Chapter 1
Back from the dead.
She tried to focus on the criss cross pattern on the celling of her cell as hell descended towards her. After so long locked in this prison, she had become accustomed to the pain, the cruciatus curse, constantly on the lips of her visitors, had pushed her to the fringes of her sanity. She was only able to hold on to it, out of sheer need, Hermione Grangers identity was based around her ability to use cool, often brilliant logic under almost any circumstance. Admittedly her current one was particularly bleak, but she was positive that the longer she was able to hold on, the more chance she had of rescue. Unfortunately she was becoming increasingly more certain that she was being held in the bowels of the riddle manor, and if that was the case she was doomed.
She had been taken about 2 weeks ago, exactly how long was impossible to say, without windows, watches, or any reliable sleeping pattern she had to make do with speculations. She had been goaded, and tortured, but now they were about to cross a line that Hermione knew, her conscious would not be able to recover from. The offending death Eater was situated in front of her, she refused to look at him, but she knew he was between her legs, trousers round his ankles, he was panting, like the dog that he was as he prepared to take her. She had tried to fight him, but in the end, she had been out muscled and without her wand she was useless. So there she was, naked, legs forced open, trembling, waiting for the comforting escape of insanity to ease over her.
Her thoughts went back to the last night that she had her wand. It had been a bleak year, Hogwarts had been awash with a blanket of despair, everyone awaiting news of the war. Without the comfort of her best friend, she had tried to immerse herself further into her studies. Her withdrawal had pushed her other best friend, and high school crush into the embrace of the harlot, Lavender Brown. Thus alone Hermione had meandered through the year, achieving, as always, perfect grades, but they seemed to do less and less to help her self esteem. She had descended further and further into apathy, self loathing, and depression.
Then christmas of sixth year came, and she went home, her parents were concerned by the change in their daughter, not sure what to do, they spent the week leading up to Christmas trying to get her to open up, and trying to make her stay as pleasant as possible. It had begun to work, she was coming back out of her shell, Hermione was beginning to heal. It had all changed however when the daily prophet arrived on the 28th of December, Harry Potter had been killed by death eaters. The subsequent change in Hermione had terrified her parents, but nothing they did had helped. The year had passed in a blur from that moment, until on the platform of nine and three quarters, at kings cross, as she was disembarking, a death eater attack occurred.
The aurors stationed were killed immediately, before the scum turned their attentions on the students. Hermione had whipped out her wand and, along with many of the students on the platform, had begun driving the arseholes back. Hermione worked herself into a frenzy, mercilessly dispatching the robed men, who had been the reason that Lord Voldemort had gained his power, the reason her best friend's short life had been fraught with pain, anger, and loneliness. These were the men responsible for taking Harry Potter from her, and these were the men, that she would destroy.
Suddenly the platform was gone gone. Squeezed through a hole in space Hermione fell to her knees in front of Lord Voldemort. Still in fits of righteous anger Hermione had raised her wand at the symbol of dread, only for it to be batted away wandlessly. Still on her knees, her head was smashed into the floor. Her captor spat at her neck, before the familiar voice of Draco Malfoy cut into her. "Kneel before your master, mudblood." She had raised again proud, valiant looking into death, and she smiled. Hermione realised at that moment that she wasn't afraid of death, she felt bad for her parents who would cry themselves to sleep for the foreseeable future, but for her, death held the promise of release.
Voldemort had tilted his head, watching her, seeing into her soul. "If that's the case Hermione Granger, then I cannot kill you. I feed off fear, and if you have none to give me, then we must culture it within you. Draco, well done, take the mudblood to the dungeons, tell your aunt, that she has a new plaything." That night had been the worst of her life, but Hermione has a strong suspicion it would be considered a fond memory compared to what was imminent.
The feeling of the dog at her entrance brought her back to the present. She couldn't help it, she didn't want to show weakness, but her vulnerability meant that she was incapable of holding back the tears. If she had one, she would gladly take a cyanide pill at that moment in time, not even the thought of her parents could make her feel guilty about her morbid fantasy. Just as she felt the death eater prepare to push into her violently she heard the door to her cell explode, debris, some of it quite substantial, scattered around the room, all missing her. Unable to see what the disturbance was, from her compromising position, she tensed up. Feeling magic emanating from the doorway, Hermione started to struggle again, as she felt the death eater between her legs spin, to confront the intruder, and then it screamed, the pressure on her disappeared, as she heard several violent crunches, from around the room.
Hermione felt her bonds release, and her modesty reinstated as clothes were conjured around her. Still struggling, she rolled off her cot, and smashed bodily into the floor. "Granger can you stand?" a scratchy voice said. At that Hermione violently retched, acid ascended her raw throat. The little stomach contents she had splashed, onto her arms whilst she whimpered. Trying to gather the will to stand a large cloaked figure knelt besides her, reaching an arm gently across her chest he slowly applied pressure, silently begging her to rise, she complied. Gripping onto her saviour for dear life she looked into his face for the first time.
A death eater's mask looked down on her, as she shook in his arms. "I'm a friend Granger, and we have to leave." She hesitated a moment before nodding. She couldn't tell if it were trust or desperation, but there was something about the man in front of her. Slowly he released her, and then quickly wrapped his left arm around her back, as she swayed dangerously. "Fuck. Ok Granger , here's a wand, only use it if you have to." He said handing her the wand of one of her assailants, who, she finally noticed, were all lying in a crumpled heap on the floor. "You've been through too much, and any spell you use is going to be weak and take a lot out of you, I'm going to get you out of here, but you're going to have to trust me. Ok?" She nodded meekly. Taking it as his cue the robed man bent, gripping her legs and lifted her over his shoulder, before setting off out of her cell.
She was jostled only slightly as her rescuer ran from the room, quietly up some stairs and along a corridor, she was only able to see the path in front every now and again as she was swung outwards as the man turned a corner. A few minutes without any resistance and her optimism began working in overdrive. Hope, she determined, an emotion that could be both curse or blessing.
As she was swung out again she spied three men walking towards them, she was unable to see what happened as she was once again blinded by his back but her rescuer barely broke stride, as she heard similar crunches to the ones in the cell. A few paces later and the monotonous, black, marble, floor she saw was changed by the chilling red of blood.
The man almost reached another corner before her rescuer cursed before uttering the second scariest sentence she could thing of hearing at that moment in time. "Hello Bella." Hermione was lifted off his shoulders and allowed to fall, landing softly as the robed man waved his wand cushioning her, and pushing her into an alcove opposite the windows. She looked up at the man trembling. "Marcus." The voice of her nightmares replied. "So you betrayed us? It's not often I'm surprised." The man standing above her held his right hand fanned outwards, his wand spinning happily on his palm. His stance had his back slightly towards her, facing Bellatrix, his right leg a foot' length in front of the other.
"No Bella, I still stand for our master I just desired the mudblood for myself. I'm sure the dark lord would not begrudge her me."
"Perhaps, if you asked for her after the ceremony. But we both know not to covet what belongs to him."
"I was under the impression he had gifted her to Avery."
"Merely lent her Marcus, and besides the Dark Lord wanted Avery to have it." If she were in any other position Hermione would be severely offended by the way both of them were talking about her. The young witch shuddered as she realised it had only taken two weeks for her to lose any pride she had in herself.
"So you're going to try and stop me?"
Hermione's entire body tensed as cringing laughter left the crazed witch. "Come Marcus, I cant deny that you have power, but you know you cannot best me."
"You're arrogance is, as always an endearing dear Bella, but please, don't let it force you into doing something so fatal, your master would be most displeased if he lost you."
"So you're saying that the Dark Lord would want me to step aside and let you escape, for fear of my own life? Do you truly expect me to allow you past?" Hermione didn't understand, the back and forth seemed far to involved for someone of Bellatrix's questionable sanity to be able to partake in.
Her rescuer, clenched his hand on the handle of his spinning wand, and whipped his wand up, fast as lightning he struck out, three times, and three times Bellatrix shielded, sending the last spell back at her attacker followed by a series of eight or nine purple and red curses, none of which Hermione recognised. Hermione cried out as her saviour was sure to crumple under the barrage. His blue shield held firm however, as he stood his ground behind it. Flicking his wand the shield broke outwards sending blue shards at his attacker. Drawing her wand across her body, sending up a protective film, caused the shards aimed at the witch to fizzle out of existence. The wizard pushed forwards trying to force her onto the defensive. The corridor was alive with magical energy, and the walls started shattering inwards, covering the ground in rubble and stone dust.
Marcus had kept Bellatrix on her shield for a bit, managing to fire off about a dozen spells in about a quarter as many seconds. He then conjured three demonic creatures. On all fours they crawled across the ground with unnatural movements, and unbelievable speed. Standing they would have been about 7 foot tall, strong clawed hands and feet were attached to heavily muscled limbs, their horns stood straight, a good 6 inches, sharp and hard, whilst flame and black shadow spit out of their skin, over their body. Their war cry a shrill shriek sending Hermione into panic, these creatures that her rescuer had summoned were truly terrible.
Bellatrix, seemed unconcerned as she opened up both of her arms sending magical shockwave of yellow light out from here, it incapacitated the demons but meant that she was unable to avoid a bone breaker from Marcus' continued volley. It hit her underneath the left breast. Screaming she sent out a second powerful wave of energy, which even in her alcove caused Hermione to be pushed up against the wall. Marcus was thrown down the corridor flailing. In a feat seemingly mpossible to all but a few cats, he righted himself midair, landing on his feet he skidded backwards, managing to shield once again from Bellatrix's deadly barrage of spells. Resending a few back at her attacker he began trying to make her angry.
"Come on Bella, he isn't going to be happy when I escape, perhaps I'll leave you alive so that Voldemort can..." He was cut off by her screams. "You dare speak his name?" Her eyes were wide with malice, snarling like a feral beast "Avada Ke..." Before she was able to finish her spell she was forced to shield against a barrage of Macsen's, her shield was smashed and she was only just able to get another up centimetres from her wand in time to defend herself. Both duellers, were frowning in concentration, sweat gleaming on their brows, Hermione's heart was racing as the incapacitation, and hopefully subsequent death of Bellatrix Lestrange approached.
Before it could arrive however, the witch span, out of the way of the barrage of curses, twisting her wand in an elaborate motion around her head, and flicking it round she sent a wide black spell in a looping arc towards Marcus, his shield was one of brilliant white, and it stood firm for a few seconds before buckling under the weight of Bellatrix' insanity and evil, it began shrinking as it was pushed back. He started moving his body towards Hermione's as Bella's infamous cackle reached their ears. "My master wont be pleased that there wont be enough of you left to punish himself, but under the circumstances..." And then suddenly Hermione was covered in blackness, it started pulling the sKin off her flesh, as she started experiencing every moment of pain she had felt in her life in that one moment, the scream that left her mouth was one of true insanity as she began clawing at her face begging for the end.
An eternity later she heard a crash, and the pull on her chest as she was torn from her prison of pain. She was suddenly falling, beneath her was the robed man, looking back up at her, they were 7 floors up, and were descending rapidly. The man was whipping his wand around, the palm of his off hand open and out in front of him, pointing at her, suddenly their fall slowed down, they reached the ground gently. The air caressed her face, and the grass was the first soft thing she'd felt in Merlin knows how long. Before her logical mind could stop her, her sleep deprived one had her drifting into unconsciousness.
"No you don't Granger, we're almost there." She was lifted into the arms of her saviour he pushed forwards, limping slightly, as he moved as quick as possible, a whispered incantation later, and following crash, five or six of the tall man's strides and she felt the darkness of her prison leave, as she was squeezed through a tube.
Hermione was once again thrown off the mans shoulder and fell onto something soft, and warm. A bed? She was aware of a series of bright lights and magical energy working above her, a few curses and a muttered "...such an idiot." before her head was tilted forwards. "Im sorry Granger but this is going to hurt." He poured a potion down her throat, a burning sensation followed it, it made her want to claw out her throat but was gone within a few minutes. Hermione heaved a sigh of relief, 'that wasn't so b...'"ahhh...fu..." Her screams became silent, as her body tensed from the pain, this was worse than the cruciatus. This was pain beyond imagining. Her last thought before she blacked out was 'out of the frying pan...'
Hermione awoke slowly, groggily she opened her eyes, the room she was in was perfectly lit, light enough that she could see her surroundings, but not so light as to add to the pounding headache waging war behind her eyes. She sucked a sharp breath in through her teach and tried to move, every nerve fibre in her body screamed at her, begging for mercy. Lying back she tried some occlumency excersise's to block out the worst of the pain, and to sort out the events of last few weeks. It wasn't pleasant to do so, but she wanted to get past it quickly. Especially if were she was, wasn't the safe haven she was hoping it was. Thirty, trying minutes later a question popped into her mind, annoyed with herself that she hadn't thought about it earlier. In her eagerness to escape she hadn't even given a seconds thought to the identity of this Marcus.
Rolling out of bed her bare foot came to rest gently on a surprisingly warm floor. She rose out of bed moving awkwardly and slowly, trying to avoid overly aggravating her sore muscles. She looked around the room. A wand lay on the bedside table, and for the first time in a very long time her lips curved upwards at the sides. Reaching out for it she basked in the feeling of goosebumps chilling their way up the front of her forearm. Unable to restrain herself she pointed the wand upwards and croaked "avis." The pain that crept through her sore throat was completely overruled by the elation she felt as her magic caused the burst of several canaries into the sky.
She spotted a water jug and glass on the bedside table, a little to quickly for her back's liking she poured herself several glasses of water, cooling the fire in the back of the throat before looking around the rest of the room. She spotted a post it note on a chest of draws at the foot of the bed. Approaching it she read the untidy scrawl 'help yourself.' She opened the draws to find underwear, jeans t shirts jumpers, some dresses were folded as were several sets of robes. She looked around and spotted what she wanted immediately, on one of the two doors another post it note read 'bathroom' and on the other, one which read 'come say hi' with a smiley face on. She felt herself starting to be put at ease, and when she realised this she immediately became weary again 'constant vigilance Hermione, come on!'.
Hermione stepped into the bathroom, voiding her bursting bladder she looked around curiously. The only appliances in the bathroom were the toilet she was sat on and a sink. The note said there was a shower in here. Peering curiously at the only corner of the room were it would make sense to place said shower she spotted something on the wall. Standing up off the toilet and taking a step closer to the corner she paused, 'wow now that is clever!', she thought to herself. On the wall at the far corner were two overlapping runes, one for water and one for temperature. On the floor were several runes for evaporation. Touching the two overlapping runes on the wall with her wand, water sprayed out of it, perfectly warm, nice and powerful just how she liked it. The pummelling hot water felt like heaven on her sore muscles, and she spent god knows how long marvelling at the feeling of cleanliness that had been alien to her for weeks.
After her glorious shower, she started to get dressed. Scandalised she realised that all of the underwear was lingerie which was not only uncomfortable, but also covered nothing whatsoever. After putting a robe over some comfy muggle wear she left the room via the second door and into a long white corridor. The smell of bacon and eggs cooking lead her down a set of stairs near her room. She was slow, still in pain, and full of nervous anticipation.
She reached a kitchen just off the bottom of the stairs, were a house elf was cooking breakfast, it was moving erratically about the place dressed in an outlandish costume. She didn't notice the figure sitting at the end of the long table curiously examining her. "Urm, excuse me?" The house elf turned to her, and her heart stopped.
"How does miss Grangy like her eggs?"
She recognised this house elf, this house elf who was so impressed by the same wizard who had so impressed her, this house elf who had shown high levels of devotion to that same wizard, levels of devotion that had led her to believe the house elf was deranged, the house elf who loved that wizard so much that he had been at his beck and call since the end of her second year.
"Dobby?"
The house elf beamed, "Miss Grangy remembers Dobby?"
She whipped around and saw the man in the corner looking at her with mirth in his eyes, eyes she hadn't seen in over a year. "Oh harry." she breathed before becoming so weak in the knees she had to pull up a chair. She closed her eyes and pinched her nose, trying to stop her head from spinning, she heard his chair screech backwards, and he started approaching her. He knelt down besides her, one hand gently on her knee comforting, the other hand on her back rubbing gently. "It's ok you're safe now."
His voice jolted her out of her spinning world as anger overcame her aches and pains, with a open palm she slapped him with all her strength across the cheek. Drawing her wand she points it at him, "What did Umbridge make you write with the blood quill."
Smiling lightly ar her he whispered "i must not tell lies. It's really me 'Mione."
Looking at his reddening cheek she couldn't help but slap him twice more "I thought you were dead!" She screamed at him slapping him again for good measure. To be fair to the boy he didn't try and stop her, didn't flinch away from the slap he just took it. The left side of his face was blood red. A small part of her felt proud, another small part felt guilty, but mostly she was livid. She raised her hand again " Explain." she snarled.
"Well, it started after the ministry, Dumbledore told me the contents of the prophecy."
"How did..."
"It was made to him, by our favourite divination professor." At the mention of Sybil Trelawny, Hermione huffed. "Basically" harry continued raising his voice slightly "It says that I am the one who will have the power to destroy him, it doesn't however, say that I will. That's the reason he came for me and killed my parents in the process."
Hermione's eyes narrowed "Harry your little I'm an orphan guilt trip is not going to get you out of this one!"
Harry looked her straight in the eyes, his emerald ones shinning with unshed tears, wide with apparent sorrow, if it were anyone but her, and maybe Albus Dumbledore they would have fallen for it. After a few moments were his expression did nothing to remove the heavy scowl and clenched eyes Harry shrugged "Worth a shot. Anyway Albus finally decided to let me in on that nugget of information, after Sirius died." Hermione's eyes narrowed again, this time however her pity was piqued 'Damn you, Harry Potter' she thought. Harry chuckled at her further narrowed eyes before continuing with his story. "Anyway I pretty much demanded that he train me for what's to come. That's why I wasn't at Hogwarts at the start of the year I was spending all my time with Albus, Minerva, Poppy, Moony, Mad eye and Bill Weasley."
"It doesn't explain it Harry, you could have trained whilst at Hogwarts."
He gave her a sheepish grin "Yeah about that, well, after the the ministry, were it became obvious Tom would use everyone close to me to get to me, I kind of decided it would be safer for all of you, and for me, if I just vanished."
Her hand descended again, with less force this time, her voice however remained a snarl "That! Was not your decision, how dare you try and take us out of this war. Harry, you can't come in to someone's life like you did to me, and then just decide to leave it! Not without talking to them first!" Her throat was crying out for her to stop talking. "So your death?" She croaked.
"Well yeah, I was getting despondent, 6 months of training, June till December. I wasn't progressing fast enough, sure I came on leaps and bounds, I could beat Bill almost always, I was even starting to get the better of Minerva and Moony, but my progress was slowing. I came up with a plan, which involved me getting close to Tom, but I knew that Albus would never agree to it, for so many reasons. So I started moaning that I wanted some real action. They'd always say I wasn't ready, as I knew they would.
Then one day I snuck out, saw some Death Eaters talking to some people from the continent, whom they were recruiting, I stunned them, Polyjuiced one to look like me, and then I killed him, after learning enough about him to fool the death eaters," Harry ignored Hermione's bulging eyes at the admission and carried on "I killed his friends with some schoolyard shit, so that it wasn't obvious I wasn't who i said I was, killed one of the two death eaters, partly because I didn't want it too look scripted, and partly because he was Rudolphus Lestrange, and the prick deserved to die, I transfigured myself to look like the bloke, Macsen. I enervated the remaining death eater. I told them that I killed the boy, who killed my friends and stunned him. Obviously he was gobsmacked when the boy turned out to be Harry Potter.
I was immediately taken to the dark lord, were "the body" was presented. My occlumency had become incredible, and I fooled him into believed my story. He granted me one wish for destroying his greatest enemy. I asked him if he could train me so that I was second only to him, he agreed," Harry let out a snort, which matched his, cold, emotionless tone. "Bella did not like that. The next 6 months of training were brutal, eventually he declared me passable, his words not mine, I went out on several raids under Bella's command, I gained her favour, by deferring to her, hiding my full power. What I saw...what I did..." The tears in his eyes were real now, and Hermione had to struggle to restrain herself from embracing him.
"I have no doubt that when I pass on that I will spend the rest of my days in the innermost layers of hell, the ones reserved for the truly evil, I didn't feel anything as I tortured and killed innocent people Hermione, a practiced apathy. I was happy to spend my days with lucifer if it meant the death of Tom, and as many of his merry men as possible. They're sicker than I am Hermione, I didn't feel, but they enjoyed, I refused to rape, or kill children, they saw me as tame and weak for those small morals, it was almost enough to have me found out.
Then two nights ago, the day I rescued you." He smirked at her, and the broken down wreck was replaced once again by the confident young man. Hermione's heart broke for her friend a man with the weight of the world on his shoulders, making decisions that were ruining him for the ridding of evil, the price, for Harry, had to be paid but was too much for him to bear. It was just as bad to see how easily he hid it, the mask on him only showed the smallest trace of pain, and she was certain this time that only she could see it in him. Only she could look past the power and see her fragile friend underneath. Seeing this hurt her more than anyone could hurt her, and her pain from the last two weeks seemed inconsequential.
"That day" he continued after a small pause "was my introductory ceremony, I was taking the dark mark. My six months of living with evil were about to come to fruition. I was invited to the Riddle manor, Tom and I duelled in the morning, also known as being held under the cruciatus for unimaginable lengths of time, then getting to your feet for at the most 3 minutes before you're overwhelmed again. Afterwards I was told to wash up, and present myself in 20 minutes in the throne room.
This was it Hermione, runes carved into my right forearm would connect with my mother's blood protection, and the second any dark magic touched me it would detonate my core, decimating voldemort, and probably a large portion of the Riddle manor, core detonations are big, and mine is huge, for my age.
But then I heard Lucius Malfoy Bragging to Nott. His son" Harry in his anger practically hissed the last word "had captured, and I quote, 'Potters mudblood' I was stuck, I had less than 20 minutes, and I'd put so much into this Hermione. I've done terrible things to get into that position tonight, and then I had to throw it all away. I've condemned the wizarding world to his tyranny to save you fully knowing in doing so that so many more wizards and witches including, most likely yourself won't survive. The evil I became was all for naught."
There was a long pause, Hermione was crying in earnest now. Harry moved towards her slightly arms spread, unsure of himself, and she launched herself into his arms, holding onto him for dear life. "Harry, I needed you this year, I was a wreck, but I'm so so sorry, for everything that you've been through." She managed to get the sentence out through her sobs.
"Hermione, I am the last person who deserves any sympathy, and I'm sorry, if I'd heard they had you earlier, you shouldn't have had to go through what you did, please, I needed you to know." He tilted her chin up "are you ok?"
"I am now Harry." She smiled at him, and he smiled back, they knelt on the floor grasping onto each other for a whilst longer, before Harry suggested they eat.
Sitting down next to each other Harry started talking about Hogwarts, he wasn't happy that she didn't have anything to tell him about the last year. He was livid that Ron and her had stopped talking. After they finished their breakfast Harry turned back to Hermione. "You're parents know you're safe, I went to see them yesterday, and explained that you were probably safest here. If and when you want to go back to them, just tell me and I'll take you. I do think you should stay here for at least a few days whilst you recover." She nodded at that. "You're parents are safe, someone has set up some pretty hefty wards around their house, it felt like Bill's magic but I may have been mistaken. I need to leave the house for a few days, but if you'll follow me I think we can find something to keep you amused in the meantime." Harry's grin had her intrigued as she got up to follow him.
Harry had subtly positioned himself behind Hermione, as he was worried about how she was managing. Slowly, due to her injuries, they made their way back up the stairs, and down the corridor. Harry pointed to a door immediately to the left at the top of the stairs "This is my room." He said before carrying on down the corridor. Opposite the door were Hermione had stayed the night before Harry placed his hand on the doorknob and turned. Before he opened the door he turned back and smirked at her, "I thought you'd appreciate being as close to it as possible." With that Hermione was shown into a library which contended for size with Hogwarts own.
Slowly, deliberately she stepped into the room. She slowly came out of her dazed state to see Harry beaming at her. "Its the culmination of the Black and Potter library's, as well as some others Ive picked up along the way." With that he took her down the first five rows of book shelves to were there was a fire burning with a few comfy chairs around it, in the corner there was a desk with a wooden chair underneath it. "Here is were I like to read, the shelves are stacked by subject, transfiguration," he gesture at the first set of shelves "and charms," he pointed towards a second set, "also contain some of my parents notes. I would suggest reading them, people weren't kidding when they said that they were prodigy's in those areas."
Harry was finding it difficult not to laugh at his friend, who seemed to be struggling to avoid drooling. Eventually she came around. "Harry this is amazing." His smile hadn't left his face since he'd opened the door.
"Im glad you like it," his face finally fell as he continued talking. "I do need to warn you about the back two bookshelves. They're dark books Hermione, I mean really dark. They're hard to read without feeling like you need to throw up. It's almost like having a dementor in your lap. Mostly they're from the Black library, but about half of the last bookshelf were gifts from Tom, and they're scary. There are some useful spells in there, like those demons I conjured last night, but if I were you I'd stick to the shelves closest to the fire." Hermione nodded at that. "Right have you got any questions? Because I do have quite a bit to do today."
"Yes actually," she replied sounding angry, her eyes once again screwed up "What was the lingeret about?"
Harry burst out laughing "What can I say? Im a pervert."
Hermione hit him on the arm, somewhere between playfully and angrily. "Prat!"
"Wait so you're telling me that you didn't transfigure them into something more appropriate?" Harry asked her his eyes filled with mirth.
Hermione struggled to contain a blush, trying to focus on her anger at Harry as opposed to her obvious embarrassment, but failing she settled on changing the subject. "What do you plan to do now Harry?"
"Well, I need to announce my return, but there are a few things I would like to do before that, first I need to unfreeze my accounts, I want a chat with Moony, Amelia Bones, and Umbridge."
"What about Hogwarts Harry?"
"Well, I couldn't not do my NEWTs now could I?" Hermione beamed at that, she was getting her best friend back. "So, you good here?" He nodded his head towards the comfy seats in front of the fire. Hermione nodded and Harry turned setting off out of the library, but before he could leave Hermione stopped him.
"Harry wait!" He stopped turned around and looked at her, his eyes and lips seemed to be bursting with happiness. "You know you can talk to me about the last six months don't you? I wont judge you no matter what you've done."
Immediately Hermione regretted saying it. Harry's face fell, and literally seemed to darken. "Im not scared you'll judge me 'Mione, Im scared you'll forgive me." With that he swept out of the room.
