Vox Corporis: Rebirth

Pursuant to the Berne Convention Implementation Act of 1988 and the Digital Millennium Copywrite Act of 1998, this work is copywrited 2007 with all rights expressly reserved by its author unless explicitly granted. No portion may be reproduced in any fashion without the express written and notarized permission of the author.



Disclaimer: I do not own any of the Harry Potter characters. All characters are creations of Joanne K Rowling, © 2007, to whom I am deeply indebted.



CONTENT Disclaimer: This story contains sexually graphic and explicit material and as such, it is not suitable for minors. If you are a minor, please leave now, as it is illegal for you to be here. If it is illegal for you to read or view sexually explicit material in the community you view such material, please leave now. This story and characters are purely fictional and any resemblance to events or persons (living or dead) is purely coincidental. If you are offended by sexually explicit stories, please read no further. If you are offended by stories featuring group sex, bisexual situations, incest, or any other situation, please check the story code before reading the text. These stories are just that, stories, and do not promote or condone the activities described herein



In Gratia: The original story was created so beautifully and so powerfully by MissAnnThropic. I owe a huge debt of gratitude to her for her kindness in letting me ‘play in her sandbox’.



Note One: the platinum ring that Harry is given by Hermione can be found here:
weddingbands.com/ProductPop_wedding_bands_metal/F119591PP.html



Note Two: This chapter is 15,154 words, comprising 35 pages of story. I write in Palatino Linotype font; 11-point type, with justified margins.



Note Three: JKR said, in an interview given after DH was released, that Dumbledore is gay. Not to put too fine a point on it, but JKR is just wrong. Not only wrong, but arrogant in her ‘pronouncement’. She had 7 books during which to discuss this subject and chose not to do so. Anything NOT in the book is simply not cannon. It’s just speculation or opinion. That’s the way I’m treating it.



From Chapter 84 – “Rowena’s Story”

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He desperately hoped that it was the latter and that Rowena could be healed. Madame Pomfrey was a medi-witch of singular skill – that’s why she had the posting at Hogwarts. However, Harry was pretty certain that Rowena’s issues were at once simpler and harder to heal than anything else with which she had had to contend during the time that Harry had been at school.



“Hermione? We have to get her to a healer, fast. She’s not well and if we don’t get her help, it could be bad. She wants to die, doesn’t she?”



Her voice – the voice he heard in his head – was so subdued and sad that he hardly heard it. “Yes.”



Stroking Hermione’s face gently with one hand, he reached across the table to the older woman, to offer her his hand and to try to show her that she wasn’t alone in her suffering. It was a simple gesture, but it meant a great deal to Rowena. She covered his hand with hers and felt the warmth of his magic and the power that he kept bottled up.


She smiled at him. It was a weak smile, but it was there. Hermione saw it and she knew that there still was hope for her grandmother.

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Sunrise - West end of London: under the Hammersmith Bridge - Monday, September 23rd.


Needles of pain stabbed her as she stood, still slightly unsteady from a very, very bad nights’ sleep, and looked about. She was cold, miserable, and hungry. Blonde hair that had been a point of pride with her was a ragged rats’ nest, because it had not seen a comb in almost two weeks, and her clothes were ragged, ripped imitations of their former selves.



“C’mere, darling and give me a kiss” the sick, filthy drunk who was sitting under the support span said from the shadows. Rita ignored him.



She had been trying to ignore him all night as they huddled around the meager fire which had kept them warm against the chilly nights’ air – with varying degrees of success. The old man had been getting more and more drunk as the night passed, even though he wasn’t drinking anything serious.



“Not like Ogden’s”, she thought darkly.

Rita knew a great deal about Ogden’s. It had been the drink of choice of the editor and his inner circle and she had at least learned to tolerate it, as she had climbed up through the ranks at the Prophet.

Because of Ogden’s, she had more than once found herself naked, flat on her back, with either Inkwell Blaine or one of his flunkies, naked and sweaty above her, going through the motions of trying to pleasure her. It had never, ever worked. She wasn’t sure, in retrospect, whether the spectacular failures of those trysts had been her fault or theirs, but she was sure that it wasn’t something she was ever going to do again, either.

To the right side of the bridge, from where she stood, there was a boat that had been left on the sand. It had been left there so its owner could practice rowing, she was sure – because there wasn’t any other rational reason for it to be there, she thought.

She stopped and listened for a moment as she walked along the sand. It was so early that the sound of cars crossing the bridge had ceased for a time. She knew that it would pick up again soon, but the lack of it was very pleasant.



Rita had found her way to the refuge under the bridge several nights before; just before the skies had opened up and poured out their contents. The fire which had beckoned her had been a beacon in the twilight and, for a reason that she could not explain, she couldn’t resist it.



The fire was out now and she was cold and hungry. She knew that she’d not make it to the women’s’ shelter that her fellow refugees had told her was nearby in time for breakfast if she didn’t hurry.



It would have been easier to apparate there, but that took energy that she didn’t have and she knew that if she was seen, she’d be in violation of the Statutes of Secrecy and the Aurors were very much the last people she wanted to see.

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The complete destruction of the Prophet had scared her all the way to the pit of her stomach, when she had learned of it the prior afternoon. She had heard about it when she dared to venture into the one wizarding place she knew of in west London – Porpington Square.

It had been a dicey thing to follow the two old hags into the square. Without a wand, she’d not have been able to get past the wards which kept muggles out, so she had to get through the barrier before it closed again. Once she was safely inside, she made her way in the shadows to a corner, where she’d not be seen, but at the same time, watch the comings and goings.



In the middle of the square stood a six-meter high bronzed statue of someone she recognized immediately - Sir Nicholas de Mimsy-Porpington….nearly-headless Nick. She laughed to herself, despite the residual pain. The awful blisters had turned her aging-but-pretty face into something that looked like it had been ravaged by fire and the healing scares had tightened her formerly soft skin, making it painful. That she hadn’t yet seen herself was a blessing.



As she made her way along, she found on the ground, crumpled in a loose ball, a copy of The Quibbler.



The paper was dated Sunday, September 22nd. “That’s odd”, she thought to herself at the time. “The Quibbler comes out only twice a week.” Rita mechanically sorted and straightened out the pages and then started reading. She hadn’t even gotten as far as the banner headline when she gasped and sagged down, against the wall.



Prophet Destroyed in Fire. Ministry blames renegade forces.



The article was attributed to Xenophilius Lovegood, the eccentric editor, and covered all of the first two left-hand columns of the front page. The picture in the center, above the fold, was of a burning building that Rita recognized immediately.



As she read through the article, what was not being said was much more salient than what was expressed. She got the feeling that Lovegood knew a great deal more than he was letting on and was making every effort to obfuscate the facts.



That he was trying to hide something didn’t surprise her. The Prophet’s reporters had become famous for giving out, at best, half-truths and for deliberately clouding fairly straight-forward situations, when it suited someone’s needs.



Rita snorted, humorlessly, as she sat against the cold stone wall. She knew – and most likely, so too did the people who destroyed the Prophet – exactly which families or individuals had enough pull with Inkwell Blaine to get facts fuzzed up sufficiently to cast blame or aspersions elsewhere.



She was sure that the two people she had come to hate most had been behind it and she knew that if they were willing to go as far as to destroy wizarding Britain’s major daily newspaper, then they’d most likely be just as willing to find her and dispose of her, too.


Also, it was no real secret that if the Prophet’s secret records – of payments (bribes), back-room agreements, and letters to people like Lucius Malfoy – ever reached Harry or Hermione, she, and maybe quite a few others, were as good as dead. The only problem was that she didn’t have a wand and she had no one to whom she could turn to get one. She was well and truly alone.

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Sunrise – The Burrow - Monday, September 23rd


Molly Weasley was cold, but energized. The Sun was just breaking across the orchard at the east end of their property and there was work to be done for her family. She never felt happier than when she was in her own kitchen; cooking, knitting, or otherwise taking care of her family. That there was just the two of them – her and Arthur - anymore was a bitter pill to swallow, she none-the-less set about making breakfast.



Soon, a post-owl appeared at the doorway. Tied to its leg was a rolled up newspaper that had been shrunk to make it more manageable. It was a point of pride with her to be the one to greet the owl each morning.



Reaching into the jar that they kept by the door for the very purpose; she dug out a Knut and put it in the small leather satchel which was bound to a strap which formed a harness around the birds’ chest.



Having paid the bird, Molly dug into a separate jar for an owl treat. There was no sense, she thought, in sending the beautiful bird back hungry. It clicked its bill; took the treat in one claw, and with Molly’s smile to accompany it; flew out the window.



As it landed at the top of the apple tree that was just outside the kitchen window, she thought about Errol – the old owl that they had had as a family. Errol had died in the early spring, just after Riddle had been dispatched.



Molly’s thoughts jumped from Riddle to Harry as she looked at the front page of The Daily Prophet. She wondered, for a moment, why the Friday, late-edition, copy of the paper was being delivered so late.



She looked at the banner headline above the fold and saw a picture of the young, gorgeous, raven-haired wizard – the most powerful, young wizard in the world – who could have….should…. have been her son-in-law.



“Granger”, she thought. “Kinky-haired, self-centered, ambitious, muggle-born BITCH” Molly fumed. “Stole Harry away from my Ginny.” A glass next to the sink shattered as the negative energies that she was generating shook the kitchen.



Just then, Arthur came down the stairs and the sound of his foot-falls brought Molly out of her emotional storm.



She was just reaching for her wand, to fix the broken glass, when Arthur reached the bottom step and spoke. “Mollywobbles? What is it?”



His red-haired wife of forty-three years looked at him, as if she was a deer staring into a cars’ headlights. Arthur knew the look and worried that she was still going on about Harry and Hermione.



As he took her into his arms, she looked up at him and her eyes were swimming with hurt and frustration. He held her against his chest and ran his fingers through her soft, curly hair – a move that he had perfected many years before, while they were courting at Hogwarts. It immediately settled her and helped her calm her magic.



“Molls? You’ve not blown up anything in a long time….” That he had heard it bothered her. That he asked her about it embarrassed her. That he knew what was troubling her made her love him all the more.



“Oh Arthur! It’s just that….it’s just that I love Harry as a son and it irks me that Granger came in and just took him away from Ginny, even before she even had a chance to tell him how she felt about him. She never had a chance!”



Arthur separated himself from her; lovingly capturing her face in his hands and looking down at her. “Molly – she never had a chance because she didn’t TAKE the chance. She had the opportunity.



The look on her face was of protestation wanting to break forth and Arthur cut her off before she could get going. “Don’t start, Molly! She had three, maybe even four years, and couldn’t gather the courage to say even word one to Harry about how she felt. You know that I always told her that she needed to be much more emotionally honest. That she didn’t listen to me is not Harry’s fault, nor is it Hermione’s. It’s Ginny’s and only Ginny’s.”



Molly leaned against the counter as Arthur held her. If she hadn’t, she might have collapsed, as the truth of Arthur’s words struck her.



She was shaking and there was nothing Arthur could do about it. They had never shared magic or bonded, despite the fact that they had a very, very close and loving relationship, and so he could not calm her the way that he wanted to do.



“But Arthur…” she said, finally. “Granger doesn’t deserve him. Ginny loved Harry since the day they met, practically! Ginny would have been so good for him.” She held up the Prophet and showed him the front page.



He almost tore it out of her hands and threw it into the fireplace in disgust. “Molly! I’m surprised at you! Ginny never loved Harry. She loved the “Boy-Who-Lived” and nothing more. She was in love with the idea of being in love with him and that, unfortunately, is mostly thanks to the years of hearing you read her bedtime stories night after night about Lily’s sacrifice and how Harry survived Tom’s curse.”



Arthur took a breath and gathered himself and then launched into his next thought. “Hermione loves Harry and if the rumors are correct, has loved him since they were in forth year together. More, Hermione deserves Harry. She was there, killing death eaters and risking her very life, the night that Harry dispatched Tom and if that’s not enough, Harry chose Hermione. You know damn well that when Hermione was in the hospital, Harry never left her side. He ate nothing for almost four days because he was so worried. If that’s not love, nothing is.”



“Still! Ginny would be a better wife for him. What does Granger know about the wizarding world, really? What does she know about being a wife and keeping a home?”



Arthur was becoming exasperated. “Molly! Harry has a house elf and if he wants, can hire others. I’ve been told that he has more money than Merlin himself and I am sure that Hermione will be a great and wonderful wife for him. She loves him more than life itself. You should know that. Did you listen to what Ron told you? Did you not understand what he said about their relationship? Even Ginny has told you how much Hermione loves him. What more do you need?”



Molly wasn’t giving up, though. “Well – there’s no reason not to hope that Harry will see reason and leave her, when he discovers that brains are not all that are important in a relationship.”



Arthur’s face went as red as his hair, for there was truly nothing that Molly could have said that might have made Arthur angrier. His voice rose to a level she had never heard before. “MOLLY! I can’t believe you! MERLIN! Where the hell do you get off hoping that Harry will leave Hermione? Those two were MADE for each other. You forget that I was AT their wedding. YOU WEREN’T. I SAW THEM TOGETHER. There’s no one who will EVER come between them!”



She started to respond when Arthur waved a hand at her. “Save it, Molly. I’m disgusted right now. Wishing ill for Harry’s marriage is as bad as wishing ill for Harry himself. You need to sit and think about what you’ve said this morning and come to grip with the fact that Harry will never, ever leave Hermione.”



In an instant, he was gone, with a soft crack! and Molly was left to contemplate what had just happened between her and the man whom she had loved for so many years.

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Godric's Hollow; Monday Morning, Sept. 23rd. Sunrise.

The first fingers of the suns’ rays were sneaking over the tops of the trees as Harry stretched out in bed. He was warm and comfortable next to the woman whom he knew he’d love for the rest of his life.



Hermione’s hair tickled his nose, as he buried his face in the nape of her neck and spooned himself next to her. It was, all things being equal, the only perfect place on earth. He was therefore loath to disturb it by rousting himself out and preparing himself – and Hermione – for what they knew had to be done.



But – there was nothing for it. Dumbledore had always said that the mark of a good person was whether, when the moment came, the person did what was right and not what was easy.



Both he and Hermione had agreed that what they had to do was not going to be easy…and it was probably going to put them on the outs with Jake and Miranda…but they were prepared for that. Hermione had long since decided that when she and Harry made a decision together, she was not going to second-guess it. She’d defend what they had chosen to do unless or until someone outside of their relationship could prove to them both that it was the wrong way to go.



As quietly and painlessly as possible, Harry drew back the covers, careful not to allow a chill to reach Hermione, he put a house-coat on and made his way to their bathroom and the warm shower that awaited.



He decided that Hermione deserved the chance to sleep in a little bit, while he looked in on their ‘guest’.



Turning on the shower, Harry dropped his robe to the ground and stepped into the refuge of the shower stall. It was a good place to think…because it felt so good that he could let his mind go and wander through subjects that he might not otherwise get to. This morning, his thoughts were centered on the necklace that Hermione had been given by Dumbledore and on the other gifts that they had not yet had the time to examine.



Harry realized, in a detached way, that he cared not a fig for any of the money that he had and that, if he had a chance, it would feel really good to give most all of it away. It was one of those things that he didn’t ever expect to have as an issue in his life when he was at No. 4, Privet Drive, and it was just overwhelming enough that he thought he might really need some professional guidance on how to be free of it.



As he washed his hair, he felt Hermione’s mind stirring and he send her a tendril of love through their shared magic.



He could feel the ebb and flow of her emotions and they were generally peaceful; which was good, considering the trauma that they had gone through the night before. He was still not completely satisfied with the way it had played out, but there was nothing that could be done about it. Resolution would not come quickly or easily and he suspected that both Dumbledore and Madame Pomfrey would have some things to say to them when they returned to Hogwarts bearing their ‘package’.

**********************************************************************************
As Harry stepped out of the shower, he felt the tug of a wakeful Hermione in his mind and he sent back another tendril of love. He put a little more energy behind this one and made sure that she felt it where he intended.



Her response came shooting back quickly enough. “Harry! Don’t do that if you’re not prepared to deal with the consequences!”



His reply was drawl. “And pray tell, what consequences might those be?”



“Come back to bed and find out, if you’re not chicken!”



As he dried off his body with a warmed bath towel and some judiciously applied charms, he answered her. “Oh? Challenging me? You sure that’s a good idea? I seem to remember a certain kitty-cat who couldn’t walk straight after the last time she did that.”



It was an inside joke between the two of them, because she had dared him like this once before and ended up trying to get away through the woods around Godric’s Hollow as Sagehunter before he caught her as Knight and made her submit to him. It would have been rape, if she hadn’t been so very, very willing and eager to let the scene play out. She knew, of course, that he’d never hurt her, so she had quite happily given herself over to the game.



He felt her leering grin through their bond and made his way quickly back to their bedroom. There, laying back on the bed, was his naked, exhibitionist wife. One hand was rolling a nipple in between pinching fingers and the other was busy moving insistently, up and down and from side to side between her gorgeous, long legs, in increasingly erratic movements, as her breath became labored.



She didn’t even see him as she lost herself in a fog of pleasure.



He wanted to move….to join in….but he couldn’t. He was rooted to the spot by the sheer erotic beauty of the moment.



Suddenly, she arched her back and almost screamed out his name as the waves of orgasm hit her. Ignoring the throbbing between his own legs for a moment, he walked to the edge of the bed and looked down at her. Her eyes were still glazed and unfocused, but she was right there with him in their bond. “Did you like watching, love?”



“You know I did, love. It’s still the most amazing thing I’ve ever seen. You’re unspeakably beautiful when you’re excited.”



As she snaked an arm up and pulled him down on top of her, she send a pulse of thought to him. “You know, love. I had an idea this morning about our ‘situation’ “



Harry cut her off. “No love. Let’s talk about that in an hour. Right now…pleasure before work.”



She cocked on eyebrow at him before surrendering to the pleasure of his kisses and caresses.

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Apparition Point in Borgin & Burkes – Knockturn Alley –– 9:45 am. Monday, September 23rd.


The CRACK! made by Rita Skeeter’s sudden appearance would have woken the dead, so Maliphila Burgin, the daughter of the late owner, had no fear that a thief had suddenly entered their shop. No thief would last more than the blink of an eye with that loud an apparition.



She was startled, however, when she came out of the back room of the store and found a bedraggled, foul-smelling, uncoiffed, Rita Skeeter. At first, she didn’t recognize the woman, because of the pockmarked skin and sallow colors. Then she looked at the woman’s eye-glasses and it instantly came to her whom her visitor was. Without thinking, Maliphila clapped her hand to her mouth and looked in horror at the once beautiful, high-society reporter.



Once she had collected herself, she looked at the acid-tongued reporter and, as sweetly and softly as she was able, said “Rita! What happened! You’ve not been here in ages…and obviously, something terrible has happened to you!”



Showing as much concern as she was able to muster for the woman who had once thought herself above all of the proprietresses in Diagon Alley, Maliphila summoned her cloak from the other room by waving her hand in its general direction. It was one of the very few pieces of wandless magic that she could do, but it impressed Rita anyway.



Feeling the cloak drape itself warmly around her shoulders, she looked studiously at the floor. There was a part of her that was burning with shame that she had ever spoken badly of this young woman.



Her voice was so much less acerbic than the last time Maliphila had heard it that it was shocking. “Ms. Burgin….I’m…..I’m sorry to intrude. I…..I…..had no one…no one else to turn to.”



Maliphila, sensing that she was about to gain a significant advantage if she was careful, said to her visitor as solicitously as she could, “Rita…it’s Maliphila, please….just come with me. Let me help.”



It was at that point that Rita choked back a sob and tried to steady herself by leaning against a wall. “I’m sorry, Maliphila. It’s just that…it’s been a very hard two weeks.”



Knowing when to shut up and let a person talk, the young shop-keeper guided her visitor into their private showing room and bade her sit in an overstuffed chair near the fire.



“Rita? I’ll be right back. Today’s a slow day and I think we’re going to need much of it to talk, so let me just go put up the closed sign and you can tell me everything.”



Rita put her face in her hands and just nodded.

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An hour later, after she had helped the once-famous reporter into a new set of clothes, as well as wizarding robes, that befitted her and given her a good going over with both cleaning and grooming charms, they drained a first pot of tea while Maliphila settled herself into her chair and listened as Rita told her the most fascinating stories about Harry Potter and his friends.



It would be several long hours before she got to the part about being cursed by Rowena Granger…but in that moment, Maliphila realized that she had what few others in the wizarding world had: a biased, but largely accurate account of the school life and exploits of the most famous person in magical Europe and perhaps the most powerful wizard since Merlin himself.

It was a gold mine the likes of which she could never have hoped. The question was what to do with it?



The Slytherin thing, she thought…and maybe the right thing, to do would be to use the information to help herself out of her current predicament, and Maliphila had a conscience enough to know the difference. The second thing to do would be to break her cousin out of Azkaban. Since the dementors had either fled or been destroyed, Azkaban was no longer the wretched place it used to be. Wizards didn’t scream themselves into insanity over time because the dementors were clawing away at their souls and leaching all of the happiness out of them.



No…Under the Ministry for Magic’s revised policies and new administration, Azkaban had become just another cold, dank, dark, foul place; full of largely unrepentant, evil, petty criminals who just didn’t care about society’s rules and who were watched by equally foul-tempered witches and wizards who were serving their duty stints there because they were new to Ministry law enforcement.



Maliphila decided that she’d make that her first priority. Her cousin had hooked up with some very bad people, no doubt, but had never taken the Dark Mark, and was just generally a good person, even if she didn’t give a fig for the typical conventions and mores of wizarding Britain. In truth, Maliphila missed her. She also missed her cousins’ touch at night and the pleasures that the two had brought each other while they had been together.



Before she left, Rita looked at Maliphila across the table. Her hands were trembling and she knew that she was about to ask for something that she had no right to ask…but she had to do it anyway. There was no way that she’d be able to make it back into wizarding society and have any sort of respect if she didn’t take the chance.



Maliphila returned Rita’s gaze and said, with a gentle smile pulling at the edges of her mouth, “We’re both adults and I feel like I know you well, even though I only watched from the shadows when you spoke with my father in the past. You’re welcome here and I’d like to think that we could be friends, too.”



The young shopkeeper was no fool. She had watched her father obsequiously cater to patrons from the shadows over the years and she had come to realize several things about people. The first was that every person wants something. Secondly, every person has something potentially precious to offer. Rita had already given up everything she had that was of value, so now it was her turn to offer something. What Rita asked for didn’t surprise her.

*********************************************************************************


After Rita left, Maliphila walked through the back room, over to the fireplace and grabbed a handful of floo-powder. What she was about to do was risky, but she had to confirm for herself whether the stories she had just been told were accurate.



Throwing it towards the grate, she watched as a magical, green fire sprang up. Kneeling quickly, she thrust her head in and called out “Albus Dumbledore”.

Surprisingly quickly, the face of the aged wizard appeared in the flames. “Can I help you?”



The young shop-mistress knew how powerful Albus Dumbledore was, and she knew that antagonizing him would be a mistake, so she measured her words carefully.



“Headmaster, thank you for answering my call. I know you are a busy man, so I’m going to get to the point.”



The Headmaster smiled. “That is always prudent, when speaking with someone you’ve not met before.”



She nodded and said carefully, “My name is Maliphila Borgin and I have come across a great deal of information about one of your students….information that might not be advantageous to that student to have released. I’m proposing an exchange.”



The Headmasters’ eyes went slightly wide for a moment and then settled down.



“I think that perhaps you come to my office, so that we can talk. I will unblock my floo for a few minutes so you can do so.”



Maliphila nodded and stood up, breaking the magical connection. She centered herself for a moment and then took another handful of the floo powder. Once the green flame sprang up, she stepped confidently into it and said “Albus Dumbledore;s office!”

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Godric's Hollow; Monday Morning, Sept. 23rd.



Hermione was finishing the last of their packing – a task that annoyed her no end. It wasn’t because the task was arduous, but rather because it meant that their time for being alone as a couple….really, truly alone, was at an end – at least until Christmas break – and she found that she resented it.



Harry was no happier. He had gone down to the guest bedroom and found one very, very unhappy Rowena Granger.



Thanks to a silencing charm, she couldn’t spout the invectives that she wanted to. More, since she was still bound and wandless, she couldn’t do anything to harm him.



Touching her shoulder with his hand ever so gently, he looked at her. “I’m sorry, Rowena. Hermione and I have do to what we feel is right and right now, you’re a danger to yourself and your students. We’re going to take you to Madame Pomfrey and Dumbledore. They’ll know what to do. Until then, I’d try to get some sleep. We’re going to use a portkey to take us all directly to Hogwarts in about an hour and I don’t know when the first chance for you to sleep after that will be.”



As he started to leave, he turned and stopped for a moment. “Rowena….Hermione loves having you in her life – but she’s really worried about you. If you let us help, we can maybe put all of this behind us.”



Without another word, Harry turned on his heel and left to room. As he waked up the stairs, he felt his bile rise as he internalized what they had done when they had both kidnapped and assaulted not just a Hogwarts professor, but Hermione’s grandmother. One thing that he had learned during his fourth summer, when he was living at Hermione’s house was that Jake and Miranda took commitments to family seriously. He sensed that they were going to be very, very unhappy with what he and Hermione had done and it might be a very long time before they were welcome in their home again. The thought of that made him sick to his stomach.

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Gryffindor Common Room, Hogwarts – lunch time - Sept. 23rd.



Ron Weasley was pacing the Gryffindor common room while Ginny sat; stretched across one of the two large love-seats which faced the fireplace. Hermione and Harry were going to be returning soon and Ginny had been watching her brothers anticipation grow all morning.



“Ron! Sit down, for Merlin’s sake. You’re wearing a path in the carpet and you’re making me nervous.”



He stopped for a moment and whirled to look at her; his half-undone red-and-gold tie flapping around while an annoyed look crossed his otherwise-handsome features. “I can’t help it, Gin. I’m going to be announcing my engagement tonight. Not only is Mom going to want to flay me, but I’m going to have to put up with what everyone is going to say.”



Ginny rolled her eyes. “Oh, give it a rest, Ron. Everyone who matters already knows and the ones who don’t matter…we don’t worry about. You know that Hermione and Harry won’t put up with anyone harassing Luna…and if someone gets too out of line, they might even lift a wand to help you.”



Ron knew that his sister was being cheeky and that Harry would defend him with his life – and that Hermione would as well, if it came to that. It was just who they were as people – and it was the reason that Ron loved them both.



As Ron continued to pace, Ginny thought about her brother. He certainly had changed since meeting Luna. Ron was studying more - and being more diligent about it. He had taken to dressing much, much better and was finally taking pride in how he looked. Most importantly, he had begun making a conscious effort to be more gentle and much less reactive and defensive. Moreover, he had been taking his Quidditch captaincy very seriously. So seriously, in fact, that the team was making rapid and dramatic strides towards being in top form. Ron, too, was getting into better form. The daily work-outs had trimmed off the excess weight which had been gathering around his middle and brought out muscles she had never seen on him before. Gryffindor was, she thought, again in a position to make a play for the House Cup, thanks to Ron’s efforts. As a result, people were looking up to him – admiring him - as his own person – and not just an extension of Harry Potter. “Pretty damn good”, she thought.



Of course, it did not take a genius to figure out that Ron was head-over-heals in love with Luna. Less obvious, but more importantly, was the person he was becoming. Ginny saw clearly that Luna was not forcing him to change, which would never have worked, but rather letting him realize that their relationship would be better and happier if he did so. Luna was much smarter about boys than most all of the girls around her, Ginny knew. Ron had never told either of them, of course, what he had seen in the Mirror of Erised – and if he had, the truth of it might have hardened Ginny’s feelings about her brother, not lessened them.



“Dad would be proud”, she thought, and she wondered if he even knew about Luna. Then she snorted. Of course he did. He worked for the Ministry….and Hogwarts professors often talked to Ministry officials…and children of Ministry officials were always subjects of conversation. He had said as much often, over dinner at the Burrow.



She thought about whether Molly knew how much had happened between him and Luna…and then she remembered that Ron had yelled at their mother about Luna on at least one occasion, in response to her rantings. He had said as much while they had been talking on the platform – before they boarded the train. It would never have happened, of course, if her mother had not had the audacity to tell Ron that Luna’s family wasn’t a proper wizarding family because Luna’s father was a single parent. Ron – not a person who was known for overly much patience to begin with, had completely lost it when he heard that, and went off on her.



Molly’s attitude bothered Ginny and she wondered how long it was going to be before her mother did something exceptionally stupid and actually confronted Harry or Hermione. She hoped that she wasn’t there if or when it happened. Ginny had the feeling that antagonizing either of them or insulting one in the presence of the other was an act of suicide and she worried that Molly didn’t understand that.



She looked up at Ron. He was still pacing and it was beginning to grate on her nerves.



On his next pass by her chair, she reached out and grabbed one of his sleeves.



“What?” he said, looking down at her.



“Ron, I’m worried about Mom. Do you think she’d be stupid enough to confront Harry and Hermione?”



It wasn’t often that Ron blanched. His native Irish complexion did not often allow it. However, Ginny’s question had caught him in that place where ones’ fears intersect the stomach and he looked like he might be sick. His eyes were wide as he looked at her. “Wha…..why do you ask?”



“Because we’ve not heard from her since we got to school and with the article in the Prophet…You know how she tended to believe everything she read in that piece of trash. You also know that before we burned it down, copies got out. There was just nothing we could do about it because we had to get out of there. I’m worried that Mom got one.”



Falling to his knees next to her chair, Ron looked very much like he might be sick. “Oh fuck, Ginny. I hadn’t thought about it. I thought we had gotten all the copies…or at least enough of them that that she’d not have gotten one. If she reads that article...that could be really, really bad.”



Ginny was nodding. What Ron had said was exactly what she had been thinking and his fear was her fear.



Finally, she stood up and with one hand, encouraged him to stand, too. Then she did something that she didn’t do very often at all: she wrapped her arms around him and hugged him.



As she held him, she said something that she knew she should say more often. “I love you, Ron. You’ve been the best brother I could hope for; even if you’ve been a defensive git in the past. Everything is going to be all right.”



Ron gave her an extra squeeze as she whispered to him and it felt damn good to be hugging the sister he loved so much.

************************

Godric's Hollow; Monday, Sept. 23rd. 2 pm.



“Ready?”



“No. I don’t want to go.”



“Me, neither. I love you. I love what we’ve begun.”



“Promise we’ll come back soon?”



“Every night, if you want, Hermione. This can be our forever place.”



Hermione closed her eyes, and with a signal only Harry could understand, took her

grandmothers’ hand and disappeared.



Harry closed his hand around their private portkey and disappeared too; leaving behind stillness and sunlight and the rat-tat-tat of the woodpecker that was looking for insects under the bark of the cherry tree which shaded the kitchen.

**********************************************************************************


Hospital wing; Hogwarts; Monday, Sept. 23rd. , 2:30 pm.



The wing was quiet. It had been for several weeks and privately, Madame Pomfrey had confessed to Minerva McGonagall that she was becoming restless and bored – two states that were entirely foreign to her and distinctly uncomfortable.



The sun was starting its evening slide towards the west and the hospital wing was already bathed in the shadows of the schools’ tall spires. As the Mediwitch sat at her desk, reviewing the medical records of the muggle-born students, she wondered if she might be able to cut out early and head to the village for a drink with some of her colleague from St. Mungo’s. It was an appealing thought, because the Three Broomsticks had just added hot mulled cider and spicy chicken wings to its menu and she was feeling hungry.

She also had to stop by the Hogsmead branch Weasley’s Wizarding Wheezes (formally Zonko's Joke Shop) before they closed, as the twins had promised her that they would supply antidotes or counter-curse potions to all of their products as well as instructions for what to do in the event that any two or more of their products were mixed.



She was lost in thought about one patient’s records and had been examining a set of x-ray records when the doors to the hospital burst open and she heard two sets of footfalls.



Not knowing what to expect, she pushed away from her desk, put on her medical robe, and grabbed her wand, her stethoscope, as well as her potions bag.



Leaving the office, she turned and walked towards the ward. What she found when she stepped into the ward proper was definitely not what she was expecting.

*********************************************************************************


Hermione and Harry had decided that they would bypass the Headmasters’ office in favor of bringing Rowena directly to Madame Pomfrey. They knew that the Mediwitch would probably call both the Headmaster as well as McGonagall, but wanted to have several moments to speak with the famed Mediwitch first.

Bound, magically gagged, and unconscious, Rowena Granger was floating along next to the Head Boy and Girl under Harry’s invisibility cloak.



Seeing Madame Pomfrey emerge from her office, Harry floated Hermione’s grandmother over to one of the beds; lowered her onto it, and then removed his cloak. It was at that point when the Mediwitch gasped aloud.



“Mr. Potter! What in the name of Merlin’s balls is Professor Granger doing bound like that? And why is she unconscious?”



Hermione caught Pomfrey by the shoulder as the Mediwitch was making her way over to Rowena’s bedside. “We can explain, if you’ll give us a couple of minutes. We have memories we have to show you, so that you’ll understand.”



Madame Pomfrey was no fool. If Hermione Granger (“Potter”), she corrected herself, said that there were things that were important for her to see, then they were important.



With a flick of her wand, she summoned her pensieve. It was not as large as Dumbledore’s, but it was much more beautiful.



She set it down on a nearby table and did a series of complicated, non-verbal spells above its murky surface before she pronounced it ready to use.



“I take it that you both know how to use these?” she said, pointing to the pensieve.



Hermione and Harry both nodded. By unvoiced agreement, Hermione went first. She put her wand-tip to her forehead and drew away from it a gossamer-fine, golden thread and connected it to the surface of the pensieve. The memory continued to flow out of her and to the magical device for almost thirty seconds, before ceasing.



Harry looked at his new wife and then did something that startled the Mediwitch. He placed a finger to his forehead and let the golden thread wind itself around his finger, before he deposited it as a clump into the shimmering pool of stored memories.



He looked at Pomfrey without the slightest bit of either embarrassment or chagrin, even though he knew perfectly well that what he had just done was supposed to be impossible.



“Show off”



“Love….she’s going to have to get used to us doing stuff like that. We seem to have a great deal more power together than either of us ever had apart.”



Harry moved closer to his wife and put his arm around her waist. “Remember this morning? You weren’t exactly using a wand.”



Hermione blinked. He was, of course, right. She hadn’t used a wand to do any of their packing, or for that matter, anything during the morning. When it had come time to bind her grandmother, she hadn’t thought about it at all – just willed it to happen and it did. In previous years, the thought of that kind of power would have frightened her, but in the moment, it didn’t phase her. Power was only frightening if you didn’t know how to use it.



“He hem….”



Hermione almost jumped as the Mediwitch interrupted their unique form of communication.

“Do I dare ask what you two were just doing?”



“Do we tell her, ‘Mione?”



“No. I don’t think so. The fewer people who know, the better it is for us.”



The only telltale sign that Harry agreed with her was the flicker of his eyes when he said silently, “I think so too, but I wanted to ask. Our secret, our decision.”



Harry looked at the Mediwitch. “No. That’s private.”



She returned his gaze and then looked at Hermione. “I won’t ask, but I will admit to being curious. You two have already shown quite extraordinary powers that have never been seen in any students before.”



Neither Harry nor Hermione were in any mood to expound on their powers or their connection. There were just too many things that for them, were private and always would be so.



Before they could commune with each other though, the Mediwitch said, “So what am I going to see in your memories?”



Hermione blinked and then her eyes flicked back towards her grandmother. “She wants to die.”



That caught Pomfrey flat-footed.



“What do you mean?”



“See for yourself” Hermione said, pointing to the pensieve.



Rather than delaying any longer, the Mediwitch moved to the pensive and, after muttering the charm that would allow her to be undisturbed, placed her face in contact with the surface of the pensieve and disappeared.

************************

It seemed like an eternity before the mediwitch appeared again at the edge of the pensieve. She looked shaken and scared – which were two extremely rare states for her.



She didn’t even bother to look at either Hermione or Harry, but rather went straight over to where Rowena lay bound and unconscious on the hospital bed. A flick of her wand and the constraints were gone. A second flick and Hermione’s grandmother woke up, as if startled from nothing more than a daydream.



It didn’t take very long for the muggle studies professor and former unspeakable to find her focus and launch herself at her captors.



Spouting the kind of invective that Hermione had rarely heard in her life, Rowena threw a curse at her wandlessly and then another at Harry. Neither found their marks, for they were deflected skyward by the powerful shield that Harry conjured.



Shocked by the former Unspeakables’ actions, the normally unflappable mediwitch stood in harms way between the two sides, transfixed.



Rowena was snarling as she threw another curse at Hermione. “You know-it-all, holier-than-thou, kinky-haired bitch! You think you know better than someone more than fifty years your senior. I’ll kill you!” The purple curse that she threw splashed against the table that had suddenly appeared in its path; causing the older woman to scream her frustration.



For the first time, Hermione and Harry had to use their combined powers for something more than making dinner or building a fire.



“Let’s make this short. She’s going to start throwing something nastier than body-bind curses and punching spells in a moment, love, so watch yourself.”



“I know. Keep her busy. I’m going to bring Knight out and take her from behind. On my count, throw the blindness spell at her. You know the one.”



“Ok. Be careful Harry!”



“You know I will, love. One….two…Three!”



Hermione pitched herself forward; out of the way of a powerful cutting curse, and threw a three-part attack at her grandmother, which culminated with the blindness spell that she had developed. It broke through the woman’s shield and struck Rowena right between the eyes, which gave Harry time to become Knight and launch himself at the woman.



In four strides, he was close enough to leap forward and lash out hard at her back and legs with his claws. His claws ripped across her body, from left-to-right and right-to-left. It was a terrible thing to do, but it bought Hermione time to focus her magic for what had to be done. His claws tore apart her clothes and dug deeply into her flesh; making further attacks all but impossible. Just as she started to scream in pain, Hermione sent three perfectly-timed stunning spells and Rowena collapsed back onto the bed, in a savaged, bleeding, unconscious heap.

Just as quickly as it had started, the fight was over. Harry transformed and walked over to where Hermione stood, shaking.



“Why, Harry?”



“Because we didn’t give her a choice, probably. We made her feel helpless and vulnerable.”



Her distress over what had just happened was evident. “I need to sit, Harry”.



Harry put his arms around her and guided her to the edge of a nearby bed. Then Harry stood and walked over to the mediwitch who had saved his life so many times. “It’s alright. They’ll both be fine.”



The woman turned on him with real anger in her voice. “Mr. Potter, what the hell just happened?”



He looked at her and drew himself up, because he didn’t want her to feel that he was at all embarrassed by what he had just done.



“I’m pretty sure that Rowena is mad that we brought her here. I know I would be. She didn’t want anyone to know that she’s suicidal and that she’s too cowardly to kill herself. She wants someone else to do it and has been thinking about how to make that happen.”



Harry was torn about how much more to say, so he stopped and looked over at Hermione, as she sat on the nearby bed. He reached out with his feelings and thoughts to her. “Love?”



Hermione looked up from the bed; her eyes catching his. “It’s alright, Harry. I just need a few minutes. No one in my family has ever sworn at me like that before. I’m not used to it.”



“She may have provoked the fight so that we’d kill her. It’s well-known in the muggle world. In the States, it’s called ‘suicide by police officer’ – which means shooting at a police officer until that officer kills you.”



“Harry, you don’t think that she was trying to get us to kill her, do you?”



“Well, it was either that, or she was just lashing out at the closest person. I don’t know. Maybe she just wants to make some other kind of extreme sacrifice….something that will help her make up for what she did to her husband.”



Hermione could feel the swirl of emotions that Harry was experiencing and knew that he was scared of either possibility.



The mediwitch was very disturbed by what she was hearing, but she knew that it agreed with what she had seen in the memories she had seen. Chastened by her own lack of knowledge, she said, “You two know her better than I do, though I think it’s only marginally so. How am I supposed to help? I don’t know anything about how to treat this sort of thing”.



Hermione finally stood and walked over to where Harry was standing. Putting her arm around his waist, she let herself be drawn in close to him by his arm, which wrapped protectively around her shoulder.



They watched as Madame Pomfrey became distracted by her duty, which was to attend to Rowena’s injuries. She rolled the woman gently onto her stomach and straightened out her body, so that she could have a better look at what Knight had done to her. Peeling back the layers of torn clothes, she saw the long gashes which desecrated the ex-Unspeakables’ otherwise flawless, pale-ivory skin.



Both Harry and Hermione felt their bile rise as they looked down at what Knight’s claws had done.



“You two could have killed her! She needs blood replenishing potions right now!”



Ashen-faced, Harry looked at the mediwitch. “Can you help her?”



His question went unanswered for several long minutes and each minute that ticked by was harder to endure than the one before it. Harry almost lost what breakfast he had eaten as he looked at the amount of blood that was on the bed and around the wounds. The guilt and shame of hurting someone who had been such a welcome surprise in their lives was almost unbearable.



It was a good thing that Poppy Pomfrey knew Harry as well as she did and could read his moods. She knew guilt and sadness when she saw it, so she spoke more gently to him that she would have to any other student. “She’s going to be ok, Harry. For what it’s worth, you were hurt worse on a number of occasions – In particular, the time that you fell from your broom because of the Dementors. That was touch and go for a long while. I thought you’d not make it to confront Tom. However, in this case, two more blood replenishment potions and a couple of regeneration charms and she’ll be as good as new. No scars, even.”



Hermione sighed, audibly, and clutched Harry’s arm even tighter than before.



“It’s going to be alright, Harry. You did what you had to do. Don’t be ashamed of the fact that you’re so powerful.”



He really just wanted to crawl into a corner and cry. He had never hurt someone he cared about before and it was a feeling that he never wanted to experience again. They had been together long enough to know that sometimes, an emotion just has to be worked through and that there’s nothing for it but time.



“I will never leave you, Harry. I love you and I’m proud of you. You protected me today – like you always have. I can’t be angry with you.”



Somehow, her words were more meaningful than anything anyone else could say and he felt himself start to relax.



By the time that Harry returned his attention to what the mediwitch was doing, the external injuries were already healed and all of the blood was gone. She caught his eye and saw where he was looking. “It’s alright, Mr. Potter. There’s no lasting damage, save for what is happening in her head. Soon, everything else will be cured and forgotten.”



Hermione looked on, approvingly, and tried to think about what she would have done if it had been Harry who had been injured. She wondered, not for the first time, if healing magic wasn’t something she should start trying to learn, in addition to the other things she was studying.



After the blood-replenishment potion had been given, Pomfrey crooked a finger at the two of them in a ‘follow-me’ gesture and then turned and walked towards her office at the end of the ward. Once she was at the dark, oaken door, she stopped and waited for them to enter first.



Once they were seated together – Harry first and then Hermione on his lap, the mediwitch looked at them both. “You two moved like one person. You absorbed her curses when you couldn’t shield from them…and then you….then it……”



“I think it would be better if you didn’t dwell on it, Madame Pomfrey. Hermione and I are unique. We can do things that no one else can and no, we don’t know the limits of our power.”



“But….”



Hermione spoke up in her ‘Head Girl’ type of voice. “I think what my husband is saying is that it is best if no one, not even you, knows too much about what Harry and I can do. He’s right that we don’t know the limits of our power. What he’s not saying, though, is that we have no desire to find out – at least when it comes to fighting. Merlin knows we’ve already had our lifetime fill of that.”



Realizing that she wasn’t going to get anything further out of the two of them, she said, “I think it’s time to call the Headmaster and fill him in on what’s happened. I will show him the memories and he, Minerva, and I will have a discussion about where to go from here. You can expect that we will want to meet with both of you in the next two days. Be prepared for a rather lengthy discussion.”



Nodding, Hermione and Harry stood and, hand-in-hand; activated their private portkey.

*********************************************************************************


Inner courtyard, Hogwarts, Monday, Sept. 23rd., 3:45 pm.



Hermione and Harry had not had time to do more than dump their bags and change into their school uniforms before they had to meet their animagus class outside. As a result, they hadn’t had time to talk about what had happened between them and Rowena. Hermione thought that Harry was feeling residual guilt over how he had injured her, but she was unsure whether or not it was justified. The only people, other than Harry, whom she thought she could trust….she was afraid to ask.



They held hands as they walked into the courtyard. Fallen, yellow-brown leaves had started to gather in the corners of the yard, where the rolling grass met the stone walls. “Fall’s coming, Harry.”



“I know. Makes me want to let the kitty out.”



“Me, too, Harry. Want to do a picnic this weekend? We can go sit in the glen and maybe roast some bratwurst or knockwurst over a fire.”



“How about we take some brooms and go check out our new property? We’ve a lot of ground to cover and it would be fun to see some of it. Especially before it gets too cold.”



Hermione turned and pulled him into a kiss, as they waited for their students to show up. “I’ve wanted to make love to you in a mountain field for the longest time, so I think a picnic would be brilliant.”



“Can we make love while we fly? I had a dream about that one time…”



She smiled, even as they kissed. It was something she had thought of more than once as well. “I’m game. It will take a really short skirt, though, and no one on the ground below us!”



Her wanton suggestion made him harden considerable and she ground herself against him, to encourage that reaction. His hands had just descended down her back and onto her arse when a voice called out.



“Yo, Harry!”



Startled, Hermione and Harry broke their kiss and turned to greet the owner of the voice. Ron Weasley was standing less than ten feet away, grinning at them like a maniac.



“Ron!”



Hermione ran over to him and grabbed him for an enormous hug; followed by Harry’s enthusiastic hug for his best friend. Ron smiled at them both. “I wasn’t sure if I was going to see the two of you, but then Harry assured Luna that you’d be here for the announcement tonight.”



Hermione fixed him with a stare and a mock-pout. “Ronald Weasley. Have you gotten her flowers for tonight? Are you really ready to do this?”



Ron grinned back and then made to throw himself behind Harry. “Oh no!! She’s baaaaaack.”



Harry laughed out loud and pushed Ron back towards Hermione. “Save yourself, Ron. I can’t protect you forever.”



Hermione smirked at him and then quietly muttered a cantrip she had learned. Ron’s hair became the deepest shade of bright pink. Harry saw it and began laughing so hard that he almost wet himself while Ron desperately tried to figure out was going on.



Taking pity on Ron, Hermione whipped out a small make-up mirror from her bag and held it up.



Seeing what Hermione had done, Ron looked at her with gleeful menace in his eyes and a wild grin on his face. “Two can play that game, Hermione. See how you like this.” Muttering fast, Ron pointed his wand at her. Not wanting to ruin his fun, she simply stood there while the jet of pink light struck her dead-center in the chest. Ron waited. Nothing happened.



“Something wrong, Ron? Little cantrip gone astray?” Harry teased.



“What! It was supposed to make her knickers and bra appear in mid-air.”



Hermione and Harry burst out laughing again and looked at Ron with the happiness that only inside jokes can bring. Ron’s expression was priceless as he looked at the two of them and Hermione said, pulling up the side of her skirt so that Ron could see all the way up the side of her leg, to her waist. “No knickers!”



Ron’s jaw just dropped, as he realized that he had been had. “That’s so not fair!!”

**********************************************************************************


An hour and a half later, the class broke up, with a number of students bouncing with joy. Most all of them had tokened at least once and several of them had done it twice or more. Ginny and Neville had made the most progress and had tokened three times each; including once off each other. Hermione thought that Harry was doing a great job with teaching the students how best to reach the state of mind that was necessary for tokening. She told him as much as they walked back to the Gryffindor common room with Ron, Neville, and Ginny.



Ron and Luna were already way ahead – because they had started on the transformations over a year before - and were planning on trying their transformations for the first time under the Harvest Moon at the end of October. They had tokened more than twelve times each, including twice off each other and so Ron had come to see the two of them not to take part in the class, but rather to give support to those who weren’t as far along in the process.



Harry didn’t know what to make of Ron and Luna’s tokening, other than to suspect that they’d probably become either the same animal or something so close that that they’d be able to travel together. He was very excited for them; having shared so many adventures as Knight, to Hermione’s Sagehunter.



Less sanguine about Ron and Luna’s tokening was Hermione. She thought that it might be dangerous for them to have tokened twice off each other. When pressed about it by both Luna and Minerva McGonagall, Hermione had admitted that so little was known about shared animagi experiences that whatever she said was probably guesswork and they’d just have to wait and see.



Once they got closer to the Gryffindor common room, people began to come out of the woodwork to see them. It was as if the word had gone out that Hermione and Harry were back at the school and they were some kind of royalty to be seen. Fortunately, they didn’t have to put up with it for long. Ron, because he was a prefect, went ahead of them to clear the way.



Finally, becoming disgusted with the number of people who were in the corridors and slowing their progress, Harry pulled Ron, Ginny, Hermione, and Neville into a quick huddle and activated their private portkey.

************************

Minutes later – Head Students’ common room.



“I’m not going to put up with it, Ron.” Harry was pacing again and his magic was crackling around him. It was definitely not the golden glow that Hermione was used to seeing.



“You don’t have to, mate. All you have to do is make it clear.”



Harry almost spat. He was very frustrated and it was showing. At the same time, Hermione looked worried. She was not the type to become frustrated with childish infatuations or the kind of curiosity that they had witnessed on their way back into school, but she worried that Harry might take his frustration out on someone who didn’t deserve it. “Love? No one’s trying to hurt us….they’re just dying of curiosity.”



The softness of her words caught him off-guard and made him turn around and stop in front of Hermione. “Oh, Merlin, Hermione. I’m sorry. It’s just…I hate being stared at. I hate being singled out. You know that. It just…got to me.”



Hermione knew it all too well. Ever since they had left St. Mungo’s, she had been learning about his fears and insecurities. One of them was being singled out for being different. Harry wanted – had always wanted – to be loved for being…..just….Harry. Not the ‘Boy who Lived’ or the ‘Boy who Conquered’….just….Harry.



That’s what she offered him. They had been together long enough, and she had been inside his thoughts long enough to know that more than anything else, she loved him for who he was and who he was becoming.



“ ‘Mione? If that’s what they want….if that’s what it’s going to take to make them stop, then let’s give it to them. Let’s give them a real show – but make it clear that they’ll see it only once, so they better get it out of their systems. I’m not going to go through the time and effort twice.”



“Really? You’d do that?”



“Only for you, my wife.”



She took him in her arms and they kissed, as they continued to share silent thoughts about what they were going to do.



Ginny, Neville, and Ron were left to watch their Head Boy and Girl lose themselves in the other and each hoped that their mating bonds would be as strong as the one they were witnessing.

************************

Great Hall at Hogwarts, Monday, Sept. 23rd. 6:30 pm.



The commotion was to be expected. Even the teachers were more animated in their conversations than they had been in a while. The potions teacher, Libatius Borage, was talking with Professor Lupin, while the Headmaster was speaking with Professor McGonagall.



Ron had been watching them all, because Luna suggested that he do so, and saw something that he couldn’t fully convince himself to believe. Professor Dumbledore was holding hands with Professor McGonagall!!



To make sure of what he was seeing, he looked up and down the table, to take his mind off it and to figure out whether he was seeing things or not. He wasn’t. They were holding hands and what’s more, Ron would swear that they were looking at each other with lovers’ eyes. Could it be? He didn’t know, but he told himself that he’d ask Hermione or Harry just as soon as he could.



Just then, the woman who was going to be his wife walked through the twenty-foot high doors and into the Great Hall. She was wearing a dress. Not an ordinary, cotton dress, but a three-quarter-length-sleeved, fitted, blue silk, near ankle-length dress with a plunging neckline that looked like it had just come from a very high-end (a place his mother would have called ‘snooty’) store. The dress hugged her every curve and showed off her extraordinarily lean, fit, and beautiful body. The heels she was wearing gave her three inches of height, to compensate for her soon-to-be husbands’ natural stature and they emphasized, in amazingly pleasant ways, the curve of her bottom. Over it, she had her black, Hogwarts robes. He started to think, as she walked up to him, that it had to be a muggle fashion. Then he saw that the tiny stars which adorned the dress were twinkling and that put the kibosh to that idea.



Somehow, the idea of buying clothes in a non-magical shop bothered him. It wasn’t that he was a blood-snob. Rather, it was because he figured that magical creations were just…better. It wasn’t a belief that he was willing to discuss in front of Hermione; of that, he was certain.



The thing that made people stop and look was the necklace. It was the one Hermione had given her before the wedding as her bridesmaid gift. It flashed in the light and threw color all over the hall. Seeing it in the light of the Great Hall, Ron realized that the stone at the center was yellow and not white, the way he had originally thought. He was skewed off for a moment from what he was supposed to be thinking about as he contemplated what the necklace must be worth. The yellow sapphire at its center was surrounded by twelve brilliant blue, trillium tanzanites, in the exotic metal bluish-white metal palladium – a metal that had been entirely unknown in the wizarding world for many years after muggle scientists had discovered and named it. Neither Luna, nor Harry, Ron, nor even Hermione knew that the metal was valued not for its rarity, but for its worth in making the most destructive weapons man had ever devised. Hermione would have been appalled.



As she walked up to him, her voice sounded in his mind “Ready, love?”



His ears and cheeks went scarlet as he took her hand; drawing her close so that he could kiss her. “Ready as I’ll ever be, love, for you. You take my breath away.”



It was Luna’s turn to experience the heat of blood flushing her cheeks, as she felt the truth of what Ron was saying in his thoughts. It was an incomplete connection, but it was much more than any other couple she knew about and she took private delight in knowing that she was the one who had figured out how to share her thoughts and feelings with Ron without having had to go to either a professor or Hermione for directions.



Ron took her hand and led her up towards the Head Boy and Girls’ table. Harry had already cleared it with the Headmaster for him; knowing that this night should be special for them and wanting to help his best friend.



As they walked the aisle, the chatter grew and eyes that had been directed elsewhere in the Hall suddenly swung around and focused on the two of them. No one had ever imagined that Luna could look so beautiful or that Ron Weasley – the third wheel of the ‘golden trio’ – would gravitate to her.



Dobby was waiting for them and as they approached, pulled out two chairs; first for Luna, and then for Ron. Luna reached down and touched Dobby’s face gently and thanked him for his help. The little elf looked at her, unsure how to react to yet another witch who really seemed to understand what his master and mistress already understood about elves. Dobby placed his hand on hers and said “You’re welcome, Mistress Luna.”



Neither Ron, nor the Headmaster, who were both watching the exchange, was oblivious to the import of what had just happened between Luna and Dobby. It was going to be interesting, the Headmaster thought, to see how relations might change between the elves and the wider, wizarding community, as a result of how one elf was being treated.



However, that’s an issue for a different day, Dumbledore thought. He could feel the build-up of magical power which had just happened outside the doors of the Great Hall. He knew that Harry and Hermione had just arrived and he could feel the waves of raw power emanating from the two of them. When he received their note, to tell him what their plans were for this evening, he couldn’t help but admire the showmanship of what they proposed.



The doors opened; swinging back so each door touched the wall behind it. At the same time, all of the candles in the hall flickered and died, plunging most of the Hall into semi-darkness. Then the golden light that marked the strength of their bond – the Nimbus lumens Amor – surrounded them and bathed them as they entered the Hall. No one was immune. Even the ghosts were caught up in watching the most powerful student couple Hogwarts had ever seen. Elves started appearing silently all over the Hall, filling every nook. There were over one hundred of them.



There was a gasp as some of the students sitting on either side of the main aisle realized that Harry and Hermione weren’t walking down the aisle, but rather floating. More pairs of eyes shifted towards the Head Boy and Girl as they moved effortlessly down the center and Ron could tell, from where he and Luna were - that it was exactly the kind of show that would impress the students most.



“Ron! Look at her necklace. It’s glowing.”



Luna’s red-headed love did what she asked; tearing his eyes away from their feet and looking at the Pentagonal diamond which lay between Hermione’s breasts. It was indeed glowing – but with a pure white light, instead of the golden light which surrounded them. He didn’t know what it meant, but he was dead sure that the diamond, if that’s what it was, had a magic all of its own.



The other thing that was drawing notice was that neither Hermione nor Harry was wearing their Head Girl or Boy robes, but rather, the rather more ornate robes and sigil of House Potter. Harry’s robes were not black, nor even blue, but of the finest wool that Burberry’s had to offer; done in the deepest green such that they looked black in the right light. On Harry’s left hand was the platinum ring that Hermione had given him, to swear her eternal faithfulness and love and on his right, the ring which signified his status as head of House Potter. The death of his father, and his coming of age, forced upon him the hereditary title of ‘Lord Potter’ and conferred upon Hermione, the title of ‘Lady Potter’.



Hermione’s robes were also of the same green, but hers were done in either silk or linen, he couldn’t be sure. That her dress hugged her every magnificent, sinuous curve did not escape Ron’s notice, nor did the fact that she was still wearing; barely concealed by the plunging neckline of her dress, the 22ct. gold necklace and 24ct. gold, Gringotts’ medallion which Harry had given her just after Christmas of their fifth year. Ron wondered if she ever went without it, and then laughed at his own stupidity. Of course she never goes without it, you moron.



Just as the two of them were approaching the Head Table, Ron saw Harry’s eyes and followed them back to where they connected. The Headmaster. Dumbledore was looking right at Harry and Hermione and there was a definitive twinkle in his eyes. Something was about to happen and Ron tensed, as he didn’t know what to expect.



“Ready?”



“On three…..one…..two….three!” All at once, Hermione and Harry twisted in place and yelled “Expecto Patronum!”



Using wands was cumbersome – which is why both Hermione and Harry had worked so hard to perfect their wandless magic. As they glided down the center aisle, both Harry and Hermione had quietly conjured sticks that looked like wands, so that no one would realize that neither of them needed them anymore. It was a ruse that they disliked, but neither of them had any desire to be talked about constantly – and using wandless magic was sure to generate such talk.



However, it was their patroni that caused the Hall to erupt with ‘ooows’ and ‘ahhhhs’. Ever since she had learned the charm from Harry, Hermione’s Patronus had been an otter, while Harry’s had always been the stag. His patronus form had always been easy to explain – James’ animagus form had been a stag, but Hermione’s was less understandable. Privately, she thought that it had come about because early on, she had some girlish feelings for Ron, and therefore her patronus was a weasel-type animal. Her mother, when she told her about it, thought that was silly and that it was an otter because Hermione had fallen in love with the sea otters at the Vancouver, BC Aquarium when she was four.



Neither of them had cast their patronus since before they battled Tom, so they were dumbfounded by what they saw. From Harry’s ‘wand’ emerged an enormous, fully maned African lion; while from Hermione came a massive female jaguar. Seeing that made Harry grin, despite his surprise.



There was a collective intake of breath by most of those in the Hall, including Ron and Luna. No one expected that there would be such a dramatic shift in their patroni, except for the two people who had guided Hermione and Harry through their seven years at Hogwarts.



Albus felt a gentle squeeze of his hand and turned to look at his best friend and lover. Her eyes were twinkling, just as his so often did, and she leaned her head close enough to whisper, “I love you, Albus. Now pay up”.



Luna nudged him and Ron looked up long enough to see the quiet exchange. Grinning to himself, he realized that he wasn’t the only one keeping secrets.



Harry and Hermione were making their patroni canter around the Hall, so that everyone could get a good look at them. They were showing off, but it seemed to be the thing that was expected of them, as most everyone seemed to look at the patroni appreciatively.



It didn’t make Harry feel any better though, and Hermione could feel his disquiet. Even though he had agreed to participate, and had even planned some of what they were going to do, he didn’t like letting everyone know even a portion of what he was capable of doing. There were adults, Harry knew, who could not do as much magic as he and Hermione were capable of performing and it felt like unnecessary bragging.



Pushing those concerns aside, Harry looked at her. “Ready for the next part?”



“You sure about this, Harry? It’s not supposed to be possible.”



“And I’m telling you, it is. I’ve figured it out.”



“You know I’m with you, always.”



“Take my hand and we go on three.”



The entire back-and-forth of their communication took less than a half-heartbeat. Banishing their patroni, they joined hands and disappeared from where they stood and suddenly appeared at the other end of the Hall. There was an astonished, audible gasp from the professors, as well as all of the seventh-year students. Hermione and Harry had just apparated within the bounds of the school. It was supposed to be impossible. Not even the Headmaster ever did it, to anyone’s knowledge – and it completely unnerved everyone who realized what had just happened.



The moment they reappeared, Hermione felt the undeniable urge to skip in place and do a happy dance. She had just done the impossible, along with Harry. She didn’t know how…but she knew for a surety that it had happened. The library wasn’t just calling to her. It was screaming to her. She wanted to run there immediately and try to figure out what Harry had figured out.



As she pulled him close and looked in his eyes, she said to him silently, “Harry James Potter, you are going to tell me how we just did that, aren’t you?”



“Of course, Hermione. You’re going to find that it’s a lot simpler than you could have ever imagined, though, and you may be disappointed.”



His statement both floored her and set her mind whirling. Her emotions were palpable to him, of course, and it amused him to think that he had done her one up in terms of magical research.



They didn’t have time to get into it, because the Hall was suddenly alive with chatter and they both could feel the inquisitive stares.



There was one last bit of magic that they wanted to do and it would have been a shame, Harry thought, to leave it out.



They were going to do a long-range summoning. It required that they knew the target well and could picture it clearly in their minds and that the target was willing to be summoned. Dobby had played a crucial role in that last part, because he had acted as their intermediary and translator with the intended target. Hermione knew that if they could pull it off, both she and Harry would automatically pass their Charms and Advanced Individual Study courses in one fell swoop.



“We can do this, Harry. You build the pentagram and I will start on the next bit.”



Walking to the mid-point of the Hall, Harry raised his ‘wand’ and pointed it at a point high in the air. Drawing a flaming circle, he began to describe a pentagram within it. The fire was not the Galbrathian fire that he had seen the Headmaster do once, but rather the more difficult Elven-fire – which he had learned from Dobby.



Once the Pentagram was stable, Hermione took Harry’s place and began the conjuring which would open the mystic gateway to where their target lay. She had to make sure that the gateway was stable and truly two-way; otherwise their target would die – torn apart by the unfathomable, indescribable powers which made the portal possible.



Dumbledore looked on from the head table in awe and with tremendous pride, as he watched the two of them work. Minerva, too, sat with mouth agape as she watched her two favorite students. She knew that what Harry and Hermione were building was, in fact, a stable, open, portkey connection. The blue-white light of the portal was a dead give-away, though she doubted that anyone in the Hall, save a very few, truly appreciated what they were looking at.



The last bit was almost a formality. Hermione and Harry held hands and let their magic – their shared, bonded magic, suffuse them and lift them up into the air. Once they were eye-level with the gateway (some twelve feet off the ground), they began chanting in Latin and in the fiendishly difficult Elven language, to finish the summoning.



At first, they were unsure and almost afraid, that the summoning was not going to work, and that they’d have to banish the gateway. But – just before Hermione was about to pass the thought on to Harry that they should abandon the effort, a gold/grey, clawed paw emerged from the portal. It was followed by the rest of the animal’s leg. Then the head – the beaked, wicked looking head emerged. Soon, the rest of his body passed through the portal and Buckbeak took flight. He had been warned by Dobby that once he was through the gate, he’d have to fly immediately and then land in front of Harry.



True to the intelligence of his species, Buckbeak did exactly as instructed and landed almost without a sound, in the center aisle of the Great Hall.



Students on either side moved back quickly, so as not to anger or disturb the hippogriff, because they had been warned by Hagrid’s replacement – a vampire whom Dumbledore had recruited – that Hippogriffs were notoriously prideful and picky about such things.



There were more ooow’s and ahhhh’s as the students looked at the beautiful animal. Then there began to be heard, from all around the Hall, clapping for the Head Girl and Boy, as they settled back down to the ground. Soon, the trickle became a rousing cheer and then that became a thunderous applause, as the enormity of what had just been done began to sink in.



Harry grinned and, taking Hermione’s hand, disapparated them to the front of the Hall. It was easier on the second go-round, but Hermione still felt the discomfort of not knowing how he had done what he had just done.



“It’s alright, love. If you’re a very good wife tonight, I’ll tell you.”



“Oooooooow. For that, Mr. Potter, you’re sleeping on the sofa.”



Harry’s gentle laugh resonated in her mind and then coalesced as a tremendous feeling of love towards her – and that was something of which she could never get enough. “Harry……I’ll do anything to keep feeling like that.”



The softness of her thoughts – that was the only way he could describe how it felt to hear her thoughts in his mind – always discombobulated him. He was, as Lavender once said, twitterpated by Hermione’s love.

Buckbeak was still standing in the middle of the Hall, looking at them. “Should I send him home now?”



“Yes. He’s not comfortable being here and I don’t want anyone hurt.”



“One portkey coming up, then!”



In a moment, Harry had moved to where Buckbeak was standing. He fell to one knee and bowed; all the while keeping eye contact with Buckbeak, so that the Hippogriff would know that Harry regarded him as an equal. After a moment, Buckbeak returned the bow by lowering his head. Satisfied that he was safe to approach, Harry walked up to him and touched him gently. The harness which Dobby had put on him earlier was the perfect item to turn into a portkey. “Portus”



With a wave, Harry activated the portkey and Buckbeak disappeared in the same blue-white light that marked his arrival. Another cheer went up for him as he walked back to Hermione’s side and then drew her off to the Head Boy and Girl’s table, where they sat down next to Ron and Luna.



Finally, Dumbledore pushed back from the head table; stood, and walked around to the podium which dominated the center of the teacher’s platform.



He raised his hands to quiet the students. “Thank you all. Harry, Hermione. That was a masterful demonstration and you should both be very proud. Professor Flitwick and I will take care of submitting your grades tomorrow and you are excused from further classes. Please see me in the morning regarding your next areas of study.”



The students at both the Gryffindor and Ravenclaw tables cheered the Headmaster’s pronouncements while Hermione and Harry sat, blushing furiously. Taking her hand in his under the table, Harry met her eyes. “I didn’t expect that, love. Did you?”



“Yes and no. We’ll talk about it later, ok? I think we’ve got some decisions ahead of us.”



Harry nodded and then squeezed her hand gently. “I love you, ‘Mione”

************************

After Dumbledore finished speaking, Harry rose and walked up to the elevated platform. He jumped up and moved to stand behind the podium. Dinner had just been served and many people were beginning to tuck in.



Seeing Harry standing at the podium caused a hush to fall over the Hall. No one knew what he was about to say or do and it had them all excited. He looked down at Ron and Luna. They were both at the edge of their seats. It was going to be their moment. He raised his hands, palm out, and spoke. “Friends, professors, some of you know what is coming while others of you do not. I am standing here so that I can gather your attention and prepare you to hear something special from my best friend. Ron? Would you come up here?”



Blushing and trembling slightly, Ron rose and walked to the platform. He stepped up and joined Harry at the podium. Harry looked at him and said very quietly, so their voices weren’t picked up, “Good luck, Ron. I’m very, very proud of you. Take good care of her, ok?”



Ron nodded and Harry moved aside and out of the spotlight, so that Ron could address everyone.

************************

He never imagined the nerves would be this bad. It was worse than when he had flown into the air as the new captain of the Gryffindor Quidditch team two weeks earlier, in front of the whole school, and it was much worse than when he had faced Bill and Charlie about his relationship with Luna.



“Ah….hello.” He swallowed hard.



Luna giggled quietly to herself and Ron saw it, which helped him to get over his initial nervousness.



Turning to his right slightly, Ron nodded to the Headmaster; then turned back to the assembled students and said, “The Headmaster let me come up here tonight…to say something that is important to me. He didn’t tell me what all Hermione and Harry had planned, but he assured me that it would be worth seeing. Now that was a show!”



There was general cheering and laughter around the Hall at that, because it was something that was so obvious. Much more dramatically than the Headmaster had ever done, Hermione and Harry had demonstrated that they were the most powerful students present. No one knew for a certainty what the Headmaster was capable of, except Dumbledore himself and the soon-to-be Headmistress. Harry knew for sure, but he would never talk about it, and Hermione knew, because of her connection to Harry, but she’d never talk about the Headmaster’s abilities, either. In many ways, it suited everyone’s purposes to think that Dumbledore was more powerful than Harry.



Ron took a deep breath and look out at his friends and team-mates. “I’ve been so lucky. I really have. I can’t even believe that I am up here. I always thought that I’d be graduated and then try to find a job with the Ministry or my brothers, or try to play Quidditch professionally. I never expected that I would be up here, preparing to tell you all what Harry and Hermione already know.”



A rivulet of sweat trickled across his brow and his heart was hammering away in his chest. Gripping the podium, he looked down at the Head Boy and Girls’ table. “Luna?”



Luna rose; took off her school robe; laid it across the back of her chair; and for the first time, let her true beauty shine through. She had the grace of a full-blood Veela and the courage and dignity of a Gryffindor as she walked to the platform. Her necklace caught the light and threw sparkles back at all who saw it as she walked.



Ron held out his hands to her and she floated into his arms, thanks to Hermione’s unspoken magic. It seemed so natural that no one really recognized that she had just levitated – which was exactly what Hermione had intended.



There was a definite reaction, though, when Luna passed her right hand over her left and her engagement ring suddenly appeared. Those seated at the closest tables, as well as the professors, all took a quick catch-breath as it became obvious what was about to be announced.



Ron looked around and then at his soon-to-be wife. Speaking loudly enough to be heard around the Hall, Ron said, “I’m not really good with words, Luna, but there’s something I’ve been dying to ask you for almost a year now.” He hesitated for a moment – for dramatic effect and not because he needed the time – and then he took out his wand. Taking a page out of Harry’s play-book, wrote in big, fiery letters in mid-air, “Luna Marie Lovegood, I love you with all that I am and I will never be complete without you. Will you please marry me?”



Luna knew what was coming, because they had practiced the announcement together. She waved her hand in the air and most of the letters disappeared, leaving only her response, “YES!”



There was a huge round of applause as Luna threw herself into Ron’s arms and they kissed soundly and then another round of cheering as a very soft, golden light appeared around them. No one was more surprised than Ron himself and…no one was happier for them than the Head Boy and Girl.



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