I just wish that I had some idea of what it was. I wouldn’t think that just that dream would bother him as much as it seems to be.”

Harry reappeared, followed closely by Fred and George Weasley. Fred immediately knelt on one knee before Hermione.

“Fair lady,” he said grandly, “your beauty grows with each passing day. I am delighted to be in your illuminating presence again.” He reached into the pocket of his robe and pulled out a wrapped chocolate. “Please accept this sweet as a token of my eternal admiration for you.”

Hermione looked at the proffered chocolate dubiously.

“It’s not going to do anything horrible like blow up or make me grow horns or anything, is it?” she asked.

“Of course not,” George said in a mock-hurt tone of voice. “Besides, Harry would personally feed us to Fluffy in tiny little pieces if we did anything horrible to you.”

Hermione looked from one twin to the other for a moment suspiciously before finally reaching for the chocolate. She carefully unwrapped and examined the candy. Finding nothing apparently wrong with it, she shrugged and popped it into her mouth. After waiting a moment and not finding anything unusual happening to her, they all resumed their conversation.

“How is business going?” Sirius asked the twins.

“Wonderfully,” Fred said as he stood up. “Our shops are all doing extremely well and George and I have been having a bunch of great ideas lately.”

“And how are Angelina and Katie?” Hermione asked.

“Both are doing well,” George said. “In fact, we have some news!”

“Yes!” Fred chimed in. “We’re getting married!”

“Married?” Ron choked out.

“You and Angelina are getting married?” Hermione asked excitedly.

“Not only them,” George said with a wide grin on his face. “Katie and I are getting married too!”

Ron’s jaw dropped.

“Congratulations to both of you,” Sirius said happily to the two beaming twins. Hermione gave each on a warm hug as she murmured her congratulations as well. Before Harry could add his voice to the well-wishers, the bell chimed again and he went out to get the door.

Within the hour, almost everyone who was supposed to be there had arrived. Only one person was missing. They all sat down around the pushed together tables in the library. Harry took a seat at the head of the table with Hermione on his left and Ron on his right. Everyone else took a place around the rest of the table. They all looked expectantly at Harry.

“About a week ago, Minerva McGonagall informed Hermione and I that the Death Eaters were beginning to regroup. We went to Sirius to see if he had any more information, which he didn’t at the time, and he said that he would find out if Fred and George had anything for us. Then we went back to Hogwarts until yesterday. On Wednesday I received word from the Ministry saying that Lucius Malfoy had apparently killed himself in Azkaban, leaving a note saying that he was dying in order to further his desire to see me destroyed. Yesterday, Ron got back from the continent and he, Hermione and I went and made sure that the rings were still locked away in Gringott’s, which they were. So today, we have called a meeting of the Council in order to decide what should be done about it. I think…”

Harry was interrupted by the bell chiming again. He scowled and scribbled a quick note on a scrap of paper, which he then promptly made disappear.

“We can continue in a moment,” Harry said.

A few minutes later a tiny green light floated into the room, followed closely by Draco Malfoy. He was a mess. His blond hair stuck out every which way and he looked like he had gotten dressed too quickly in the dark because his robes were a mess. What made everyone smile and laugh, however, was the strawberry pink lipstick that covered his face.

“Did we tear you away from something, Draco?” Remus Lupin asked.

“Yeah, something tall and thin with blue eyes and flame red hair maybe?” chimed in Sirius.

“Or maybe you were just attacked by a travelling make-up salesmen!” Fred suggested laughingly.

“Draco,” Hermione said, “come sit down.”

“But Hermione,” Ron said playfully, “maybe he would rather go back to Ginny’s instead!”

“Maybe he just couldn’t get a turn in the bathroom to clean up,” George suggested. That made all three of the Weasleys laugh even harder.

“Waiting for the bathroom forever,” Ron exclaimed, “is one thing that I do not miss about living with Ginny!”

Draco was blushing almost as pink a colour as the lipstick on his face. Hermione waved her hand and made a small silver hand mirror appear in his hand. He looked at himself and blushed even more. She made the mirror disappear again as he fished through the pockets of his robes.

“I don’t seem to have my wand,” Draco said somewhat sheepishly. “I don’t suppose that any of you could…”

Hermione murmured something and waved her hand and suddenly the lipstick was gone and Draco’s hair and robes were neat. He hurriedly sat in the seat next to her.

“Now that we are all here,” Harry said with a smirk, why don’t Fred and George tell us what they’ve found out?”

“Hermione,” Claudette Perrott, a young woman who sat near Ron, exclaimed suddenly, “how did you ever do that with your hair? I’ve never seen anything like it!”

“What?” Hermione asked as she made the small mirror reappear before her. She held up the mirror to see what Claudette was talking about.

Harry stared at Hermione. He could have been knocked over with a feather.

“Hermione,” Ron said in awe, “you look like a fairy princess!”

Hermione finally managed to catch a glimpse in her mirror of what they were talking about. Small blossoms and soft flower petals were falling gently from her hair. The affect was strikingly beautiful.

“It worked!” Fred exclaimed excitedly.

“Perfectly!” George agreed.

“How did you do it?” Hermione asked them, not taking her eyes off of her mirror.

“It was the chocolate,” Fred said with a smile on his face.

“We charmed it,” George continued. “It was intended as a gift to you for all the help you’ve given us in the past. We’ve got a whole box of them for you. We’ll send it over to you this week.”

“They are made just for you,” Fred added. “We aren’t making any for anyone else.”

“Thank you so much!” Hermione exclaimed. She got up from her seat and went to give each of the twins warm hugs. When she got back to the head of the table, Harry was standing up. He pulled her into his arms and kissed her deeply.

“You are amazing,” he whispered into her ear.

Hermione smiled and kissed him again. He held her chair for her as she sat down and then took his own seat.

“Alright,” George said, “Fred and I had noticed increasing Death Eater activity, but by the time Professor McGonagall told Harry and Hermione about it we didn’t have enough information on what they were doing to be particularly worried about it. We were keeping a very close eye on them. Thanks to Claudette’s list of people, we were able to keep tabs on them even when they were doing normal everyday things. We both had to laugh because we were just talking about sending owls to Sirius and Harry telling them what little we knew when we received Sirius’ owl.”

“Starting about Wednesday,” Fred continued, “the Death Eaters began sending more owls back and forth and meeting in small groups. Thursday was a flourish of activity culminating in a large meeting in secret that night. At the meeting they discussed Lucius Malfoy’s death and its consequences. They announced that Lucius’ last wish was that Harry be killed. They recognized that killing Harry would be no easy task and they cut off the meeting so that everyone could go brainstorm ideas on how to do it. We’re keeping tabs on all of the known Death Eaters right now so that we will know about any ideas they come up with as soon as they come up with them.”

“Have they come up with anything that could be a real threat yet?” Hermione asked.

“Not really,” George answered. “Their ideas are all pretty ridiculous.”

“Here,” Fred said as he passed a scroll to the head of the table. “We brought you a list of all of the ideas…”

“And who thought them up…”

“And when…”

“Up until…”

“This morning.”

“Forge and Gred,” Ron said, “please don’t do that. I already have a headache!”

“Sorry Ron,” George said apologetically.

Harry looked over the list, but found very little to worry about. He looked up and found everyone looking at him expectantly.

“Alright,” he said to the group, “why doesn’t everyone think about what our course of action should be and in the mean time, why don’t we see how everyone is doing on their projects?”

*Harry,* Hermione asked silently, *why are we not discussing this?*

*Because I need a few minutes to think,* he replied, *and this was the only way that I could think of to do that without everyone staring at me.*

*Alright, I’ll buy that, but it’s a pretty flimsy reason.*

*I’ll try to do better next time.*

*Promise?*

*Promise.*

They started with Claudette. She was a young witch, only two years older than Harry, Hermione and Ron. She was particularly useful for gathering information because she could walk into a tavern and sit with, or without, anyone she wanted. She could easily lace drinks with Veritaserum and find out anything that she wanted to know. She was quick as a whip and had a photographic memory. Now she placed a scroll on the table before her and began talking to the group.

“I have been gathering information on the Death Eaters. Last week I assumed that all of my information came from the Death Eaters during the rise and fall of You-Know-Who, but this week I started to hear about new Death Eater meetings and activities. I started working really hard to compile a list of whom the Death Eaters are. I got really lucky yesterday. A man came into the shop to buy new robes and I was helping him. He said enough for me to know that he had information, and considering that I had never seen him before or heard his name, I figured that it might very well be new information. I got him to take me to the Leaky Cauldron for a drink. I slipped Veritaserum into his drink and started asking questions. I found out a bunch of new names and then he started telling me about how he was the leader’s right hand man. I tried to get him to tell me more about the leader, but he had apparently never seen the leader’s face or been told his name. He said that they met in a different place every time and that they have decided that before they can continue working towards You-Know-Who’s goals they must kill Harry, and that they would like to kill Ron and Hermione as well, but Harry was the first priority. They know that the three of you have an enormous amount of power, and that Harry has the most, but they can’t figure out where that power could have come from. They also know that the three of you have more power together than the combined total when you are apart, but again, they don’t know why. They haven’t formed a coherent plan yet. That was more information than I ever got from anyone else. Here’s the list of people that I have either talked to or been told about whom are Death Eaters. I am going to keep talking to people, and I have another date with the man I told you about later this week.”

Claudette passed a scroll of parchment down to the head of the table. As Harry, Ron and Hermione glanced at the list of people, Remus Lupin started speaking.

“I haven’t had as exciting a time as that,” he began, “but then, I would be surprised if I had. I’ve been maintaining and building the Council library. We now have all of the reasonably easily found volumes that are likely to prove useful. I have been painstakingly locating older and more rare books that are more difficult to find. I have consulted with Harry and Sirius and we have decided to make this house, which Harry recently purchased, our new headquarters since we can no longer meet at Nicholas Flamel’s. We also have the benefit of using this wonderful library. Once Hogwarts’ Christmas holiday starts I will transport the books here and we will set up the library. This will give us more resources to draw from in the future.”

“We really appreciate you working on this, Remus,” Hermione said. “The library will be so useful to have!”

“You have to encourage her, don’t you?” Ron said exasperatedly. “Now she has two libraries to disappear to!”

They all laughed at that and Hermione blushed.

“I guess that I can go next,” Fred said. “As you all know, George and I are working on becoming better at deception.”

“I’m sure,” Ron broke in, “that Mom would say that you couldn’t get any better at it!”

“And if you did,” Harry added jokingly, “she would give up and become as crazy as a Coocoo bird!”

Everyone laughed.

“She will never give up on us,” George assured them laughingly.

“Please continue, Fred,” Hermione said as the laughter began to die down.

“Alright,” Fred agreed. “Well, I’ve been working on building our spy network. I would like to keep it as small as possible in order to try and avoid the possibility of infiltration as much as possible. The longer we can go without them knowing about how our intelligence operation works, the better. I hired six spies. Five of them are keeping track of and finding out about two divisions of Death Eaters each and the sixth keeps track of just the division in Sweden and Norway. I’ve been keeping track of the division here in Britain myself. It has been working quite well. I receive owls from each of them every three days, and more when there is any abnormal activity or news that we need to be aware of. Ron checks up on them as he travels around the continent as well. So for the network is working quite well.”

“Do you trust your spies?” Harry inquired seriously.

“Not as much as I would like, but they don’t get much information and I’m working to improve the trust between us, so I’m not worried about it at the moment.”

Harry nodded.

“I guess that means that is my turn,” George said. “Well, I’ve come up with a number of different tools for spying and many ways to disguise them in order to make information gathering easier for Fred and his network. It’s working marvellously.”

“Except that you still can’t figure out what happened to my broom!” Fred exclaimed crossly.

“That was not my fault! You weren’t supposed to be back from lunch yet! It’s not my fault that you walked in when you did! You distracted me!”

“Wait,” Ron said, “what happened?”

“I was testing out a new charm to disguise objects on a quill,” George explained, “when Fred came in carrying his broom and my focus shifted accidentally at just the wrong moment and I cast the charm on his broom instead. The charm wasn’t working quite right yet and his broom vanished. I haven’t been able to figure out where it went yet, or why the charm doesn’t work.”

“And now some muggle kid in India probably has my broom!” Fred said, crossing his arms over his chest.

Sirius started laughing and was shortly joined by everyone else.

“Can you show me the charm?” Hermione asked George.

“Of course,” he replied, pulling his wand and a quill out of his pocket. He set the quill on the table and cast his charm on it. It promptly vanished and Hermione started laughing.

“When did the broom disappear?”

“Eight days ago.”

“Then you will find it six days from now right where you lost it! You sent it ahead in time two weeks!”

George looked stunned. Everyone laughed. When the laughter finally died down, Sirius began talking.

“I’ve been working on a counter-curse for Imperius, but I don’t really have anything to report. It so far breaks Imperius on the spiders I’ve been testing it on, but it also kills them. I’ll let you all know once I get it right.”

“On a similar note,” Hermione piped up, “I have been working on the counter for the AK curse. It’s not quite working yet either.”

“I’ve been working with various types of magical creatures,” explained Christina O’Linskey, a middle-aged women who was the head of the Ministry Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures. “I’m trying to get them to agree to ally themselves on our side. The most difficult so far have been the centaurs and the elves. The centaurs want to stay neutral and make talking to them difficult because they just keep telling me about Venus being bright or Jupiter being hidden. I’m still working on them. The elves are not much easier. One has to talk to them without scaring them, which is no easy trick (believe me). They want to be on our side, but they are afraid of that Death Eaters and their followers will hurt them. Again, I’m working on it. On the plus side, most of the dragons have agreed to work with us.”

“Good,” Harry said. “We really appreciate the work that you are doing. If it comes to outright battles again these alliances will prove extremely important. I suppose that it’s about my turn. I’m working on strategies and planning. I’ve decided to rework some of my ideas to adapt them to what is happening now. I’ll let you know about it when the time is right.”

“Who’s next?” Hermione asked.

“I’ll talk,” said Draco. “I’ve been working on various potions. It’s going well. I’m not going to go into all of them at the moment, but they are all coming along fine. I got some advice from Severus Snape and Nicholas Flamel, so I am now ahead of schedule.”

“Good,” said Ron after a moment of silence. “I guess that just leaves me. I don’t have much to report. I’ve been working with my brothers on the information network. It’s coming along really well. I’ve also been working on strategies with Harry and Hermione. I guess that’s about it.”

*Harry,* Hermione sent, *do you have any ideas yet?*

*Maybe,* he replied. *I think that we need to set up a confrontation with them so that it is on our terms, I’m just not quite sure yet how exactly to go about doing that.*

*Bring it up now. Perhaps someone in the group has an idea.*

“I think,” Harry said aloud, “that we should do some brainstorming now on some ideas. How are we going to deal with this Death Eater situation? I think that our best bet would be to set up a confrontation with them so that it’s on our terms. So I guess that we need to figure out how to do that.”

“I think Harry’s right,” Ron said thoughtfully. “If we arrange things on our terms then we can keep some surprises. The more secrets that we have up our sleeve, the better.”

“Then we need to set up a situation where we know that they will show up,” Lupin stated. “We know that they want Harry, so we need a situation where he is very visible as bait.”

“My guess,” Sirius said, “is that they are less likely to show up if they know that they will have to contest with all three of you together. Somehow we need to make them think that one of you won’t be there.”

“I can easily come up with a reason to run off to the continent,” Ron suggested. “As long as they buy it, that should work.”

“We can send someone else in your place,” Hermione said. “We can make them appear to be you with a Polyjuice Potion and then send them away. We can also disguise you so that they don’t catch on.”

“Alright,” Harry said calmly. “We’ve figured out how to make us appear weaker, but what is the scenario going to be? And how do we make sure that they know about it?”

“A party!” Hermione exclaimed. “We need to throw a party or a ball or something! That way it will be well known, particularly if Harry is the host!”

“We can make it a Christmas party,” Christina suggested. “That will ensure that they won’t seem the least bit suspicious.

“I think that we should leave the party planning up to Hermione,” Claudette suggested. “Any of us will help with anything, but she should organize it.”

“I can do that,” Hermione agreed. “We can hold another meeting as the time draws nearer to finalize everything.”

“Great,” Harry said. “Is there any other business or anything we need to discuss?”

No one had anything else, so they decided to adjourn. Everyone started apparating out. Hermione walked over to Ron.

“Ron, Harry and I are going to stay here for tonight and were wondering if you would like to stay around here for a while. We could have some dinner and get caught up.”

“Um, sure,” he agreed.

“Great!”

Once everyone had left, Harry, Ron and Hermione went to the kitchen for some supper. As they cooked they talked over what they had all been up to for the past several months and such. The conversation continued through the meal and then they sat by the fireplace in one of the sitting rooms and talked late into the night. It got so late that Harry invited Ron to use one of the extra bedrooms for the night. Finally they retired to bed, setting Ron up in the room across the hall from Harry and Hermione’s.

~

Several hours later Harry was suddenly awakened by Hermione screaming. He fumbled for his wand as she started sobbing.

“Mione,” Harry asked alarmed, “what’s wrong?”

She didn’t answer him.

“Lumos,” Harry said. The room filled with light. Hermione was sitting up with her head buried in her hands sobbing. Suddenly there was a pounding on the door.

“Harry,” Ron called from the hallway, “what’s wrong?”

“Hermione, what’s wrong?” Harry asked again, and again she made no response. “Can Ron come in?” Still nothing. Harry was really worried. He’d never seen Hermione like this before. He wondered what could have possibly upset her so much.

“Harry?” Ron shouted, still pounding on the door.

“Come on in, Ron,” Harry called, never taking his eyes off Hermione. As Ron opened the door, Harry reached out a hand and touched Hermione’s shoulder. It was as if his touch burned her, she shrank away so sharply. Harry stared at her in shock. She had never shrunk from his touch before, even when she hadn’t been speaking to him after a fight when they were students, she hadn’t pulled away from him like that.

“Harry, what happened?” Ron asked quietly.

“I don’t know,” he answered truthfully. “She just woke up screaming, as far as I can tell. And she just flinched and jerked away at my touch.”

Ron walked around to Hermione’s side of the bed and sat on the edge of it, being careful not to touch her. She didn’t even seem to notice him.

*Hermione,* he sent gently, *what happened?*

Hermione sobbed even harder and brought her knees up to her chest. Harry looked at her helplessly, close to tears himself.

*Oh Ron!* Hermione cried in Ron’s head. *I had the most horrible nightmare! It was so real!*

*Do you want to tell us about it, or show it to us?*

*I’ll show it to you, but I’m not sure if telling Harry about it is such a good idea.*

*Alright, but what are you going to tell Harry?*

*I suppose that I have to tell him something.*

*Look at him. Don’t you think that he deserves the truth?*

*I know, but he’ll overreact!*

*Just keep reminding him to keep things in perspective, after all, it was just a dream.*

*We both know that won’t work, dreams can be manipulated as easily as memories!*

*Try telling him. He’ll know if you lie to him and he’ll be hurt if you tell him nothing.*

Hermione took a deep breath, brushed the tears out of her eyes and looked at Harry. He was watching her with a worried expression and undisguised tears in his eyes.

*Harry,* Hermione sent to him, *I’m going to show you and Ron my nightmare, but you must promise not to overreact. Remember, it is just a dream.*

*I promise,* Harry replied.

Hermione took another deep breath before closing her eyes and sending out her thoughts to Harry and Ron.

* * * * *

Harry and Ron found themselves in a dark room. The walls were made of stone and the only light came from outside of the tiny window in the closed door. There were no windows to the outside. A crumpled form lay on the floor in the torn remains of blue robes. Her long brown hair flowed onto the floor around her, but her face was hidden from them. I didn’t matter, Harry would have known her anywhere. The only piece of furniture in the room was a small, wooden bed in the corner with dirty sheets on it.

Suddenly the door burst open and a man in Death Eater robes walked in. He pushed back his hood and Harry and Ron gasped. It was no ordinary Death Eater. It was Salazar Slytherin.

“Good evening, Princess,” he said in his silky-smooth voice.

Hermione raised her head from the floor and stared at him. Her face was tear-streaked and her eyes flashed with fire.

“I am not your princess!”

Salazar smiled.

“Of course you are! My heir brought me back and you were returned to me to be my princess. You resisted me then and you resist me now, but in the end you will be mine, Rowena.”

“I am not Rowena! If I were her, don’t you think that I would have been sorted into her house?”

“I would have predicted it, but the sorting hat isn’t infallible.”

“I am not your princess! And it doesn’t sound like Rowena Ravenclaw was either!”

“I WILL make you my princess!” He pointed his wand at the bed. Hermione was suddenly lying on her back on it. “I’ll do to you now what I was never able to do then!”

He crossed the room to the bed.

“I am not your princess, and I am certainly not going to be your sex slave!” Salazar slapped her hard across the face. Hermione struggled to get up but found that she was magically bound to the bed.

“You’ll stay right there, Princess, until I’m ready to let you move.”

Then Salazar proceeded to rape Hermione. Ron had to hold Harry back.

“You can’t help her,” he reminded Harry.

When he had finished Salazar leaned down to Hermione’s ear.

“Now you are mine for always,” he said with a sneer. “And your precious Godric, or whatever he’s called now, can’t save you!”

And he laughed. It was a cold, bone-chilling sound.

* * * * *

“And that’s when I woke up,” Hermione said softly, hugging her knees tightly.

Ron and Harry opened their eyes and stared at her. Harry had tears running down his cheek. Hermione couldn’t look at them, so she looked out the window at the night sky instead.

“That dream felt so real,” she whispered. “I almost feel bruised where he touched me.”

“Hermione,” Harry said quietly, “you probably are.”

“What?” she asked sharply, turning to look at him.

He held out his hand and her silver hand mirror floated across the room to him. He offered it to her. She accepted it with a confused expression. Hermione held the mirror up and looked into it. The colour drained out of her face.

Except for the angry red finger marks that streaked across her left cheek.