Hermione stared at him for several seconds, not quite comprehending what she was hearing.

Did he just-

"Me... me go to Tir Nan Og with you?" Hermione stammered once she had regained control of her thoughts. "You actually want me to come with you?"

"Well, who else would you go with?" Harry asked cheekily. "Obviously I want you to come with me!"

Hermione resisted the urge to retort, instead settling for rolling her eyes.

"You can be such a prat sometimes!" she said, patting Crookshanks idly when he jumped up onto the bed and curled up on her lap. "What I mean though... would I really be welcome there? What could I do with my life there? It would be so different to what I know..."

From what she had heard and what little she had seen, Tir Nan Og was so different to what she already knew... then again, learning that she had magic in the first place before she went to Hogwarts having previously been ignorant of it... maybe...

Harry started on her, asking her about her Gryffindor courage, reminding her that the hat had to have placed her there for a reason, despite really wanting to put her into Ravenclaw.

"I'm not like you, Harry! I can't just jump into situations without just thinking about it!" she glared at him. "I'd have to think about it first!"

"Please do. You'd be safe there, there's plenty of opportunity for a bright mind like yours there... and then there's the fact that Queen Nebula and Princess Morgana have both expressed the desire to meet you personally."

Hermione looked at him in complete and utter disbelief.

"Why would they possibly want to meet me?" she thought, before actually speaking that thought aloud.

"Are you bloody kidding? Of course they do!" Harry exclaimed, before listing off several reasons why they would want to meet her.

Hermione continued to stare at him in disbelief as he went on, counting off each reason on his fingers- until he ran out of them.

"...the queen would love you for the fighting part and Roxy's mum would love someone who could hold up in an intelligent debate with her." Harry finished.

"And I suppose you can't?" Hermione teased.

"Not nearly as well as you could." Harry retorted.

Hermione chuckled.

They continued to talk for a while about other things that Harry had told them about her, as well as what he knew about them, before the room fell into silence once again, punctuated by the occasional purr of Hermione's feline, content in his place on her lap.

Her thoughts were racing, going through each possibility as quickly as they came up.

This would be a valuable opportunity for her.

She'd completed all the magical education she could get from Hogwarts after all, so there was no longer any reason for her to consider that, plus with all the attacks in recent days including the one on the Hogwarts Express...

It really wasn't safe for anyone of her heritage to remain in Britain right now, despite how much she would have wanted to otherwise...

Plus there was the fact that being in Tir Nan Og and by extension, Magix had done so much for Harry and not just in the way of all the magic and combat skills he was gaining...

He'd become more confident in himself; more comfortable in his role as a leader, not to mention even his grades and social skills seemed to be benefitting...

It did him well.

Perhaps it could do her well too...

After a while, she composed herself and spoke again.

"When do you leave?"

"Two more days." Harry answered.

Hermione paused briefly.

"I... I'll let you know my answer by the end of tomorrow."

A quick answer was important, but she needed a little time to go over this.

She was sure that she would end up saying yes and going with him in the end, but still.

It wasn't a decision to be made lightly, after all.

"Great." Harry took her hands in his, smiled encouragingly and squeezed them. "Take your time. I know you'll make the best choice for you in the long run."

"Thanks for the vote of confidence, Harry. Your being there and in Magix seems to have really done well for you. You've changed so much- and that change was for the better. You've grown smarter, stronger, more confident... Voldemort won't know what's hit him in the end." Hermione smiled back, truly meaning what she said as she took in the sight of her best friend.

"I bloody well hope so!" Harry agreed, laughing. "Anyway, I have to go make a call. Roxy's no clingy girlfriend, but she's threatened to come over here and find me herself if I don't let her know how I am at least once a day while I'm here..."

"I can't blame her, given the current climate in Magical Britain..." Hermione said, understanding the animal fairy's concern. "Now go. I really want to meet the Tir Nan Og fairies, but not when they're..." she trailed off, the idea of a bunch of angry fairies rivalling her terror of Voldemort briefly.

"Yes, I understand. I completely get it." Harry stood up. "I've seen them angry before and while they weren't angry at me, they were still bloody terrifying. You'll be fine though. I promise."

Harry stood up and left the room, leaving Hermione to dwell in her thoughts as Crookshanks snuggled further into her lap.

" Well, Crookshanks, I've got an important choice ahead of me. I know I'll say yes, but I just wanted to go over it a bit first. Maybe some will think of it as me running away from my problems, but I'm thinking of it as a chance to properly pull myself together and learn things that would give me a proper fighting chance, you know?" Hermione patted his head lightly, Crookshanks letting out only a small meow in response.


"Harry, I've decided. I'm coming with you."

Those were the first words out of Hermione's mouth when she saw Harry the next morning.

"And good morning to you too, Hermione," Harry raised an eyebrow at her.

"What?" Hermione asked, seeing the look on his face. "When have you ever known me to dawdle when it comes to important decisions?"

Harry blinked.

"Point taken," he shrugged. "you're sure though? You don't want to stay here and help how you can?"

"I'll be able to help if I learn more things that I can use to help," Hermione pointed out. "I've seen what your magical inter-dimensional travels have done for you. Can you really blame me if I want to experience the same?"

"No. Not in the slightest," Harry agreed.

"Anyway, most of my things are already packed and ready to go at a moment's notice, whether it's because of me going with you to Tir Nan Og... or other more unpleasant reasons." Hermione glanced out a nearby window, as if expecting Voldemort himself to appear on the other side.

"That's Hermione Granger for you. Always prepared," Harry chuckled.

"And don't you forget it!" she exclaimed. "When do you plan on leaving, anyway?"

"I was going to wait until tomorrow to give you a chance to make up your mind, but you've already made it up, so we can go later today. There isn't much that I can do around here right now, honestly," Harry shrugged.

"True," Hermione said. "Is there anything else that I can do to prepare for the trip? I'd really like to be fully ready. Fully prepared."

"Didn't you just say a few minutes ago that you were already prepared?" Harry asked.

"Yes, but I need to be sure..."

Harry rolled her eyes. "You've done all you can. You've tied up loose ends left by your parents' estate and with all of that, you don't have to do anything to protect them seeing as they've already passed on..."

Hermione fought down the urge to start crying. She refused to turn into a fountain of tears. They would not want her to be like that.

"You've concluded your magical education here, you have all the belongings you care to with you here all packed up and ready to go, you even have Crookshanks with you and all he needs is to be put in a carrier for the trip. Tough little bugger he is. Where is he, anyway?" Harry looked around, as if hoping to see him.

"I left him dozing on the bed. He was too adorable to wake up." Hermione smiled.

"Your definition of adorable and my definition of it are obviously different," Harry chortled. "Good to see you smiling though. We still have some time before the others are up for breakfast. I think I'll go start something so that Mrs Weasley doesn't have to work so hard this morning."

"Since when do you cook?" Hermione raised an eyebrow.

"Since I was old enough to reach the top of the stove at the Dursleys'," Harry looked indifferent as he referred to his time with his last remaining relatives- something which was always rare, since he never liked talking about them.

"But that's in the past now and we've got bigger fish to fry!" he spoke up quickly upon seeing the look on her face, which she was sure looked like a cross between revulsion and pity.

"I think I need to see this for myself!" Hermione followed him into the kitchen.

"Fine, but you're not to help me. You'll just watch." Harry insisted.

"As long as you don't look to be about to burn down The Burrow or chop off your hand" Hermione teased.

"Have faith, my friend." Harry chuckled as he took stock of what he had to work with, before assembling everything he had chosen to work with from the lot. "I know what I'm doing. If you can trust me enough to follow me through all the nonsense I went through during our Hogwarts years, you can trust me to cook a delicious breakfast. This is much less dangerous."

Hermione giggled. "If you say so Harry. If you say so..."


Harry had managed to whip up some bacon omelettes, toast and had a big cauldron of porridge simmering when the rest of The Burrow's occupants started trickling into the kitchen.

Hermione enjoyed the looks on their faces when it clicked in their heads who exactly it was that was producing the delicious smells.

"Oh, Harry!" Molly started up. "You shouldn't have! I'd have been down here soon enough to do all this!"

"It doesn't matter, Mrs. Weasley. I enjoy cooking and I don't get to do it often. It was no trouble," he reassured her.

"Really, it wasn't any trouble for him at all, Mrs Weasley!" Hermione piped up. "I was in here the entire time and he didn't slip up once! I think you're... we're all in for a treat this morning!"

"And I think that that's the porridge done," Hermione watched as Harry checked the porridge again and seemingly found it satisfactory.

Once everyone was in the room and seated, he began serving the breakfast, finally allowing Hermione to help him with that task, she doing it by hand and he using magic to do the same, much as Mrs Weasley normally would.

As Hermione finally sat to eat, she lost herself in the food for a bit, letting herself enjoy Harry's surprising culinary skill for a bit and taking her mind off the bigger problems they all had to deal with.

Fred and George were in top form, making jokes about Harry's cooking, before they too, finally quieted down to eat.

There was very little chatter as they all ate and not much more as all the things were cleared away, cleaned and returned to their usual storage spaces.

After breakfast, everyone left the kitchen for a while to try and catch up on what was happening in the outside world; making contact with friends, Order members and various other people they knew in order to get a handle on the situation and determine what they wanted to do moving forward.

It was after lunch that they finally got around to talking about it and sharing what they had found.

Percy and Arthur spoke of what they had learnt about the fate of the Ministry of Magic.

Each word out of their mouths made Hermione more and more pessimistic about the future of Magical Britain.

Bill spoke up next, talking about the various protections that Order members were in the process of using to protect themselves, their families, and as many people as they possibly could.

From there, they all tossed up some suggestions, with Harry offering a few pointers from the things he had learnt while in Magix and she suggesting some rarer protective spells she had come across in her research.

"Well, then," Ginny glanced at her, after declaring her own intention to join the fight against Voldemort as best as she could (much to Molly's dismay). "Hermione, are you going to stay? It's going to be even worse for you than it would be for us for obvious reasons. I mean, if the rumours about this 'Muggleborn Registration Committee' are true, plus with you being a known close friend of Harry's..."

"I'm going to Tir Nan Og with Harry later. I know I'll be safe there and I'll learn so much..." Hermione spoke up. "To help both myself and..." she looked down at her feet nervously.

"We know, dear." Molly smiled at her reassuringly. "We know..."

Ginny nodded. "I understand. Maybe someday I'll travel with you two there as well, when this is over. Hopefully the queen will have me."

"Perhaps she would. She has expressed interest in meeting some of my friends at some point. When this is all over, most likely..." Harry said.

"Well, there's something to look forward to, isn't it?" Hermione smiled weakly. "Stay safe in the interim, don't you..."

Hermione glanced at Harry and he inclined his head towards the door.

As she and he stood up, he reminded them of their travel plans and they excused themselves from the table to make sure everything was in order for the trip.


Hermione glanced out the window, taking in the mid afternoon scenery sadly.

She was finally about to leave and she didn't know when she would see it or the rest of Britain ever again.

Or that if she returned, it would still be here...

She shuddered at the thought.

Sighing, she knelt down to give Crookshanks one last rub before coaxing him into his carrier, the feline being more cooperative in that regard than usual.

"I guess you get how important this is, don't you?" she cooed at him when she lifted the carrier and checked to make sure it was secure.

Crookshanks merely meowed at her in a manner that Hermione imagined was rather resigned to his fate.

She chuckled.

"Okay then." she took a deep breath as she gathered up all her packed belongings. "Time to go, Crookshanks. Harry should be ready by now..."

She met Harry at the top of the stairs and they went down it together and headed straight outside, where the Weasleys were waiting to say their goodbyes.

Fleur greeted her first while the twins reached Harry first.

"Bonne chance, Hermione. I know you can do eet. I know we didn't get along much at first..." Fleur looked a little ashamed.

"I know." Hermione smiled weakly. "I guess it was a clash of personalities but recent events really put things into perspective. You're really not all that bad."

Fleur smiled back.

Next, she talked to the twins.

"Well, Miss Granger,"

"Off to the land of fairies aren't you?"

"Try not to spend all your time in their library,"

"There must be plenty of other things there besides books!"

Hermione rolled her eyes as Fred and George alternated their lines.

She was engulfed by Molly next, who gave her the tightest hug she had ever received.

"Do what you must, my dear. I can't stop you," the older woman looked ready to burst into tears again and it was this that nearly set Hermione off.

When Ginny moved over to her and gave her a hug to rival her mother's, they both burst into tears.

"This is all just so stupid," Ginny said, sounding frustrated through her tears. "All of this. Everything!"

"Understatement of the century," Hermione muttered.

They broke apart and took a few seconds to compose themselves.

"It's going to take a lot more than Bat Bogeys to beat the Death Eaters, you know." Hermione smiled slightly, bringing up Ginny's signature spell from school.

"Oh, I know. I've been doing whatever practice I could on the sly, from what I learnt in our study group, to things that would probably be in the Restricted Section..." Ginny's expression looked briefly terrifying.

"Cast those as well as you do that hex and Harry's not going to have much Death Eaters to cut through to get to Voldemort..." Hermione noted.

"That's the idea."

All too soon, all their goodbyes were said and Harry walked over to her, putting his arm in hers.

"Ready to go, Miss Granger?" he asked her.

"I certainly am, Mr Potter." Hermione said.

They turned one last time to wave to the Weasleys before they stepped through the portal.


The sensation of passing through a portal was entirely new to her and felt quite different from the Apparition that she had learnt.

For one thing, the portal offered a much smoother ride.

There was no feeling of being squished through a tube or feeling dizzy enough to be unsteady on her feet.

Instead, it felt to her like she was walking through a ray of pleasantly warm sunshine.

While it felt better than Apparition, however, she still gripped Harry's arm tightly; unused to this mode of travel and hoping that it hadn't gone wrong and would deposit her somewhere other than their intended destination.

Her eyes had also been closed the entire time and she only opened them when she felt the magic of the portal stop.

There were no words to describe the beauty that she was seeing.

"Wow..." she looked around, doing her best to take in everything around her as the breeze ruffled her hair.

"It's a beautiful place isn't it?" Harry smiled knowingly at her likely awestruck expression. "Just wait until you see Magix though. It's a completely different environment, but just as amazing, I think..."

A new voice spoke from behind them, making her turn sharply to see the speaker.

"Ah, Harry. Welcome back. I see you brought your friend with you..."

Dear, sweet Merlin.

It was Morgana herself.

The same Morgana she had heard about only in stories and then in Harry's tales about meeting her...

The former queen smiled at them both and asked for an introduction which Harry gave.

Hermione bowed respectfully.

Morgana tapped her shoulder and motioned for her to get up.

"Rise my dear. Harry can call Dobby to put your things in the room I have assigned for you. I would actually love to have a chat with you now."

"Wait... I have a room assigned to me in the palace itself for my entire stay here?" Hermione's eyes widened. "She actually wants to have a chat with me right now!"

"Let us go and have our chat. Plus you picked a great day to arrive as we have guests coming that I'm sure you would be delighted to meet..." Morgana put a firm hand on her shoulder and turned them in the direction she wanted them to go.

"Calm yourself, Hermione. You've faced lots of dangerous situations and met lots of famous people before. You're famous yourself, too. It isn't like you to be like this!"

"But you aren't a figure of legend are you?" a voice in the back of her head spoke up. "And these fairies have so much knowledge and magical secrets that they may be willing to share with you if you play your cards right. You deserve to be excited about something for once!"

Hermione snapped out of her wandering thoughts when Morgana waved her hands and teleported them inside the palace itself.

"There are many ways to enter the palace, and that was just one of them," the older woman smiled. "Only direct members of the royal bloodline can enter the palace directly via magic, however, so that is just myself, my sister and my daughter. We can however, bring along whoever we please, such as how I just did with you. That's your first bit of Tir Nan Og trivia, directly from me."

Hermione nodded as she listened to the former queen, taking in the sights around her.

"Now, let's head onto the meeting room, shall we? As I said, we have guests here and I'd love to talk to you some more before I introduce you to them. Follow me." the former fairy queen motioned for Hermione to follow her down a corridor.

Hermione straightened herself up and followed.

She could do this.

She had handled much worse than this, after all.