A/N- Sorry! I honestly meant to update during May, but moving and work took up a lot of my time. I am serious though when I say that I'll update quicker if I get more reviews!

Hermione stared at Headmistress McGonagall for a few moments, just thinking over what she was being offered. Becoming an Animagus took years to learn and even then, not every witch or wizard could do it. Hermione had read about numerous occasions when an attempted Animagus transformation had gone so wrong that the poor wizard or witch ended up with a permanent partial transformation. Most of the time the unsuccessful attempts resulted in a tail, something that didn't sound appealing to Hermione at all after her "cat incident" during her second year at Hogwarts.

"You want to train me?" Hermione asked for the fifth time. "But, I thought that you were against teaching it."

Headmistress McGonagall scoffed scornfully. "Come now Hermione, I know that you're quicker than this. Even though it is incredibly difficult, becoming an Animagus is a very useful defensive strategy. I don't think that you will have too many difficulties with it."

Hermione winced when her anxiety sent another wave of pain through her shoulder. "Won't we have to do this training with the Ministry breathing down our necks? I know that there is a new decree that Kingsley has passed that states that it is very selective process because they don't want everyone trying it. I guess I'm just worried that I won't be able to do it with such a tight leash."

McGonagall chuckled and shook her head. "I think we'll take the Marauder's route this time. I'll talk to Kingsley, he may be the Minister of Magic now, but he still has time for an old friend."

Training illegally sounded about as appealing to Hermione as growing a tail. "Kingsley may be a friend, but he'll still want an explanation."

"That's true," McGonagall agreed. "If it's alright with you, I would like to explain to him my reasoning. I promise that your secret will remain hidden from Misters Potter and Weasley."

Hermione gave a small smile. "As long as no one else knows, I'm alright with it. So…when do we start? Harry told me that it took his father years to accomplish it, and I don't have that much time to dedicate to training."

McGonagall rubbed her chin absent-mindedly. "Time would be an issue for me as well, but I have another illegal solution to that problem."

"Wow Professor," Hermione teased. "The illegal option seems to be your favorite one; you've been spending too much time with the twins."

"More than enough," McGonagall groaned. "They set up another shop in Hogsmeade and now I see them plenty. Anyway, are you interested or is this a little too much for you to handle?"

Hermione scowled a little bit. "I'll do it," she said, unable to resist a challenge. "So what's your solution to our time problem?"

Without answering directly, Headmistress McGonagall opened a desk drawer and pulled something out. It was a small hourglass that was attached on a gold chain. Hermione stared at it, confused.

"How do you have a time-turner? I thought we destroyed them all when Harry led us to the Ministry to rescue Sirius."

McGonagall smiled and placed the time-turner on the desk. "You did, but luckily I still had this one in my possession. A certain student of mine used this to take a double course load during her second year, and I have just failed to return it. And it's a good thing that I did; otherwise all of them would be lost."

Hermione reached forward and took the familiar time-turner off the desk and felt the chain slide between her fingers. She smiled when she remembered all the times she had used it during her stressful third year. "This is great; with this we can possibly finish my training in a weekend if we push through it."

McGonagall nodded and held out her hand for Hermione to return the time-turner. "I would like you to take that book I gave you home for the week and give it a good read through. Tell Misters Potter and Weasley that you will be away for the weekend and I will also clear my schedule. I feel that it would be best if we do your training somewhere outside of Hogwarts, we wouldn't want Harry to see you on that map of his."

"Where should we meet? It would need to be secure."

McGonagall chuckled and leaned back in her chair. "Have you ever been to my house?"

Harry was completely swamped with paperwork. If anybody asked him if an Auror's life was filled with nothing but excitement and glory, he would laugh in their face. He pulled a rather large file and opened it up to examine the contents. Finding the remaining Death Eaters occupied most of his time as Head Auror, and he felt that he seldom had time to do anything else with his life. Harry and Ron agreed that capturing the head Death Eater took priority, and having a life could come after that. Even though it was Friday, Harry had no intention of taking the weekend off. He would do anything it took to capture him.

A knock on the door brought Harry back to reality. "Come in!" he yelled, tearing his eyes away from the folder for a brief second.

The door opened slowly to reveal a wide-eyed Hermione. She had a nervous smile on her face when she entered Harry's office. Harry noticed right away that Hermione was carrying an overnight bag, but he couldn't recall where she was going.

"Hey Hermione," he greeted cheerfully. "Are you going somewhere?"

Hermione chuckled and grasped the shoulder strap that rested on her unscarred shoulder a little tighter. "I'm leaving for the weekend. I have business to take care of. I just thought that you would like to know, but by the looks of it, you'll be busy this weekend as well."

Harry laughed and shut the file. "We have a new lead and I plan on spending my time following it and picking up others. So where will you be going?"

Hermione raised her eyebrow slightly. "You've been working too hard Mr. Potter," she said in a teasing tone. "You sound like you're interrogating me."

"I guess I am," Harry admitted with a smile. They shared a quick laugh and for a moment Harry remembered the feeling of warmth that filled his chest whenever Hermione laughed. "So we'll see you back home on Sunday?"

"You will, but if you need to reach me your Patronis would work. I already said goodbye to Ron, and now that I've said goodbye to you I'll head out."

Hermione gave Harry a small wave and left his office just as quickly as she had come. Harry felt a small twinge at her absence, but it was becoming familiar these days. Before Harry could pick the folder back up the door to his office opened up suddenly and Hermione poked her head in sheepishly.

"I know you'll find Lucius," she said softly. "But working yourself to death won't help anyone. So please take care of yourself."

Then she left just as quickly as she had come, and Harry was left with a nagging thought that he was losing his best friend.

Hermione panted heavily and collapsed from exhaustion for the third time while she failed again. Headmistress McGonagall sat in a comfortable armchair and looked on anxiously while her prized student struggled to grasp her animal transformation.

Even though it was only Saturday, in reality Hermione had been training for almost a year. Hermione had insisted that they push as hard as they could, no matter what. But, she didn't realize until now just how exhausting becoming an Animagus was.

"Hermione," McGonagall said as soon as Hermione pulled herself to her feet. "I am telling you now, to rest. We still have a lot of time, but it won't do us any good if you lose consciousness for most of it."

"But Professor," Hermione said, referring to her as 'Professor' out of habit. "I can feel my animal; it's just out of my reach. You said that I have to transform my nature and my body will follow, but it fails just when I'm about to grasp it."

McGonagall got to her feet and helped Hermione into the soft armchair. Then she pulled her want out and conjured another chair for herself. Then the two women relaxed and ate the sandwiches that one of McGonagall's house-elves brought.

"I think you're trying too hard," McGonagall said bluntly. "Finding your animal spirit is the first step, and you grasped that concept quickly. The next step is changing your very nature into your animal's which is more difficult. The final step is following your nature transformation into your physical transformation."

Hermione groaned tiredly. She had found her 'animal nature' as McGonagall had put it, in a month, and she had been trying to grasp it ever since. "I hate failing," she said miserably. "I thought that I would be able to do this if I studied enough, but nothing I read helped. Am I missing something?"

McGonagall took a sip of tea and thought of something that might help her student overcome this obstacle. "Why are you doing this Hermione?" she asked suddenly, taking Hermione by surprise.

"I'm doing this so I can protect myself," Hermione answered as if the answer was obvious. "I don't want Ron or Harry to have to worry about me, I cause them enough worry and I can't bear doing it anymore."

"So you're doing this for Harry," McGonagall stated with a knowing smile.

"And Ron," Hermione added a little hastily.

McGonagall pointed her wand and said "Accio Photo Album."

A large photo album burst through the doors to their training room and hovered right in front of McGonagall's face. She lowered her wand and took the album and began to search through it. After a minute of searching, she pulled a small photo out of the book and gave it to Hermione. Gingerly, Hermione took it and felt a small sad smile form when she saw whose it was.

It was Harry. It looked like it was taken when they were eighteen, when they went back to Hogwarts for their seventh year. McGonagall had insisted that they let her take Harry's, Hermione's and Ron's picture. Apparently she had a tradition of taking every Gryffindor's picture during their final year at Hogwarts, and the Trio was no exception. Harry had a big grin on his face; Hermione remembered that it was taken just after she had been made Head Girl. She couldn't believe how proud Harry was of her; in fact that was the first time that Harry had made Hermione's heart fill up with warmth.

"When I started training to become an Animagus," McGonagall started. "I was in love with a wonderful wizard, he was so brave and strong and even more skilled in transfiguration than I am. He didn't know I what I was trying to accomplish, if he did I don't think he would have allowed me to continue. I had a difficult time grasping my nature, but one day, before I left to train; he gave me a locket with both of our pictures in it. He had even enchanted it so that it felt warm whenever I thought of him, just to remind me that he loved me very much."

"That's very romantic," Hermione said with a smile.

"Very," McGonagall agreed. "Anyway, when I started training again and I began to fail, I thought of him and the locket began to feel warm, and it was very comforting. Knowing that he loved helped my reasons for doing this harsh training seem irrelevant. So, I focused on him and everything got so much easier."

Hermione looked at Harry's photo and felt the familiar sensation of warmth in her heart, accompanied with a stinging shoulder. "But Harry and I don't love each other," she said in a small voice.

"But he cares deeply for you. Keep that photo on you when you train, and feel his presence." McGonagall stiffly stood up and waved her wand to transfigure her chair into a soft, comfy bed. "I want you to rest now for a few hours. Don't worry," she added when Hermione opened her mouth to object. "We'll get those hours back; you wouldn't believe how many rooms I have ready for our training."

Hermione nodded and crawled into the bed. After making sure that Harry's picture wouldn't be damaged, she put it in a pocket in her robes, right above her heart. She fell asleep feeling Harry very close to her heart.

Harry packed up Lucius Malfoy's file and gave a flick of his wand to blow out the candles that filled his office with plenty of light. After the Battle of Hogwarts, Lucius had taken over as head Death Eater, and had abandoned his wife and son so that they would take the fall. Even though there was no Dark Lord anymore, Lucius felt that the pureblood supremacy was too important to give up. There was always something involving him.

With a huge yawn, Harry left his office and walked to the Floo Ports. Even though he could apparate from his office, Harry enjoyed taking the Floo more. The Ministry was pretty much abandoned; not many people worked as late on Sunday as he did. Before Harry made it to the Floo, he heard someone calling his name. He turned around and saw Fred running towards him.

"Hey Fred," he greeted. "What're you doing here?"

Fred had a smile on his face, but there were wrinkles on his forehead that were too early for his years. "I had an appointment here to discuss our latest W.W.W. product. Apparently one of our products got in the hands of a muggle and the Ministry had to Obliviate a whole classroom of muggles."

Harry laughed with Fred, but he noticed that Fred's laughter didn't reach his eyes. Ever since Percy had died, a part of Fred had died too. Hermione had called it 'Survivor's Guilt' and that it happened all the time with people who survived a war, but she said that it must have been even worse for Fred because he felt that it was his fault that his older brother was dead.

"So what was the product?" Harry asked.

Fred had a mischievous grin on his face. "George and I had been trying to perfect them for years, we call them Animagus Bars, they do partial Animagus transformations, you know tails, ears and such. Apparently someone bought one and it someone made its way into a muggle's lunch bag and was eaten for snack."

"Is the Ministry putting a ban on this product?" Harry asked, feeling stupid because he should have heard about that incident.

"No, because I assured him that we would work on a way to make sure that our products only work on magical folks. It'll take a while, but George and I will manage."

Harry nodded and led the way to the Floo. "If you can manage that, your name will go down in history and I might have to ask you for products in the future."

"We'd be happy to have the 'Famous Harry Potter's' business," Fred laughed. "Especially if it helped the Ministry, then Mum can't say that we don't make a difference in the world."

Harry laughed and shook Fred's hand. "You and George should come by Grimmauld's sometime for dinner; we don't see much of each other these days."

"Will do Mr. Auror," Fred laughed. With a wave, he apparated away, leaving Harry alone.

Harry stepped into the fireplace and took a small handful of Floo powder from the pouch he kept attached to his belt. He took a deep breath and threw the powder in the fire while calling out "Grimmauld's Place".

In less than a minute, Harry stepped out of his fireplace into his home. Grimmauld's Place was a much more cheerful place ever since Harry, Ron and Hermione had moved in. With Hermione's wide knowledge of spells, they managed to make the place more suitable to live in. After a lot of research, Hermione had even managed to remove the Permanent Stick Charm that kept Mistress Black's portrait on the wall. Out of compassion for Kreacher, they shrank the portrait and gave it to Kreacher to keep in his den.

Before Harry had even been home for a minute, Kreacher came running in. He wore a pillowcase and Regulus' locket on his chest. Kreacher was a proud servant to Harry, and Harry truly enjoyed Kreacher's company.

"Good day Master Harry," Kreacher greeted with a small bow. "Kreacher has made dinner and will have it heated up and ready for Master Harry while Master Harry cleans up."

"Thanks Kreacher," Harry said with a smile. "Is Ron home?"

"Master Ron arrived home five minutes before Master Harry; Kreacher will summon Masters Ron and Harry when dinner is ready."

Harry took off his traveling robe and handed it to Kreacher's waiting arms. "Sounds good Kreacher. Has Hermione returned home yet?"

Kreacher dusted off Harry's cloak and hung it on the coat rack that stayed next to the fireplace. "Kreacher has not seen Mistress Hermione yet, but Mistress Hermione told Kreacher that Mistress Hermione might not be home until late. Kreacher will save Mistress Hermione some dinner."

"Thanks Kreacher," Harry said again. He left Kreacher downstairs and headed upstairs to his room.

Harry had taken the master bedroom and the smaller room next to it so he had an office that was separate from his bedroom. No one had touched Sirius' room or Regulus' room, Ron lived on the same floor as Harry, and Hermione lived a floor above.

Harry had offered Hermione his room, but Hermione had insisted that she needed more space for an office and peace and quiet when she brought work home. The truth was, and Harry knew it, that Hermione wanted to be alone and away from her best friends.

When Harry opened the door to his room, Ron stuck his head out of his room further down the hall and gave Harry a small wave.

"Hey mate," he said tiredly. "The lead was a dead end; I'll give the details downstairs."

"Thanks Ron," Harry sighed. "I just wanta take a quick shower."

Harry stepped into his room and smiled at the peaceful feeling that he always got whenever he entered. There were photos covering the fall wall. When he moved in, Harry wanted to feel surrounded by everyone he loved and he had turned the wall into a reminder of why he fought so hard. The most common of the photos were ones of his parents, Sirius, Lupin, Ron and Hermione. He wanted memoirs of his past and his present.

He threw his bag on his bed and took a quick shower. Not taking particular care about what he looked like at dinner, he put on a pair of sweats and a t-shirt. After spending a whole day in his office robes, Harry just wanted to feel comfortable.

Just as Harry finished getting dressed there was a knock on the door. Kreacher poked his head in and bowed while he announced that dinner was ready.

"I'll be right down," Harry assured him.

Quickly, Harry unpacked his bag and looked at Lucius' large file. Another dead end, Harry thought bitterly. How does he keep managing to evade us?

Harry walked downstairs and felt his mouth water slightly when he smelled the dinner that Kreacher had made for them. By the time Harry entered the dining room Ron was already almost finished with his first helping.

"Slow down Ron," Harry laughed. "It's not going anywhere."

"I've been in the field all day," Ron said with his mouth full. "We didn't run into trouble, but it's not like there was time for a lunch break."

Harry accepted a bowl of French onion soup from Kreacher and began to eat. "So, was the lead a bust? Or did it come too late?"

Ron swallowed and sighed. "The lead was good, but Lucius was a step ahead as usual. I don't understand how he can be so evasive."

"Me neither," Harry admitted while he took another sip of soup.

A loud 'pop' took their minds out of 'Auror Mode' and they turned their heads to see Kreacher running towards the door.

"Good evening Mistress Hermione," he greeted cheerfully. "Did your business trip go well?"

"Very well Kreacher," Hermione said. Harry couldn't see her from where he was sitting, but he could tell by the sound of her voice that she was exhausted.

"Would Mistress Hermione like something to eat?"

"Thank you, but I'm not hungry. I'll just go upstairs and go to bed."

Hermione walked into the kitchen and Harry and Ron both stood up in worry at the sight of her. There were huge bags under her eyes, her skin was pale, and her hair was even messier than usual.

"Bloody hell Hermione," Ron gasped. "What kind of business trip were you on? You're a mess!"

"Thank you Ronald," Hermione said a little coldly. "I had a lot of work to do, and I didn't have much time to care about my appearance."

Harry pulled a chair out and motioned for Hermione to sit. When she hesitated he said, "I want to know how your weekend was. Kreacher," he added, turning to the waiting house-elf. "Would you please ignore Hermione's wishes and warm her up something to eat?"

Kreacher grinned and ran into the kitchen to fix up a plate of food. Hermione scowled at Harry, but took the offered chair. She sat down heavily and tried to take off her traveling cloak. Harry frowned and stood up to help her take it off.

"Are you okay Hermione?" he asked worriedly. "You look exhausted."

Hermione laid her head on her arms on the table and sighed. "I had a lot of work to do, and I didn't have a lot of time to do it."

"So you skipped on meals and sleep?" Harry began to massage her shoulders; every muscle was ridiculously stiff.

"I skipped if needed," Hermione groaned.

Kreacher came running in with a bowl of soup before Harry could ask any more questions. The soup was still steaming and Hermione reluctantly lifted her head up. She managed to eat half the bowl while answering the scattered questions before she shakily stood up.

"I'm taking tomorrow off," she yawned. "Thanks for the soup Kreacher, I'm not very hungry."

"Would Mistress Hermione like some chamomile tea in her room?" Kreacher asked while he took the bowl away.

"Thank you Kreacher, but I don't think I'll need it. Good night everyone."

Harry watched anxiously while Hermione left the dining room. Nobody talked until they heard her bedroom close. Once they were sure that she couldn't hear them they sighed and looked at each other.

"Hermione never takes time off of work," Ron said anxiously. "Remember when she caught that terrible flu? We had to track her down and force her to rest."

"Did you feel it?" Harry asked suddenly. "Her magic is totally exhausted; I don't think she could levitate a pencil right now if she wanted to."

Ron leaned back in his chair and bit his lip. "What kind of Muggle Relations business trip involves draining your magic to this point?"

"I don't know Ron," Harry said while walking towards the stairs. "But tomorrow I plan to find out."

A/N- Whoo hoo! Not only an update, but a long one at that! I already have an idea about what Hermione's animal form will be, but I am open to suggestions. It needs to be an animal that fits her characteristics though! Next chapter: Harry uses his Auror skills to find out what Hermione is keeping from him.