Chapter Fifty Seven
Original Author Notes -
A/N: I thought after the fiasco with the screwy formatting knocking the update schedule out of whack for a while, I'd make up for the debacle by posting again a day earlier than the schedule I usually try to keep.
Hermione was in the place that most people would naturally expect her to be, the library. After waking that morning (to Ron's chagrin when he found that Hermione had snuck into their room last night to bunk up with Harry), Ron had cajoled Harry into coming down to the Quidditch pitch after breakfast for a bit of flying. Not that Harry was kicking and screaming the whole way.
Hermione was invited to watch; she was invited to join them, but it was mostly courtesy as Ron and Harry both knew Hermione wasn't about to get on a broom unless it was a matter of necessity, and even then assuming she hadn't thought of a way to circumvent the need. Had Ginny consented to share the stands with her while the boys played, Hermione might have given in. As it was, Ginny planned to spend her morning writing a letter back to Seamus. Rather than sit alone and cold in the pitch stands, Hermione begged off to spend her morning in the library.
She was glad Harry was getting a chance to have some fun. After the Christmas day he'd had, he deserved to blow off some steam and get the cobwebs out of his head. Flying did that nicely for him, and she would not
have dreamed of dissuading Harry from going outside. The winter weather had let up and it was a bright, clear day outside. The kind of day that called to Harry.
It gave Hermione a chance to work ahead in her classes for next term, since Ron would be apt to have an epileptic fit if he saw her working on class material. It was best done out of his sight, and if he was out flying with Harry it gave her a comfortable window of time to do as she pleased, and it pleased her to do homework. She had the library to herself, which was a special treat for someone like Hermione. After a few hours reading ahead in her class textbooks, she got up and wandered the stacks, reading titles and pulling out any books that looked interesting. It seemed Hogwarts had no end of books that Hermione would like to read someday. She decided to take a few back to her room with her.
She confessed to herself that she may have gotten a bit carried away as she looked at the pile of books she ended up with on the table next to her bag that she intended to take back to her dorm room. She regarded the stack critically a moment and briefly considered shrinking them to fit easily in her bag… but Hermione had a strange aversion to tampering with books. She knew, intellectually, that reducing then restoring their size didn't damage the books in any way, but a fixed muggle part of her clung to the heavy, solid mass of a book. Books were a comfort for their heavy store of knowledge, their unyielding form as a source of information. She magicked books when she had to, but given the choice Hermione didn't care for it. Not with books.
She put back a few books she decided she wouldn't have time to get to reading anyway, and the stack that remained she deemed manageable enough for her to carry the old-fashioned muggle way.
With her bag weighted down and her arms full of books, Hermione left the library and started back toward Gryffindor tower. The corridors were even barer of students than yesterday, given the lovely winter weather outside. Hermione would not have been surprised to find out she was the only student still indoors. In any place but Hogwarts, the complete emptiness and sense of solitude in the deserted grand hallways might have been disconcerting, but Hermione didn't think about anything of that nature as she walked at an easy pace back toward her room.
It was hard to imagine a life away from Hogwarts; it had been so fundamental in her world for years that it seemed almost a part of her. She'd become so accustomed to the halls and routines and every corner and custom of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, she could only imagine the mixed exultation and anxiety when it came time to leave the
school behind. She suspected it would be much the same for Harry, though for different reasons. It had been the first place he'd ever felt comfortable calling home in his life. He had really came into his own at Hogwarts; before that he'd only been an unwanted freak tucked away in the cupboard of his aunt and uncle's house.
"Well, what have we here," a scathing voice issued unexpectedly from what Hermione had thought was an empty hallway. She startled from her thoughts and in the process dropped one of her books. It landed with a heavy thud as she spun around and saw Draco Malfoy standing in the shadow of a suit of armor, leering condescendingly at her.
Hermione scowled angrily. "What do you think you're doing, Malfoy?"
"Scaring the little mudblood out of her wits, looks like," he answered haughtily.
Hermione shook her head and turned to retrieve her book. She knelt down and found it took a bit of shuffling of the tomes in her arms before she could reach down for the dropped book.
"Dangerous time for your kind to be out alone, don't you think?" Draco asked as he pushed off from leaning against the wall and walked toward her.
"What are you on about," Hermione groused, doing her best to ignore him as she picked up the book and placed it among the others in her arms. She stood and startled to find Draco right in front of her when she turned. She stepped back and glowered at him.
"Just awfully careless of you. Here in the hall all by yourself with no one to rescue you."
"I don't have anything to fear in Hogwarts, and I can take care of myself." "I know what happened to Potter's cousin."
Hermione's mouth opened in surprise at his statement. "How…" she stammered. Dumbledore would not have told anyone who didn't have good reason to know, it wasn't in the Daily Prophet, only the ministry knew about the attack on the Dursleys. Them, and…
Hermione gasped. "Your father was part of that atrocity, wasn't he?" "Did I say that?" Draco gave a devil-may-care shrug of his shoulders and
crossed his arms impudently. "Let's just say I have my sources. But I would
think that what happened to that fat, simpering muggle would make you just a bit jumpy. After all, from muggle it's a short step to mudblood."
"Are you threatening me?" Hermione growled.
"I don't have to," Draco clipped back. "The Dark Lord's out for blood, and yours and that of your kind will be next. Can't say I'm particularly broken up about it. It's about time the filth was cleansed from the wizarding world."
Hermione tried to push past Draco, but when she moved Draco stepped to the side, blocking her path. Hermione stopped and just barely clutched her books tighter. Were it not for their presence she'd already have her wand in hand, or maybe she'd have simply slugged Malfoy in the nose to remind him just how unafraid she was of all his posturing and bluster. But with her hands full, she wasn't in a convenient position to fight back. Should she imagine an honest need to do so in the fist place, and so far she really didn't see cause for concern. She wouldn't get tied in knots by insults, least of all from the likes of Draco. It came down to the fact that the situation wasn't quite to the point where she believed she should drop everything to go for her wand. After all, it was just Draco being his usual, loathsome self and there was little real danger in that. And Draco's nature aside, this was an encounter in the halls of Hogwarts between two students of rival houses; it didn't seem feasible that anything too dangerous could transpire. Hermione trusted in the safety of Hogwarts too much to believe it. It gave her the freedom and confidence to shrug off the Slytherin's taunts and empty threats as just irritating chatter in her ear.
But trust in the sanctuary provided by Hogwarts's halls though she may, as only a devote student could (given some of the disasters that had befallen in the four and a half years that she herself had attended the school), neither was she about to let herself be fooled by the seemingly untouchable… not after Christmas morning. With the look in Draco's eyes, a newly cautious part of her, tucked in the back of her mind, feared it might come to violence shortly despite Draco's track record of being little more than a big mouth.
That kernel of doubt in her thoughts made her look closer where a week ago she would have brushed past with a closed expression. There were small details that brought her up short. She'd never seen Draco quite so… purposeful. He was often vile and cruel, but he was also a great deal of talk. Draco Malfoy was counted one of the lesser concerns at Hogwarts, in Hermione's estimations, because he'd sooner make a lot of noise than get physical. He thrived on the power of intimidation. But something in the way he was standing before her, his face set and dark… she almost believed he was hoping to go past mouthing off this time.
He was watching her with a superior look of revulsion on his sharp face, as though Hermione were a disfigured house elf."Not even going to try and punch me this time? I'd love to see you try; I was taken by surprise last time, you know, don't think I couldn't have gotten you first if I'd known you were going to pull something as stupid as laying a hand on a pureblood.
Well, go on, then, try it now." Draco snorted when Hermione didn't move. "Not so mean when you don't have those two drooling sods fawning all over you, are you?" Draco sneered and moved a step closer. On reflex, Hermione took a step back.
"I'm not scared of you, Malfoy," Hermione said lowly.
Draco did not take kindly to that defiance. "You should be scared. You should be pissing yourself to know the Dark Lord and his followers would love nothing more than to bathe the floors in your dirty blood."
"Speaking for yourself there too, are you?" Hermione bit back even as she took another half-step away from Draco. This was about to get out of hand. What was Draco playing at?
"Well now, if I were in league with Voldemort you might think to be very, very careful what you said. Might get back to some very unfriendly ears."
"You're just a cowardly little boy, Malfoy, you'd break down in tears if you had to face Voldemort, even if it was to lick his feet." Then Hermione made a very, very big mistake. Intent on getting out of the hallway and back to Gryffindor tower before the situation escalated, she plowed past Draco.
When she passed him Draco hissed furiously and unexpectedly crowded her… and Hermione gasped and dropped her armload of books with a thunderous, echoing clatter when she felt Draco take her wand from her jeans back pocket.
She turned at once to face Malfoy but it was too late to snatch back her wand. He was standing a pace away with the instrument firmly in hand… and venom in his eyes.
"Foul little mudblood bitch!" Draco spat.
"Stop this right now or I'll tell the headmaster; you'll be lucky not to be expelled," Hermione returned.
Draco barked. "Ha! You think someone like me could get expelled? A word from my father to the right people and I could have your precious Dumbledore out on his arse."
"I highly doubt that," Hermione said with absolute certainty. "You underestimate Dumbledore and think too much of your pathetic father."
Draco stepped closer again and this time Hermione plainly stepped away. She was magically defenseless and Draco had his own wand as well as hers.
"I'll look forward to seeing you get yours, mudblood. The time's come when your kind pays for sullying great wizard family lines with your slutty, dirty blood." Draco then swept a look up and down Hermione's body and it made her stomach knot and her blood go cold. Draco smiled, lascivious and vicious. "Although, almost a shame to waste all that with killing you right off. Maybe the Death Eaters will have a bit of fun with you before they kill you. You're not good enough to whelp some pureblood wizard's half-breed abomination, but spreading your legs so those superior to you can have a good time before dispensing with you…" Draco stepped closer again and Hermione found her back pressed against the wall. She didn't realize she'd been so close to the wall until she bumped into it. It startled her and she clamped her lips closed around a whimper, because she wouldn't give Draco the satisfaction of thinking he'd scared her.
Hermione thought she might have to do something drastic. Draco was moving in closer, and she didn't know what he intended to do, but it wasn't just talk anymore.
Then a loud, guttural snarl tore her focused attention away from Draco's dangerous proximity. Draco's menacing leer flickered when he, too, heard the noise. He turned his head to the left to look.
Hermione glanced in the same direction he did, but the next few seconds seemed to pass in the blink of an eye. Draco went from fierce offender to scared stiff boy in a fraction of a second. He let out a cry of panic, a cry that was echoed by a bestial one of rage, and then black was lunging at Draco.
Draco moved his hand reflexively to aim Hermione's wand, but he was not nearly fast enough and he was taken down with a cry of pain and shock.
Hermione's wand skittered across the floor while Draco was pinned flat on his back.
Hermione stood back against the wall, blinking, when she finally registered what she was seeing. Draco was writhing and crying on the floor while Harry, in his panther animagus form, was standing over the blond Slytherin. Harry had his claws in Draco's upper arms… he was piercing cloth and skin and blood was smearing the floor under Draco's trapped arms.
Draco screamed and struggled. Harry roared; it folded back on them off the
hollow corridors until it seemed a thousand jaguars were screaming in combined rage. His feline muscles were taut and his body rigid with fury while Draco flailed helplessly beneath him. Harry dug his claws in deeper.
Hermione stared, wide-eyed, and truly believed she was about to watch Draco die. Harry was going to kill him, and though she knew she should stop it, she couldn't force her body to move to intervene.
Harry had his sharp teeth bared, canines poised, claws embedded in his prey, and Draco was wailing and crying uncontrollably.
Hermione opened her mouth but no sound came out.
Suddenly, Harry was flung from Draco's prone body, as though a giant had taken him by the scruff of the neck and tossed him aside like one might a misbehaving kitten. Harry screamed and twisted furiously and came down in a ready crouch, tail lashing and claws gouging the tile floor.
Hermione snapped her head to the left to see what had pulled Harry off of Draco. She saw Dumbledore running toward them, his hand lowering after tearing Harry away from Draco. Now freed, Draco was cradling his bleeding arms; once the claws had been removed they were bleeding even more heavily.
Harry screamed angrily and charged. Dumbledore's hand snapped up to stop him.
"No!" Hermione cried, but it didn't stop Harry being caught in a full body bind while in full stride. His legs locked under him and he went down, screeching indignantly but helpless to move to so much as break his fall.
Dumbledore, heedless of the black jaguar locked in a stop-action position in Hogwarts's corridors, dropped down next to Draco. Hermione rushed to Harry and knelt before him. He looked up at her, eyes alive and active even if his body was frozen and immobile. She touched his head then turned to retrieve her wand. Her only thought was to unbind Harry, to free him. He was struggling and she had to help him.
She raced to her wand where Draco had dropped it when he was tackled and closed her fingers around the wood, but no sooner had she done so than Dumbledore whirled on her. "Miss Granger!" he bellowed.
Hermione stopped cold and gaped at the headmaster.
Dumbledore was in no mood for disobedience and it radiated off of him in veritable waves. "Do not unbind Harry until I give you leave." With that unequivocal command, he turned back to tending Draco.
Hermione stood, frozen in place by Dumbledore's order, then she returned to Harry and dropped to the floor beside him. She put her one arm around him and petted his head with the other, banned from doing anything else for him. Harry was breathing rapidly and she could feel his heart racing, but she was relegated to providing him only touch for comfort while she watched Dumbledore.
Draco was curled on the floor crying. He was lying in a fair pool of blood by then. Hermione would not have thought it possible, but Draco looked even more ashen and pale than usual for the blood loss. Dumbledore let his hand hover over Draco's face and at once the boy stopped everything. He stopped writhing, he stopped crying, he stopped cradling his arms. He went supple and limp, as though comatose. He even stared upward with unblinking, vacant eyes.
Dumbledore produced his wand for the first time since coming upon the confrontation in the hallway, levitated Draco's body, and left hurriedly with him, a thin trail of blood droplets marking his exit.
Hermione didn't know what to do then, left alone in the corridor with a bound Harry. She still couldn't release him, Dumbledore had not given her permission to, and he'd been very clear that when she was allowed to do it he'd tell her in no uncertain terms. He'd left nothing open to her interpretation in that respect. Hermione could feel Harry's muscles rigid beneath her hands… he was fighting the bind.
"Don't fight it, Harry, please," she whispered. She dreaded to think of him hurting himself struggling against a hopeless cause. Maybe she would imagine him capable of breaking a body bind cast by someone else, but not Dumbledore. Her words were no use. Harry didn't seem capable of relaxing… strained, incensed sounds continued to emit from his throat and his eyes flicked in agitation, returning again and again to Hermione, while his breathing labored and his heart hammered.
It seemed a matter of seconds and at once an eternity before Dumbledore returned, without Draco. Hermione knew the Slytherin would have been taken to the hospital wing. The shiny pool of ruby blood on the floor was testament enough of that.
When Dumbledore came striding down the hallway toward them again
Hermione rose… and found herself standing between Dumbledore and Harry. Dumbledore eyed her. "Stand aside, Miss Granger."
Hermione wanted to obey, but she couldn't make her feet move. "What are you going to do to him?"
"I'm going to give him something to tear apart before he kills someone," Dumbledore answered evenly, and he beckoned Hermione to come away from Harry and stand beside him. Hermione hesitated but finally stepped over to Dumbledore.
Dumbledore then levitated Harry with a flick of his wand. Harry was an unmoving rigid shape of a cat in mid-stride but the wild sounds of protest straining from his throat were evidence of his continued heightened state of rage. Dumbledore began to walk off with Harry buoyed in the air in front of him. Without being asked to accompany them, Hermione hurried after them.
Dumbledore took his student-turned-panther into an empty classroom and said nothing when Hermione pushed in after them. Dumbledore lowered Harry's body down on his side atop the uncluttered teacher's desk. Hermione moved to go to him but Dumbledore grabbed her shoulder… rather strongly. "Don't go near him," the headmaster said bluntly.
That struck Hermione as all possible degrees of wrong. She tried to shrug Dumbledore's hand off, but the headmaster was not amused. If anything, his hand on her tightened. He literally pulled Hermione away to stand by the back wall with him, and then he gave a last twitch of his wand in Harry's general direction.
Harry sprang up on his feet with a piercing roar. His claws sank into the wood of the desk and he spun around and swiped at the blackboard for the sake of having a target. Wood splinters and chunks of blackboard went flying. Harry whirled. His claws etched deep scratches in the desktop. His claws caught on the edge of the desk and he jerked his front leg viciously. A good portion of the corner of the desk came free and hit the wall. Harry leapt down to the floor and tore at the chair behind the desk, ripping it to pieces before he finally stopped, legs braced apart and chest heaving, his back turned to them. He still looked fit to spit, but at least he wasn't tearing anything apart.
"Harry," Dumbledore ventured.
Harry whipped around and spat/hissed at Dumbledore, teeth bared dangerously and claws unsheathed. The threat was very plain to see, and in
Harry's current state very real.
Hermione broke from Dumbledore quickly, before he could grab at her again. Harry's sharp eyes followed her movement. She approached Harry as he watched her with his intense hunter's gaze.
"Miss Granger," Dumbledore said anxiously, but before he could say more Hermione dropped to her knees before Harry. Harry's curled lips relaxed to cover his teeth and his claws drew back into the pads of his paws. Harry stepped immediately to Hermione and shoved his head against her chest.
Hermione brought her arms up to hold him about the neck and shoulders. She hugged him while Harry breathed in deeply of her scent. Hermione could feel some of the tension in his body melt away as they stayed that way on the floor together.
"Harry…" Dumbledore said again, and, with his head still buried in Hermione's chest, Harry began to rumble a low, threatening growl.
Hermione looked toward Dumbledore, pleading in her eyes, though pleading for what she couldn't rightly say for she did not know. Dumbledore was watching the both of them closely, the expression on his face utterly unreadable. Hermione could not begin to guess what the headmaster was thinking… or what he would do.
Harry finally pulled his head away from Hermione's body and looked toward Dumbledore. Hermione's arms fell away from Harry's neck when Harry took two decidedly unfriendly steps toward the headmaster… then stopped when he was clearly standing between Dumbledore and Hermione.
At that display, Dumbledore tried a different tact. "Ahem… Miss Granger? If you would."
It didn't take the brightest witch to gather Dumbledore's intent. Hermione got up and moved to stand in front of Harry. He looked up at her, studying her while keeping an ear on Dumbledore's every move.
"Harry, please…"
Both of Harry's eyes ticked in Hermione's direction, he seemed to regard her a moment, then his haunch muscles bunched and he rose to his hind legs… only to straighten entirely as Harry Potter, wizard.
Harry's hand went out immediately and touched Hermione's arm, his face full of concern and fierceness. "Did he hurt you?"
Hermione shook her head, already dismissive of Malfoy at this point. She had much greater concerns right now than one particularly distasteful Slytherin. "No, Harry, he didn't, he was just saying horrible things…"
"Harry…" Dumbledore interjected for the third time.
Harry turned angry eyes on the headmaster. "Why did you stop me?"
Dumbledore's eyebrows rose incredulously at the outburst. "Need you honestly ask why I would not permit you to murder another student?"
"He was going to hurt Hermione!" Harry yelled.
"I do not condone Mister Malfoy's behavior, and he should be punished for cornering Miss Granger the way he did, but death is hardly called for."
Harry was still strung tight, Hermione could tell from the line of his shoulders and the set of his jaw. She reached out and put her hand on his arm. "Harry…" she whispered in his ear, lowly enough that Dumbledore wouldn't overhear, "mind your cat thinking."
Harry's eyes broke from Dumbledore to look quickly at her. He looked baffled at first, then understanding flared and his entire demeanor shifted… he gave Hermione an almost imperceptible nod and Hermione breathed a sigh of relief. Harry was at least taking control of his actions.
Dumbledore looked torn between fascinated, displeased, and wearied by the whole matter. When he noted that Harry was no longer on the cusp of a rage, he said, "I think the two of you have some explaining to do. We'll adjorn to my office to discuss this."
Hermione took Harry's hand and squeezed it tightly. It sounded suspiciously like they were in trouble. Big trouble. She didn't want to think what they would face when Dumbledore had them in his office.
The headmaster cast a reparo on the objects in the room that Harry had torn apart and when all was back to the state it was before Harry's tantrum, Dumbledore gestured for Harry and Hermione to precede him out of the classroom. The corridor was still empty, the students enjoying the weather outside ignorant of the mauling that had occurred only moments before within their own school.
Dumbledore sent Harry and Hermione ahead to his office while he stayed behind to clean up the mess in the corridor before anyone else saw it.
Chapter Fifty Eight
Original Author Notes -
A/N: Okay, this might be a bit of an abuse of the A/N function here, but this is driving me crazy and I have to think someone out there can help me. I'm looking for a fic I read once, and here's the problem: when I first got into the HP fandom, I read HP fanfic in gross tons. I read so much that, aside from some phenomenally stellar stories, they all bled together in my head into one all-purpose HP fic. This fic I'm looking for got lumped into that category at first, but there was one image in it that I liked at the time but which I did not know how much I liked until I let it percolate in my brain.
Now I really want to read it again, but I have no idea what it was called, so if anyone knows the story I'm talking about, tell me what it is! I think it's a post-HBP, Harry and Hermione start sleeping together, it's told mostly from Harry's POV, and the image from the fic that's haunting me: when they're making love Hermione brushes Harry's hair back from his face, and he doesn't know if he likes her doing that or not. That's it, that's what's chanting in the back of my head. I really hope someone knows this story.
Thanks!
The walk to the headmaster's tower was a tensely quiet one. When they reached Dumbledore's office it was to find the past headmasters and headmistresses of Hogwarts staring down at them from their paintings.
Doubtless they had some notion of what had happened, the headmaster portraits always seemed to know things it would seem impossible for works
of art to know, and it was clear that an attack on one student by another of such severity was unprecedented.
As soon as they were at their destination and alone (save the paintings), Harry tugged Hermione over to stand in front of him and he openly looked her over for signs of wounds.
Hermione gently pried herself from him. "Harry, I'm fine." She frowned in worry and chewed on her bottom lip. "We could be in real trouble."
Harry huffed irately and began to pace the room."I won't apologize for stopping him from laying a hand on you, Hermione. I won't."
"Oh, Harry, please, stop and think about what you're saying."
"I know what I'm saying," Harry insisted as he paced, still agitated and edgy.
Hermione sat down in one of the large armchairs in Dumbledore's office. She ran her hands over her hair then covered her mouth with her fingers as her mind raced. She was imagining all the horrid ways this meeting could go, and it seemed each was worse than the last. Her stomach felt fit to lurch up through her throat. She watched Harry walk up and down the length of Dumbledore's office, hands restless at his sides. In her mind, she saw him as the jaguar, pacing with tail twitching.
Dumbledore entered his office and Harry strode forward to stand next to Hermione, Harry marginally closer to the headmaster than she. Hermione didn't stand to face Dumbledore for the simple fact she was worried her knees would wobble if she tried.
Dumbledore looked long and hard at his two students, then he sighed deeply and said, "I'm sure you'll be pleased to know that Madam Pomfrey expects there won't be any permanent damage to Mister Malfoy's extremities. She doesn't anticipate any loss of function."
Hermione nodded in relief but Harry crossed his arms defiantly, conspicuously silent as to the good prognosis for Draco Malfoy.
"Now, perhaps one of you might tell me what happened?" Dumbledore paused a beat. "Miss Granger?"
Hermione took a steadying breath. "I was on my way back from the library when Draco took me by surprise. He started heckling me. He was saying these dreadful things, about Harry's cousin and Death Eaters and…" Hermione stopped to glance up at Harry next to her. She wasn't sure how
much he'd heard before he came upon them. If he didn't hear some of the awful things Draco said she wasn't sure repeating them to Dumbledore where Harry could hear would help matters any. Harry was mad enough as it was.
She decided it was best left unsaid. "I tried to get past Draco to go to the common room and he took my wand and cornered me and that's when…" Hermione trailed, but it was telling in itself. Little doubt anyone in the room was lost for knowing what had happened next.
"He was going to hurt her," Harry stated curtly.
Dumbledore looked embittered a moment then nodded sadly. "Yes, I'm afraid he was."
Harry's eyes flared and his teeth clenched.
"How did you get there when you did?" Hermione asked the headmaster, still able to see him running down the corridor toward them. She'd seen not a soul besides herself, Harry, and Draco, but just the same Dumbledore had shown up when things looked to be taking an irrevocable turn.
"The suit of armor told me something was afoot and I'd best get down there, though I do wish I'd arrived even sooner than I did," Dumbledore answered, as though that answer did not pose questions of its own.
Hermione puzzled over that, but before she could ask any additional questions Dumbledore moved closer to the couple. "There is no excuse for Mister Malfoy's behavior and you can rest assured he would have been severely punished for his actions."
"Would have been?!" Harry snapped in disbelief.
"Harry… you and I both know that what happens in this school between you and Mister Malfoy reaches beyond just the two of you. Draco's father has… key influence in some rather unsavory, powerful circles, and believe me when I say that word of his assault, no matter the instigator, would not end well for you."
"You mean because his dad's a Death Eater Draco gets away with whatever he wants," Harry returned.
Dumbledore's voice hardened instantly. "Far from it, Harry."
"What do you intend to do about Draco, sir?" Hermione asked in a much calmer voice.
"At the moment he's in the hospital wing having his injuries treated. I placed him in a catatonic state, and when he's fit to be released I plan to work a memory charm on him to erase any recollection he might have pertaining to that ugliness in the hallway just now." Dumbledore looked seriously toward Harry. "Harry, right now Hogwarts is the safest place for you to be, with Voldemort on the loose and trying to get to you. If Lucius Malfoy heard from his son that you had quite viciously assaulted him, he'd stop at nothing to see you expelled. You'd be put out on the streets, in a loose sense, since you
are no longer welcome in your aunt and uncle's home, and a homeless fifteen- year-old boy would be far easier for Voldemort and his followers to capture."
Hermione gasped. That had not even occurred to her, but it made a sick, twisted sense. It made Death Eater sense. "Was that what Draco was trying to do? Why else would he go so far trying to pick a fight?"
Harry turned to look toward Hermione, his expression nearly just as sickened as it was infuriated. "Then why the hell didn't he just come to me and start a row? Why did he have to bring you into it?"
Hermione gave a helpless shrug. "I don't know, maybe hurting me was an added bonus. Maybe he thought it would make his father proud for Draco to strike out against a muggle-born and get you to put yourself in a position to get expelled." Hermione stopped to think a moment. "He may have even been trying to provoke you without outright confronting you; that way he'd be able to say truthfully that you threw the first punch."
"I do not know his intentions," Dumbledore interrupted, "but I feel confident in saying that if it was intentionally undertaken he did not anticipate the response." Dumbledore looked pointedly at Harry then.
"So Draco walks. After what he did, what he almost did…" Harry seethed.
Hermione reached out and touched Harry's elbow. "Harry… we have no choice. Lucius Malfoy can't find out about the fight; his name has enough clout behind it in the ministry for it to end very badly for you."
"It's lamentable and I detest it as much as you, but that is the way of it, I'm afraid," Dumbledore said. "Though I would think there are even more reasons that you would not want Draco to remember that little incident in the corridor other than Harry's potential expulsion."
Harry's rigid stance faltered and Hermione swallowed as their minds turned to the same thought. "No, sir," she whispered then cleared her throat, "we… we don't want Draco to remember a thing."
"Yes, and since I will have to perform a memory charm to insure that he doesn't, it also means I cannot punish him if he does not remember doing wrong." Dumbledore took out his wand, transfigured a table into a couch so he could sit opposite Hermione as though the office were a formal sitting room, and he regarded the two teens closely. "Now, I rather think it's time I'm brought into the loop of this animagus business."
Harry and Hermione looked at one another, fraught with worry at the repercussions but both aware there would be no possibility of avoiding them. Not unless they thought to try their hands at a memory charm on Dumbledore, which would have been the very definition of foolhardy and stupid in one convenient bundle.
Harry sat down on the arm of the chair Hermione occupied while Hermione curled her hands in her lap like a nervous little girl being called to the mat by her father.
"What do you want to know?" Harry asked cautiously.
"Hmm… well, the most common question answered itself in your case, Harry; I saw for myself that your animagus form is a panther." Dumbledore turned his eyes to Hermione. "And what would yours be, Miss Granger?"
Hermione wouldn't even ask how Dumbledore knew so confidently that she was an animagus too, and that it wasn't just Harry. "I'm… I'm a lioness, sir."
Dumbledore looked surprised, and for a man like Dumbledore that was something. "Really?"
"Is that… unexpected?" Harry asked, curious about Dumbledore's reaction.
Dumbledore pondered that a moment. "You might say it's more a case of… statistical improbability. The likelihood that you would both be creatures of such similar nature… it is a bit… unforeseen. I would not have anticipated such a close match in animagus forms." Dumbledore paused to look at them both before his eyes rested at greater length on Hermione."I can see you've noticed the same unlikelihood in that as I have, Miss Granger."
Hermione nodded while she saw Harry glance at her from the corner of her eye. "I knew it was… a rare occurrence that Harry and I would both undertake becoming animagi and then for us to both turn into big cats. I think… I'm not certain, but I've thought it might have something to do with the tokening process."
"Oh? How so?"
"We tokened off each other."
Dumbledore's casual posture slowly gave way to much greater acuity of focus as he sat up a little straighter in his seat. Hermione felt a thrill of investigative fervor, despite the dressing down this might be, to see she had caused Dumbledore to sit up and take interest. It reignited her own curiosity about the issue of their strikingly similar animagus forms. She continued, "Harry took a lock of my hair and I took a lock of his. It's the only thing that I can think of that may have influenced our animal forms to so closely resemble one another."
Dumbledore steepled his fingers and his eyes lost focus as he mulled that over. "Possibly… that is a fascinating speculation in any case. I must confess that I've never heard of that happening before in animagus magic."
"Never?" Harry parroted, clearly finding it strange that something that had happened so naturally for him and Hermione would be so unheard of in the wizarding world. Hermione thought, in passing, that Harry should have been accustomed to defying conventional magic by now.
"The animagus process is a very personal event for a witch or wizard, Harry," Dumbledore said. "It may be embarked upon in pairs or groups, but ultimately it is a solitary process. It's an inward-focused journey, so to have that imbedded magic within a witch or wizard reach out to another during that process… well, as I said, I've never heard of it if happening before."
Harry looked at Hermione, his expression bewildered. He'd never stopped to find it at all strange that he and Hermione would have similar forms. It was as natural as the jaguar to him, unquestioned and right.
"I will take a guess here and say that you two have only been able to become panther and lioness since the early part of this term," Dumbledore said.
"Yes, sir." A pause. "How did you know?"
"The marked change in your personalities since the start of this term was a very significant clue," the headmaster said with a wry smile and twinkle in his eye.
Harry blinked. "You noticed our personalities change?"
Dumbledore nodded. "I was not the only one among your elders to note the difference. Many of your professors have come to me remarking on your and
Miss Granger's greater confidence." Dumbledore stopped and smirked. "Well, Professor Snape called it 'heightened arrogance', but it spoke to the same observation of a change in personality."
Hermione shook her head in wonder."We're still trying to grip the idea that we behave differently because of the cats."
"Well, I should think Harry, before the panther, would not have asked why I would not let him kill Mister Malfoy."
Harry looked contrite."Uh, er… well, no, probably wouldn't have."
"I'll admit that for a time I thought the shift in your dispositions was a result of your budding romantic relationship. That is a transfiguring event in and of itself. When a number of your professors began to note the change and brought it up with me over tea I had to consider it was more than the magic of love at work."
Hermione felt her cheeks color and she glanced fleetingly at Harry. He was studying Dumbledore speculatively, silent but receptive, which was leagues better than his mood only an hour ago when she would have sooner expected him to attack Dumbledore than pay attention to what he said.
Hermione cleared her throat. "Harry and I… we… we were the cats before we were together as a couple. We didn't begin dating until halfway through the first term."
"Is that so? Hmm… it would seem my gut for these matters must be colicking… I was convinced you and young Harry had advanced beyond the boundaries of mere friendship to embark upon a relationship with one another over the summer."
Harry smirked. "You and everyone else, sir."
"We were a bit… thick in that regard," Hermione confessed into her lap, trying not to smile at the memory.
"I see." Dumbledore looked between Harry and Hermione sitting together on the same chair, side by side. "Well, seems it's been all sorted now, or near enough as makes no matter to our topic of the hour.
"I would like to know how long you two were working on becoming animagi." Dumbledore cocked his head fractionally. "Had I to speculate, I would suspect that the whole matter with Sirius Black two years ago would have awakened a certain interest in the animagus process. Interest in his
godfather for Harry, and feasibly the love of the challenge for you, Miss Granger, but that does leave the problem that the Triwizard Tournament last year would have provided little time for you two to work toward your first transformation. Is it possible that this little endeavor of yours went back as far as your second or first year? Tremendously ambitious for students so young."
"Actually, Headmaster," Hermione said, "we didn't begin to work on becoming animagi until this past summer."
Dumbledore's mild manner fled his face by degrees until he was looking at Hermione with all the sharpness of his great wisdom and power. He seemed to be gauging her honesty with a mere look, piercing and direct as if to cut through to the heart of the matter with a glance. Hermione didn't waver under his seeking look, but she was perplexed by the sudden acuity in Dumbledore's gaze.
Finally, the headmaster found what he'd sought in her eyes, because he broke to look toward Harry. When he was met with similar unflinching openness in the young wizard, Dumbledore stood and paced before his couch a few steps. "You mean to say that you and Harry mastered becoming animagi within a single year? Technically, less than that?"
"Yes, sir."
Dumbledore didn't speak and paced a few more steps.
"What's wrong with that?" Harry asked.
Dumbledore turned to Harry and regarded him seriously. "Harry, surely you must have some appreciation for what an astounding feat that is."
Harry turned modest and a bit bashful. "Well, I know it's supposed to be hard, but I assumed how hard depended on the wizard or witch doing it, too."
"It does, to be sure, but still, to succeed in less than a year…" Dumbledore shook his head in private awe. "That is quite extraordinary." The portraits on the wall were bobbing their heads in agreement. Dumbledore was still watching Harry, some new level of respect for the innate power within Harry evident in his eyes, then the headmaster looked to Hermione. There was no less admiration for her similar success in such a taxing and notoriously difficult endeavor, but when he glanced at Hermione there was a manner of question in his eyes as well. He seemed to silently ask how she could not have impressed upon Harry just how fantastic their accomplishment was.
Hermione tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear."I can't really explain how I managed in such a short time frame, I was sure it would take me years if I ever managed at all, but with Harry… everything in the animagus process just came to him. He just took to it from the start."
Harry frowned faintly. "Not all that more than you took to it."
Hermione looked up impatiently at her fiancé."Honestly, Harry, you were a natural at it from the first token. Even now you can do things with your animagus form that I can never hope to do."
Harry scowled silently as Dumbledore turned to considering them both.
"What sort of things do you mean, Miss Granger?"
"Touching the jaguar, sir." Hermione paused and her face screwed as she tried to think of how to word it best. "Harry can… tap into the gifts and abilities of the jaguar without turning into the jaguar. He can hear like the jaguar and see like the jaguar without being the jaguar."
The headmaster did something Hermione never thought to see the brilliant, world-wise wizard do… his jaw dropped. Not gapingly wide, not like a classmate might have, but his lips parted without a word issuing forth.
Hermione's every nerve ending began to tingle. She had never read of someone borrowing from their animal from the way Harry did in all her research on animagi, but she had assumed it was an oversight in the literature, as the books on the subject were hardly exhaustive. But the look on Dumbledore's face… maybe the lack of any mention of such an ability wasn't an oversight in by the writers of all those books she'd read.
Harry saw Dumbledore's expression, too, and he gave a half-wince, half- smile as he offered a bit wryly, "Guess not many people can do that?"
Dumbledore closed his mouth and turned his eyes slowly to Harry. "Harry…
no one can do that."
"No one?" Harry repeated, dubious but at the same time almost forced to believe it from the way Dumbledore was reacting to the revelation.
The headmaster shook his head.
"Well… surely I can't be the only one," Harry protested weakly, but Hermione touched his arm and favored him with a supportive smile, because she could easily believe that it was an ability unique to Harry Potter. She knew all too well that Harry tended to underestimate his power as a wizard.
Dumbledore sat down again on the couch across from the two young adults, this time near the edge and he leaned toward Harry. "Tell me how you 'touch the jaguar' I believe you called it?" The gleam in Dumbledore was eager and immensely curious. Hermione could almost imagine Dumbledore
as a student listening eagerly to a professor deemed a master in their subject.
Harry nodded, then his face twisted as he searched for a way to describe it adequately. "I don't know how I do it, I just do. I'll want to see better in the dark or hear better and I just… reach inside me for the jaguar. I… brush against it." Harry scowled in the effort to put his amorphous talent to
words. "Almost like the jaguar's sleeping inside me, but it's not really asleep, but I can touch it and it knows when I want its eyes or its ears and it loans them to me without taking over me."
"You're conscious of your animagus form within you when you are in human form?"
That, at least, had an easy answer. "I'm always conscious of it." Harry stopped, puzzled, and glanced toward Hermione hesitantly when a question struck him. "You mean… you're not?"
Hermione shook her head with a faint smile; it was almost endearing to plainly see how hard it was for Harry to think of the experience for someone else being fundamentally less than how he experienced it. But from the first days endowed with their new ability to become cats, Hermione knew it was different for Harry than for her. "I know, intellectually, that the lioness is there, but I don't feel her like you feel the jaguar."
For a second confusion flickered over Harry's face as he tried to imagine it the way she described her awareness of her lioness.
"Harry," Dumbledore said, redirecting Harry's attention back to the headmaster, "how difficult is it for you to borrow these senses from your animagus form while you maintain human shape?"
"It's not. Sometimes I do it without realizing I'm doing it."
Dumbledore lifted his eyebrows. "Astounding… do you think you could demonstrate this ability for me?"
Harry gave an acquiescent half-nod then paused abruptly and looked over his shoulder toward the back of Dumbledore's office. Hermione twisted to follow his suddenly concerned look and she saw Fawkes on his perch near the far wall. She understood at once what had given Harry pause. When both teenagers turned their heads to look again toward their headmaster
Dumbledore looked truly baffled by their sudden reticence and interest in his bird.
"Umm," Harry stammered, "we've noticed that animals sense when I'm touching the jaguar. I'm just not sure how Fawkes will take to it."
"Really? Animals pick up on that, do they?" Dumbledore asked in fascination.
Harry nodded, stopped, then cant his head in sudden distraction. "Well, actually, come to think on it, Hermione can tell when I'm touching the jaguar, too."
When Dumbledore looked to Hermione she nodded. "It's… hard to explain. Maybe it's just that I know Harry so well that I'd notice the difference, but there is one. There's this… aura about him. He just feels different. Like suddenly you're standing in the presence of greatness."
Harry ducked his head and barely blushed, but Hermione could not explain it any other way.
"Well, I think Fawkes will be fine for the duration of a simple demonstration. Please, Harry," Dumbledore gestured to Harry to proceed.
The headmaster acted as though he expected some kind of production or lengthy process to follow. It made the actual shift itself seem silly in comparison to the build up it was given. Hermione watched as Harry sat on the chair's arm beside her, as casual as though they were hanging out in the common room with Ron and Ginny, not a hint of discernable change in him to watch him, but Hermione knew the moment Harry was part jaguar. She could feel his energy change from common magic to phenomenally powerful. Behind them, Fawkes squawked suddenly in surprise and flapped his wings.
Then the sense of immense strength of presence slipped, the phoenix quieted, and regular Harry gave a sheepish shrug.
Dumbledore was clearly impressed. "That is a truly amazing talent, Harry. I see now what Miss Granger meant when she spoke of your 'presence' changing. When did you discover you could do that, if I may be so bold?"
"Pretty soon after the first change. I was doing it unintentionally before I figured out that it was something I could control and do at will."
"And sometimes not at will," Hermione provided, and when Harry looked over at her she said softly, "the zoo, Harry."
"The zoo?" Dumbledore queried.
"Uh, yeah… during Christmas holiday I went to the London Zoo with Hermione's father and at the lion exhibit I… well, it was almost a scene, to be honest. The lions could tell something was like them about me I guess, and I got a little too focused on their reaction to me. When I snapped out of it I realized the jaguar was… awake, for lack of a better term. I hadn't even noticed it coming over me."
Dumbledore merely stared at Harry.
Hermione felt strangely proud of Harry right then, as if his accomplishment was her own. "I've come to believe it's much more of a partnership with Harry and the jaguar within him than is the case for other animagi, myself included. After watching Harry and the way he relates to his animagus form and how they blend together so seamlessly it's hard not to think that that is how true animagi were meant to be. Natural and unspeakably beautiful."
"Hermione," Harry groaned, fairly embarrassed.
Dumbledore chuckled. "I would have to say I agree with Miss Granger, Harry." Dumbledore ran his fingers absently through his white beard and he mused aloud, "After all the impossible feats you have accomplished since you were one, I don't think there is a witch or wizard today who would argue how magically gifted you are, and I would generally consider myself among the most generous of those who allow that you will one day be one of the most powerful wizards our world has ever seen… but even still you manage to surprise me, Harry."
Harry clearly didn't know what to say to that, as he thought considerably less of himself than his present company did, and in his uncertainty he looked to Hermione. She smiled gently at him and reached out to touch his hand. She knew the same things Dumbledore did, that Harry was set to become a truly great man and an even greater wizard, but she'd learned the futility in trying to tell Harry so. Instead, she just believed it.
Dumbledore broke the moment when he stood from his couch, a thoughtful expression on his face. "Something strikes me in all of this," he muttered, then left Harry and Hermione to go to his fireplace. The two teenagers watched, confused, as Dumbledore threw a pinch of floo powder into the flames to color them from orange to green.
A few moments later, Kimmy burst from the hearth wearing tiger-striped boxers and matching suspenders. "Master Albus? You called for Kimmy?"
"Yes, I did. Kimmy… Miss Granger and young Harry here have just informed me of their recently earned status as bona fide animagi. The timing of this accomplishment strikes me, though. Miss Granger says that she and Harry did not set out to learn how to master the art of animagus transformation until this last summer… when it just so happens that you were tasked with watching over them."
Kimmy's merry expression fell.
"Now, doesn't that seem terribly auspicious? You wouldn't have played a part in all of this, would you?"
"Well…" Kimmy said awkwardly and scuffed the floor with her bare toes, but Hermione stood then and interceded on the house elf's behalf before Kimmy could try to speak in her own defense.
"Sir… Kimmy didn't do anything wrong. I talked her into helping us; I told her that Harry and I wanted to become animagi to help him defend against Voldemort. You told her to do everything in her power to safeguard Harry… I worded it so that helping us to become animagi fell within your orders. Don't be mad at her; if anyone, be mad at me."
Dumbledore looked toward Hermione, then down at Kimmy. "You helped them, Kimmy?"
Kimmy nodded.
"Sir!" Hermione said desperately.
"Oh, don't fear, Miss Granger, I would not dream of punishing Kimmy, not that it would be within my rights to do so should I wish to. Which I don't. I just wanted to satisfy my curiosity." Dumbledore knelt beside the house elf and regarded her with an affectionate smile. "Well, Kimmy, it would seem you've abetted in yet another youthful fancy."
Kimmy began to smile.
Dumbledore stood and turned to face Harry and Hermione once more. "I suppose it's a mere formality to ask if you two are rogue animagi."
Hermione glanced back at Harry, who stood from the chair and moved to stand beside her. Hermione looked back at Dumbledore and gave a heavy nod. "We're rogue, sir. We… we truly did choose to become animagi because there was the possibility it could prove useful in the fight against
Voldemort. It offered an advantage… an advantage that might easily be lost if Voldemort was able to learn what our animagus forms are."
Dumbledore nodded. "In the current times, that makes the most imminent sense, regardless of its legality." Dumbledore pondered that a moment longer and said, "Under that logic, I see no recourse but to keep this discovery to myself."
Hermione was cautiously optimistic. "You won't turn us in to the ministry for being rogues?"
"All things considered, that would hardly be in Harry's best interests, and you can rest assured I have only my students' best interests at heart. It's regrettable that I won't be able to discuss Harry's unusual talents with experts in the field, but I will cope with the disappointment.
"Now then, what names have you taken for yourselves?"
Hermione blinked and looked in confusion to Harry. His expression mirrored her own. "Names, sir?"
"Animagus names," Dumbledore returned with a nod. "Surely you are familiar with the practice of an animagus form having a name of its own? Of course, it's not a requirement, but I've always found it a very quaint and delightful custom." Dumbledore sniffed and commented as an aside, "Though I was never especially fond of DuffGruff."
Hermione frowned, for the time being dismissing Dumbledore's last remark. "Uh… we don't have animagus names, sir. We… honestly, it never occurred to us."
"Well then, in that case, may I make a suggestion?" At Hermione and Harry's nods, Dumbledore continued, "It is, of course, up to you, but as she was accomplice to this from the start, I would suggest letting Kimmy do the honors."
Kimmy brightened immediately and her eyes lit up with excitement.
Hermione, of no particular mind on the matter, turned to look at Harry. He gave a relenting shrug, still a bit thrown by the turn in conversation, and Hermione answered, "All right, Kimmy, you can choose our animagus names if you'd like."
Kimmy clapped her hands enthusiastically and bounced up and down. "Oh! Kimmy is feeling so very honored!" She scurried over to Harry and Hermione
and looked up at them critically, like an artist inspecting two incomplete sculptures. She narrowed her eyes and clasped her hands behind her back as she walked in a circle around the couple. Harry and Hermione watched the elf wordlessly, casting each other questioningly looks.
After a circuit around them Kimmy backed off, stood a few paces away with weight borne primarily on one foot, and tapped her forefinger against her chin, her face scrunched in intense contemplation.
After a time, the little house elf hurried up to Hermione and seemed to size up her. Then, with a decisive nod, Kimmy said, "Miss Hermione is being Sagehunter."
Hermione turned the name over in her head a few times. "Sagehunter."
Kimmy nodded. "Sage being the knowledge and Miss Hermione its seeker."
"Sagehunter," Hermione tried the name again, letting it rattle around in her skull and coil over her palate. She found herself growing fond of its intonation and meaning, the way it rolled off her tongue and stood out in her head. She imagined a lion, her lioness with the boyish mane, and called it by name. Sagehunter. It fit well.
"I like it," Harry offered at her side.
Hermione nodded at last. "I do, too. Sagehunter. It's a great name, Kimmy. Thank you."
Kimmy bounced on the balls of her feet. Then she turned her undivided attention to Harry. She squinted up at him, brow furrowed and wrinkled like a bulldog, and she paced a bit between the teens and where Dumbledore stood as she searched her brain for a good name.
With a grunt and a curt nod to herself once she'd made up her mind, Kimmy turned swiftly back to Harry and stood with hands on her hips. "Mister Harry Potter is Knight."
"Knight? Just… Knight?"
Kimmy nodded. "It is being simple." Hermione smiled. "Oh, it's perfect!" "Simple? Gee, thanks," Harry mumbled.
Hermione giggled. "No, Harry, it really fits you. Simply gallant, simply knightly."
"I didn't think of it that way," Harry said. He looked at Hermione, who was enamored of the name already to take from the expression on her face. That won him the rest of the way that he himself was still uncertain. He smiled considerately at the house elf who had dubbed them. "It's wonderful, Kimmy. Knight will definitely do."
Kimmy beamed proudly.
"I could not have chosen better myself," Dumbledore said. The headmaster crossed to his desk, propped his bum on the edge, and he sighed heavily, his mood shifting once again. "Harry… I trust I need not tell you that I cannot permit you to loose Knight in the school's halls again, not against fellow students."
Harry's expression darkened. "I won't allow Hermione to be hurt," he said in final, uncompromising words.
"I don't ask you to, Harry, but for several reasons you need to keep Knight out of your conflicts with your classmates." To Harry's displeased glower, Dumbledore said, "You've gained a valuable weapon in any battle you may fight against Voldemort with your animagus capabilities, that is beyond contestation, but keep in mind that you are a weapon. As Knight, you are infinitely dangerous. And as headmaster, taking that new danger you can pose into consideration, I am now expected to protect the other students from you."
"Sir…" Harry protested.
"You could very easily have killed Mister Malfoy today, Harry. That is not something to take lightly."
"But he—"
"Attacked Miss Granger, I know." Dumbledore paused. "But Miss Granger, with a very similar beast at her command, did not unleash that animal against Mister Malfoy despite his actions."
Harry pursed his lips bitterly at that point. "I… I just… I couldn't let him hurt her."
"Your devotion to her is admirable, Harry, and truthfully I predict controlling this beast of yours will only really be an issue where it concerns Miss
Granger."
Hermione gave Dumbledore a querulous look at that.
The headmaster almost smiled. "Animal psychology, my dear Miss Granger. Knight will naturally view you as his mate in an animal's simple terms, and it is only natural that he be fiercely protective of you."
"Not just Knight," Harry grumbled under his breath. Hermione looked quickly to Harry and saw the bare, bald earnestness in his face. And he did not speak a word against Dumbledore's supposition that she would be the only reason Harry might lose control of Knight.
"No," Dumbledore conceded gently, "not just Knight. But any threat from another student to Hermione or Sagehunter must be met by Harry. Knight is too deadly to let him deal with your classmates, Harry, I trust you can see that after what happened today.
"Now that you and Miss Granger have taken on the mantle of animagus status, you also shoulder the responsibility that comes with those animal forms that you adopt. It is more difficult for some than others. As DuffGruff I had only to be mindful not to eat the garden, but Knight and Sagehunter are far more burdensome animals. You must both command over them, for any lives they take will be on your hands. Be careful that they are lives you can live with taking."
Hermione nodded gravely. A quick glance at Harry showed unhappy but grudging surrender in his expression. "We'll be careful, sir."
"What about Malfoy?" Harry asked, though he seemed rather loathe to express any concern for the Slytherin's predicament in any way, shape, or form.
"I'll deal with Mister Malfoy. I'll tend to the past, anyway. As to the future, if he does have some scheme to provoke you, Harry, be very cautious that you don't let him rile Knight again. I realize it may be unbearably hard for you to do should Miss Granger come under attack as she did today, but you must rule over the beast inside you, for there will be all too little I can do to help you if you kill someone. Even less than little I might do if you kill Draco Malfoy."
Harry nodded solemnly.
"What about Malfoy's arms? How will you explain the claw marks to him when he wakes?" Hermione asked.
"Ah, yes, that is a tricky pickle, but I'll come up with something to tell him for how he sustained his injuries. Perhaps I will tell him he was idling too near to the forest and was attacked by a feral hippogriff. After the incident with Buckbeak I would think he'll be all too easy to convince of such an animal's innate viciousness, though we know better. An unexpected attack could conceivably explain his missing memories as well, should he have been knocked unconscious in the hippogriff attack, for instance."
It was rough, but Hermione had faith Dumbledore could spin it into a suitably believably story.
"Hagrid will no doubt be most unhappy with his beloved hippogriffs being painted the villains once again," Dumbledore commented, "but if he knew the cause it served I believe he'd find it in his heart to give us his blessing in convincing Malfoy he was mauled by a hippogriff as opposed to the truth of how he was wounded."
Dumbledore stood from his desk and studied his two students a moment. He frowned dourly a moment before he said, "There can be no doubt that Mister Malfoy acted inappropriately this afternoon when he accosted Miss Granger.
Under any other circumstances, he would be stringently punished for his actions. However, since it will be necessary to erase all memory he has of the incident, I cannot very well hand out that due punishment for a wrong he will not remember doing." To Harry and Hermione's shared look of distaste, Dumbledore hurriedly said, "I find no more pleasure in that detail than you, but for our purposes it is the lesser of evils, and that does seem to be the hallmark of all we do these days." The headmaster turned his eyes to Harry. "Under normal circumstances, you would be severely punished for what you did. And yes, I know, Mister Malfoy started it, but it was Mister Malfoy who ended up nearly losing his life. Violence of that nature cannot be permitted.
"But that leaves me in a bit of a quandary. How to discipline two parties, both guilty, when one is rendered incapable of being punished? Because I will be forced to take no disciplinary action against Mister Malfoy, I shall allow you to leave with a warning this time, Harry. Take that as your concession in lieu of seeing Mister Malfoy pay properly for his actions.
"It seems I still have quite a bit of work to do tying up the loose ends of this most unfortunate day for young Mister Malfoy. But that is my business. You two are free to go."
Hermione took Harry's hand and was already tugging him toward the office door before Dumbledore could change his mind and decide to punish Harry
for attacking Draco. She'd love to see Draco punished for what he did, and for what he almost did, but she'd readily trade Harry's evasion of punishment for it. "Come on, Harry, let's go."
Harry met Dumbledore's eyes a moment then relented and turned to follow Hermione out of the headmaster's office.
Chapter Fifty Nine
Original Author Notes -
A/N: Just a quick thanks to everyone who told me the name of that fic I was looking for (it was Harry Potter and the Infernal Plan). Now it can stop driving me crazy ;)
When Harry and Hermione climbed through the portrait hole into the Gryffindor common room, they found Ron and Ginny sitting at a table with a wizard chess board in front of them, both still wearing Quidditch gear complete with brooms leaning against the wall beside them. At the sound of the fat lady letting someone into the room, both Weasleys looked up.
"Where the hell you'd go, mate?" Ron asked at once when he saw it was they who had arrived. While Harry and Hermione, toting Hermione's books that they'd recovered from the corridor floor on their way back to their house tower, made for the empty table space beside their friends to dump their armloads, Ron resumed talking. "You said you had to come in to take a piss, and that was almost two hours ago. What bloody kept you?"
Harry, unburdened of his share of the library books, sucked in a breath and cut a heavy look at Hermione. He did not relish this explanation. From the look she returned to him, she wasn't particularly thrilled with the prospect of going into the whole mess so soon after extricating themselves from it, either.
Ron interpreted their looks toward one another quite differently."Oh, if you
stole back here to snog, please, don't tell me. Just say you should have passed on the mince pie last night at dinner and I'll sleep better."
Ginny smacked her brother on the arm. "Really, Ron, don't be such a git."
Ron scowled at his younger sister. "Hey, I think I'm being a right good sport about all this. Haven't made a ruckus about Hermione creeping into our room nights to sneak into Harry's bed, have I?"
"You're a real saint," Ginny quipped, but turned her attention next to Harry and Hermione. "Really, if you two just wanted some time alone you could have said so and we'd have found something to do on our own to give you space. No need to be crafty about it."
As Ron grumbled something about being under-appreciated, Hermione sat down next to Ginny. "Thanks, Ginny, but that's not what had us tied up. We were in Dumbledore's office."
Ron sent a confused look up at Harry, who had remained standing with arms folded over his chest. "Dumbledore's office? What for?"
"For a scolding."
Ginny's eyes widened. "A scolding? Why? What happened?" "I almost killed Malfoy."
Ron rolled his eyes understandingly… in the sense that he completely misunderstood Harry's meaning. "Yeah, can't count the times I'd like to murder the little bastard myself. You two had a row then, did you? Expect a teacher caught you dueling in the halls or something. But hey, you're here instead of sitting in detention, so it must have been Malfoy's fault and Dumbledore must have seen that, right?"
Hermione cast her eyes upward in a momentary 'heaven help me' look. "No, Ron. Malfoy is not in detention. He's in the hospital wing."
"Whoa!" Ron ejaculated, equally stunned and impressed, while Ginny covered her mouth for a second's span at the news.
"What did you do to him, Harry?"
"I told you, I almost killed him. Literally."
Ginny looked over at Hermione, who could offer only a nod in verification.
"Shite! Well, come on, sit down and tell me what happened." Ron gestured emphatically to the bench space beside him, still agog but painfully curious to hear about this nearly mortal row between Harry and his childhood school enemy since first year.
Before budging an inch to take the seat next to Ron, Harry tensed and his eyes flicked and came to rest on Ginny. He stood and stared, measuring and close-lipped. Ginny frowned at his expression then sat back when she realized Harry was hesitating to recount the story because she would hear it. The youngest Weasley did not take kindly to the slight. She narrowed her eyes and crossed her arms, stubbornly planting herself. "Oh, no, I don't think so. I want to hear what happened, too."
Ron, cottoning to the fact that Harry was reluctant to speak in front of Ginny, turned to his sister. "Shove off, Ginny… go write a disgusting letter to Seamus or something."
"No," Ginny retorted and looked obstinately between Harry and Hermione. She liked their stonewall expressions not at all. "Come on, why can't you tell me?" Seeking support, she turned naturally to Hermione seated beside her, face imploring the older girl to come to her aid.
Hermione avoided Ginny's eyes in favor of looking up at Harry.
He was looking questioningly at Hermione, seeking guidance as surely as Ginny sought a champion. Hermione shrugged."It's up to you, Harry. I'm fine with her knowing."
After a moment weighing his choices, Harry relented. "All right, then, you can stay, but you have to promise you won't tell anyone what you're about to hear," Harry said to Ginny.
"I promise."
Harry sighed and at last dropped down to the bench space offered him. Ron and Ginny were watching him raptly; Hermione gave him an encouraging half- smile when he glanced her way.
"Well," he began, "I did come in to use the loo, like I said, then I… well, I was just curious what Hermione was up to. We'd been outside having fun for a long time, and I suppose I wanted to make sure that she wasn't having a terrible time cooped up in here all by herself. I knew she'd most likely be in the library, so I thought I'd just drop in on her and see what she was doing.
"I was walking down the corridor toward the library when I heard Malfoy talking, sounded like to himself because I didn't hear anyone else so I hardly paid attention at first, then I came around the corner and saw that he'd cornered Hermione in the hall."
Ron's face darkened visibly and fire glinted in Ginny's eyes, but neither spoke.
"Malfoy had her backed up against the wall and he was aiming a wand at her, and I just… lost it."
"What'd you do?" Ron asked. Harry winced. "I… changed."
Ron nodded for Harry to continue. When Harry didn't, Ron thought on it a bit. Ginny was trying fervently to decipher the remark, but it was Ron who had the information to hit upon the meaning behind Harry's words. When he did, his eyes took on the likeness of saucers and his jaw dropped. "Bloody hell!"
"What? What?" Ginny looked between those at the table with her, confused.
Hermione chewed for a second on her bottom lip before she gave the room another cursory look to make sure it was empty but for them. They'd seen no one come in, but prudence still made her check. When Hermione was confident there would be no one unwanted who would hear what she was going to say, she shifted on the bench to directly face Ginny. Ginny was on the razor's edge, primed to hang on every word Hermione said.
"Now, you mustn't tell anyone, Ginny," Hermione insisted.
"You know I won't, Hermione. I'd never betray my friends."
"Well, you see…" Hermione took a breath and figured it was best to just have out with it. "Harry and I are animagi."
Ginny gaped for a moment. "You're…" she turned it over a few times as her eyes grew increasingly wider."Really?"
"Yeah, they are," Ron nodded, "It's true; I've seen them." "Since when?"
"Just the start of this term," Hermione answered.
"Wicked," Ginny mumbled, eliciting a brief smirk from Hermione despite the
situation. Ginny looked up again at Hermione then over at Harry."What animals are you?"
"I'm a black jaguar. Hermione is a lioness."
"Wow." Ginny shook her head. "That's all I can think to say. Wow. And maybe another wicked for good measure." Ginny's expression went from awed to shocked when the full implications of that confession connected with the earlier topic of Draco Malfoy. "Wait, so you… Harry, you changed into the black jaguar and attacked Malfoy?"
"Let the man tell it, Ginny," Ron groused, but Harry only gave an affirmative nod to Ginny's question. "Yeah, I did. I was blind mad. All I could think was that Malfoy was trying to hurt her. I kind of lost control of Knight."
"Hold on, I'm lost… what does nighttime have to do with this?" Ron asked.
"No, not 'night'. Knight's the name for when I'm the jaguar. Like my dad was Prongs and Sirius is Padfoot. I'm Knight."
"Oh…" Ron looked puzzled, as though to ask how long Harry had had a pseudonym when in animal form, then shrugged and apparently decided it wasn't important. "All right then."
Harry gave a lackadaisical shrug and crooked smirk."It's a new thing." "So what happened then?"
"I attacked Malfoy."
Ginny was sitting quietly and digesting all the new information at high speed. "It's a wonder you didn't kill him, Harry," she remarked soberly. She was looking at him oddly, as though trying to picture this powerful animal that he became.
"I would have, but Dumbledore stopped me."
Ron gulped. "Oh, crap… Dumbledore saw you… saw Knight?"
Hermione took up the recount there. "Yes. Just after Knight tackled Malfoy to the floor, Dumbledore came charging up. He used magic to cast Knight off of Malfoy and put a body bind on him so he couldn't finish what he started, the whole mauling Draco to pieces business, that is. Dumbledore took Draco to the hospital wing while I stayed behind with Knight. When Draco had been put in Madam Pomfrey's care, Dumbledore came back, released Knight from
the body bind, then it was to the headmaster's office for a long talk."
"Oh, that can't have gone well… are you two in trouble for being rogue animagi?" Ron asked uneasily.
Harry frowned and shook his head, as though still puzzled himself how it was that that was not the case. "No, actually… Dumbledore already knew we were animagi."
"You told him?" Ginny asked. Something in her tone seemed to suggest that, while she might forgive Ron being in on the secret (considering how close the three had always been), she couldn't help but feel a little snubbed if Dumbledore had been privy to the same secret while she'd been kept in the dark.
"No," Hermione replied, "we didn't, but… well, he knew just the same. I suppose we were silly to think we could hide something like that from him in the first place, as smart and powerful as he is."
"Suppose not," Ron mumbled in a distracted manner.
"He said he wouldn't turn us in for being rogues. He said, all things considered, it would do more harm than good to let on to anyone what he knew about us being animagi," Hermione said.
Ron nodded, still preoccupied with something catching in his thoughts, then he scowled mightily. "But fine if Dumbledore knows, you're still in big trouble, Harry. Malfoy saw you, er, Knight. Little chance he's going to think some random, big fuck-off panther with a scar exactly like yours was just passing by and decided to pop into Hogwarts for a walk-about."
Ginny gasped. "Merlin! Ron's right! That little ferret will go running straight to his father about what happened. He'll tell his dad all about Knight and you'll be in for it, Harry. He's had it out for you since, well, probably since you stopped You Know Who when you were one year old. If you hurt Draco as badly as you say…"
"Just how bad was it?" Ron interjected."I mean, you said you 'almost killed him', but any chance that's a bit of an exaggeration? Lucius Malfoy will probably try to have you thrown in Azkaban in any case, but… couldn't have been that bad, right?" Ron asked hopefully, fishing for the possibility that his friends weren't in as deep as it would seem at first glance.
Harry shared a look with Hermione then shook his head."No, I wasn't exaggerating. If Dumbledore had shown up any later than he had, Malfoy
would be dead; I'm certain of that."
"As it was," Hermione took up with saying, "Knight only had the opportunity to tear up Malfoy's arms with his claws, though Madam Pomfrey seems to believe she can mend him well enough to avoid him suffering permanent damage or loss of function in his arms."
Ron and Ginny's eyes were wide as Hermione detailed Draco's injuries.
"But as far as him ratting me out to his father," Harry picked up from Hermione's last words, "Dumbledore's taking care of it.
"When he broke us up in the hallway he also put Malfoy into some kind of coma. When he brings him out of it Dumbledore's going to perform a memory charm on Malfoy to make him believe he was attacked by a feral hippogriff."
Ginny frowned. "You know, there aren't a lot of wild hippogriffs about Hogwarts grounds… won't that look a bit dodgy?"
"Malfoy still thinks Buckbeak is around and on the loose after attacking him during third year then escaping execution," Hermione pointed out. "Malfoy was convinced of Buckbeak's desire to see him ripped to pieces, like all animals are going to be as vengeful as he himself is. When Malfoy's told that he was attacked by a hippogriff, chances are he'll probably assume it was Buckbeak that did it. No doubt he'll imagine Buckbeak's still out for his blood. That's the kind of rubbish a twisted, vindictive git like Malfoy would think."
"All the better if he thinks so, then," Harry decided. "Buckbeak's far from here, and Malfoy wants to see him killed anyway, so it doesn't really change anything."
"Here's to hoping he blames Buckbeak, then," Ron said in agreement. The redhead rubbed at the back of his neck and his expression screwed as he tried to put everything Harry and Hermione had said in its proper perspective. He finally glanced back up at Harry. "So are you in trouble for what you did to Malfoy?"
"Amazingly, no," Harry answered.
"Unbelievable, only Harry Potter," Ron muttered with a wry smirk and shake of his head. "So how'd you manage to get off without so much as lines when you go and nearly rip the arms off old ferret-boy?"
Hermione was the one to answer. "It was a concession on Dumbledore's part. Because he'll have to wipe Malfoy's memory of the attack, he obviously can't punish him for accosting me in the corridor."
"Oh, damn, he gets away with it?!" Ron groused.
"Don't complain, it's worth it. He let Harry off with nothing sterner than a warning." Hermione considered Ron and Ginny's faces and added, "It's well worth it. Harry could have been in serious trouble for such a vicious attack on a fellow student. He could have been expelled. They might have even brought the Ministry of Magic into the whole fiasco."
"Yeah, I know, for the best, I get it, but I'm still not happy about that rotten bastard getting away with cornering you like that."
"Neither am I," Harry added, his tone low and a shade hostile.
"Neither of you better do anything stupid and undo all that Dumbledore did to sort this mess. I can take care of myself, you know," Hermione stated peevishly.
"Hmph. Sounds to me like you were in a real tight spot today before Har- Knight rescued you," Ron mumbled.
Hermione's nostrils flared and she leveled a venomous look at Ron. "I wasn't expecting Malfoy to take it that far. You know him, mean-spirited and rotten to the core but in the end a lot of talk with no bite. He hasn't the courage to be evil. Real milk-snake, that particular Slytherin."
"He wasn't going to just leave it at talk this time, Hermione," Harry said sternly as he looked at her, his concern just offsetting what would have otherwise come across as fury in his face.
For the layer of devote affection in Harry's expression, Hermione was conciliatory rather than caustic when she said, "I know, Harry. I wasn't expecting him to take it that far… but I know better now. He's playing at a different game than his usual bluster, he's playing for much bigger stakes than he ever has before, and I'm wise to that now. I won't let myself be caught like that again. I don't want you to risk being expelled because of me."
Harry didn't offer a retort, but the pinch of his lips and the knit in his brow said it all. He thought her worth that a thousand times over, and worth risking a thousand times worse, but he wasn't fool enough to say that to her. He did know Hermione well enough to see an impossible wall of
stubbornness when she put one up. And unlike Ron, he never fancied the practice of uselessly throwing himself against it.
Hermione leaned forward and touched Harry's hand to stress the importance that he listen to her. "Harry, please… trust me. I know you just want to protect me, but I really can look out for myself. He won't disarm me again like he did today, and if he does…" Hermione's expression hardened, even as her eyes shone at Harry, "remember, Harry, you're not the only one who could physically rip Malfoy apart without a wand.
"Malfoy may be serving a darkness bigger than himself that has given him the bollocks to go farther than he would on his own, but here in Hogwarts, as a boy with a wand, he's no match for either of us."
Harry studied Hermione a moment then relented with a sigh. "I know… you're right. I just…"
"I know," Hermione said softly and smiled while he considered her. Harry waited a beat before finally giving a relenting nod, none too happy about it, but aware of a battle he would have to concede.
With the stand-off between Harry and Hermione resolved, the atmosphere in the room seemed to relax by several degrees.
Ron sat back and blew out a breath. "Well, it's never a dull moment with you, is it, Harry? Though I have to say I'm really sorry I missed seeing you, uh, seeing Knight tear into Malfoy. Boy, I'd have given my new Cleansweep to see that! Well, maybe not my new one, but definitely my old one."
Ginny favored her brother with a long-suffering but affectionate look. Then she turned to Hermione. "So, do you have an animagus name, too, Hermione? Like Knight?"
She nodded. "It's Sagehunter."
"Sagehunter?" Ron repeated with a look on his face like he'd just stuck his nose in a manky old shoe, "Who came up with a name like that?"
"It was given to me by a house elf." "Oh, well, that explains it."
"What exactly does that mean?" Hermione asked with a faint edge to her voice.
"Uh… nothing, nevermind."
"I thought so," Hermione returned airily, but there was a light in her eye that told Ron that she was not as riled as she pretended. After the near-miss with absolute disaster from Knight's attack on Malfoy, she couldn't find the ire enough to be mad at something as tame as a bit of house elf disparagement by the likes of Ron.
Ron smiled, knowing the bullet he'd dodged and duly grateful for it.
"Hermione?" Harry said lowly as he looked across the table at her. Hermione saw a seriousness in his face as well as heard it in his tone that sobered her at once to possible calamity. Harry, unmindful of the two Weasleys at the table with them, asked, "Can I talk to you a minute? Alone?"
Hermione already felt the first tickle of dread. "Sure." She rose from the table just as Harry did, they met at the far end, and Harry lightly took her arm and led her silently toward the boys' dorm stairwell. Without question, Hermione went with him.
When they were in Harry's dorm room he let go of her arm and Hermione naturally gravitated toward Harry's bed. She sat down on top of the comforter and thought, in passing, how second-nature it had become to go to his bed. In a part of her mind, she even thought of it a bit as their bed. She looked forward to one day when it truly would be a bed they shared… preferably one with more room for… moving… than the slender beds of Hogwarts.
Hermione looked up at Harry, who remained standing a few feet from her. He was watching her, worry and intensity on his face.
"What is it?" Hermione asked, almost afraid to know the answer.
"What did Malfoy say to you?"
Hermione frowned and looked away. "Harry… what does it matter?" "I want to know."
Hermione shook her head and looked back at him. "What good will it do? It would only make you angrier at him, and I don't think you need any more reason than you have already to hate Malfoy." Hermione bit her lip then added, "I don't know that Knight could handle knowing."
Harry looked bitter and walked across the room quietly to stand at the
window. Hermione pulled her legs up on to the bed so she could turn and watch him. Harry stared out at the winter landscape of the school grounds, his jaw tight and profile tense.
"What are you thinking?" Hermione asked when the minutes began to drag without a word spoken.
"I'm thinking… how this will never end for you." "What, Malfoy's insults?"
"Not just Malfoy's," Harry sighed and picked at the window sill with his fingernails. "You'll always be a target because of me. And I don't just mean Voldemort and Death Eaters, because at least those I can do something about… I can fight that."
"You mean the talk. All the gossip and whispers and Rita Skeeters," Hermione said with sudden understanding.
Harry nodded and scowled out at the snow.
"Harry… you think I'm a fairly smart person, right?"
Harry's stony façade cracked to permit a fleeting smile. "You know I think you're nothing short of genius."
"Then you can't think I'd agree to marry you without realizing all that that might entail. I know you're a public figure, much as you detest it, and I know being with you puts me the spotlight, too. I can handle any number of Rita Skeeters. It's just talk. Talk can't harm us unless we let it. We just have to make a vow to never let gossip put a wedge between us. No matter how vile or despicable or underhanded the rumor, no matter how believable it may sound, we must promise to talk to each other before anything else, to come clean on the real facts. And if we do, then all their yapping is just silly nonsense, and it can't touch us."
Harry turned to her… then he smiled, slowly and it looked like it was almost partly in amazement.
Hermione sat back a little, unsure what she'd said to garner such a reaction when only a few moments ago he'd been upset.
Harry walked over to his bed and sat down on the opposite edge, but since the bed was narrow they ended up sitting very near one another, facing each other. Harry reached up and tangled his fingers in her hair. "I can promise
you that, at least," he said. "I'm still sorry that you'll be forced to deal with all the… fame crap I do."
Hermione snickered. "Wife of the Boy Who Lived? I can think of a lot worse public images to have. Might even be a nickname that could grow on me."
Harry chuckled then pulled his hand free of her hair to work his fingertips underneath the chain of her necklace. He followed it to the front of her shirt collar and Hermione watched as Harry pulled the medallion out of her shirt. She felt its absence against her skin as Harry cupped the warm gold in his palm.
Hermione looked up at Harry through her lashes while he stared at the medallion. He studied the disk a long time, let his thumb run over the etched glyphs, then he licked his lips as though about to say something… but he didn't.
"Harry?" Hermione whispered curiously.
He shook his head. "I just… stupid thought went through my head." "What was it?"
"Well, for a moment I felt like I ought to thank you." "For what?"
Harry looked up at her and met her gaze. He offered her a crooked smile.
"For having me." A faint blush colored his cheeks and he gave a shrug.
Hermione smiled, leaned forward, and captured his mouth with hers. Harry responded at once, pressing his lips to hers, parting for her venturing tongue, engaging it with his own. His free hand came up to cradle the back of her head as Hermione deepened the kiss, wrapping her arms around his neck and leaning back. Harry, resolute to not break the dueling of their tongues, followed her until she was on her back on the bed and Harry over her. For a moment time was lost to one another as they kissed. The hand Harry had wrapped around the medallion let go of the gold coin to find a better place on Hermione's waist. Hermione drew her arms back enough to splay her fingers over Harry's shoulders. She slipped her hands down beneath his arms to curl her fingers against his back. Harry sucked in a breath at her touch and when he brought his mouth back down to her it was not on her mouth, but on her throat. Hermione bit back a gasp and found her hands sliding down Harry's sides without her control. She pulled up his shirt and slipped her hands inside, bringing her skin to skin with Harry.
In a reflexive reaction to her suddenly light fingers on his stomach, Harry nipped gently with his teeth at her neck. Hermione trembled and turned her face into the crook of his neck to give him a gentle bite in retaliation.
Harry's hand on her waist moved up and cupped her breast.
"Harry…" Hermione breathed, "Ron and Ginny…"
Harry grunted. "I don't fancy making this a team sport," he rumbled close to her ear.
Hermione's eyes fluttered closed at the sound of his voice. "No… they're right downstairs… we should… Harry, stop."
Harry let her breast go, placed his hand on the bed next to her instead, but he didn't pull away or stop kissing her neck and to her eternal consternation Hermione couldn't seem to make her hands remove themselves from Harry's stomach. As Harry suckled softly at her throat, leaving a trail of insanity toward her collarbone, Hermione's hands inexplicably kept sliding higher up Harry's torso until his shirt was riding high on his shoulders and her hands were hot against his chest.
Harry's hand, ever so obedient only moments ago, rebelled and Hermione squeaked into Harry's shoulder when she felt him slip his hand under her shirt. Though really, it seemed it was only fair.
If he kept doing that to her throat with his mouth, she'd go mad. She pushed against his chest, intent on making him back up so she might have his mouth with her own. Harry leaned back as she asked and Hermione was almost shocked when her hands grabbed handfuls of his shirt and peeled it up and over his head when he moved away. Harry's hands were gone from her body for a second while he considerately freed his arms so she could completely relieve him of his shirt. She blinked up at him, winded and hungry, but not for food, when she saw him looking down at her, black hair tousled, eyes dark, and chest bare.
Hermione couldn't wait for him to come to her; she sat up, tossed Harry's shirt aside, and reached for him. Their mouths clashed together, lips and tongue and light scrapes of teeth. Hermione made a feral sound in the back of her throat when Harry's hands went to her hips, and she had to break from the kiss when Harry tugged her shirt up and over her head, much as she'd disrobed him. Hermione gaped when she found herself sitting on the bed with a half-naked Harry, she herself naked from the waist up save for her bra and the medallion.
Harry stared down at her, his chest rising and falling rapidly, and Hermione could have asked the rivers to run backwards for the joy in seeing him look at her as he did. She could almost pretend Ron and Ginny weren't just downstairs… almost.
Harry leaned toward her and Hermione mustered all her strength to place her hand on his chest… and push him back. He blinked at her, wounded and confused, and Hermione hated it. Because they made it necessary, just then she hated Ron and Ginny a little bit, too.
"We have to stop, Harry," Hermione breathed regretfully. "Really… Ron and Ginny could catch us."
Harry groaned. "I don't bloody even care, Mione."
The scary part was, Hermione felt much the same way when intellectually she knew she shouldn't.
Her restraining hand on Harry's chest found its way to sliding up and then around to the nape of his neck… and she began to draw him nearer, her eyes locked on his lips.
A crash and inhuman scream startled them both.
"Hey!" they heard Ron yell from downstairs.
"Be quiet!" Ginny resounded back, being only slightly less loud than her brother.
"Bloody little furball knocked over my rook! And I was about to win!"
"Were not! And Hermione will skin you if she finds out you threw Crookshanks across the room. You're such a prat!"
"He landed on his feet, didn't he?! And I was to about to win, right before that bloody beast scattered our pieces. You're going to coax the queen from underneath the couch, don't even think that I'm going to do it."
"Keep your voice down!" "What the bloody hell for?"
"You'll ruin it for Harry and Hermione, that's what for." "Ruin what for Harry and Hermione?! They're talking!"
"They're snogging, you half-wit!" "Talking!"
"Snogging!"
Hermione dropped her forehead to rest on Harry's bare shoulder and grumbled. "Neither now, thanks guys."
Harry chuckled, though it was hard to miss the note of regret in his tone, too. "Count on Ron to ruin a moment," he quipped dryly, nuzzling his face into her hair with a wistful sigh.
Resigned, Hermione drew back from Harry and fetched her shirt. Harry watched, a bit dejectedly, as she put it back on. When she was fully clothed again she ducked in and kissed Harry lightly on the lips, chaste and apologetic, and she said, "One day, it'll be just the two of us without a Weasley in sight."
Harry smiled.
Hermione stood from the bed. "I better go down there and see what Ron's done to poor Crookshanks."
"Mione?" Harry called after her, stopping her at the door. She turned and looked inquiringly at him.
"Are you going to tell me what Malfoy said to you today?"
Hermione paused to study Harry a moment, weighing the consequences before she gave him an answer. "I will… when it can't get you into trouble."
"But—"
"It'll keep, Harry. Please."
Harry watched her closely a moment, warring with himself, until finally he nodded. "Okay."
Hermione smiled and left the room to see what had caused the commotion downstairs and what damage had ensued.