Note: I'm so sorry, I accidentally left a chunk of the chapter out when I uploaded it to the website. So I had to delete the chapter and add it again.
Again, my apologies!
The strangely matched group talked into the early hours of the morning until Tonks arrived again with a more sternly written note from Ginny.
With all of them fatigued and the sun due to show up in a couple of hours, it was decided that nothing could be done until the following night. Harry then went home, vanishing from Hermione's flat with a pop. The Winchesters – brothers, as Hermione eventually found out – were becoming accustomed to magic as they only twitched a little when Harry disappeared.
The room at the Happing's bed and breakfast lay dark, quiet, and still until a faint pop preceded the arrival of three people, suddenly appearing into the room.
Dean and Sam let go of Hermione and staggered, trying to regain their footing.
"It takes a little getting used to," Hermione explained. "It's best if you sit down." She tried getting a hold of both men and leading them to the beds.
Sam managed to find one on his own and lowered himself slowly onto it. Dean needed a little more help. Hermione took his arm and guided him over, pushing him down until he sat on the mattress.
Her first time apparating was very similar. She was dizzy for at least an hour afterwards.
"Breathe deeply," she instructed, sitting down next to Dean. "You don't have to do this, you know," she said after a moment.
"We made a deal," Dean protested, squeezing his eyes shut and swallowing hard.
"I understand, and I intend to keep my end of it. But I wanted to give you another chance."
Sam glanced up. His face was flushed, but he looked a little more stable than a few minutes ago. "Chance for what?"
"To –" Hermione hesitated. She didn't want to use the word 'forget' just yet. "To be free of all of this. You could wake up tomorrow, have a pleasant little holiday, and return home, no harm done."
"There's already been plenty of that going around," Dean said gruffly.
"Yes, but it's not your fight, Dean. This is our responsibility. We let it get out of hand." Hermione took a sharp breath in attempt to retain her control, and blinked at the moisture coming to her eyes.
"How did all of these things get out anyway?" Dean asked. "You guys used them for something, right?"
"To guard the prison?" Sam guessed. "Or did she get that wrong too?"
"No, that part is true. We used the dementors to guard Azkaban," Hermione said with a nod. "It was an enormous mistake. But we learned that too late and we paid dearly for it."
Her hands began to shake in her lap and she clasped them together to keep them steady. She lowered her eyes as she spoke, unable to look at anything, uncertain if she could go on.
The Winchesters waited patiently. She felt Dean move a little closer, but hesitate in touching her. "Are you okay?" he asked instead.
Hermione breathed once more before meeting his eyes. The best she could muster was a sad smile and a nod before she spoke again.
"It was when Riddle's followers escaped from Azkaban. That should have been the first sign. They encouraged the dementors to obey them and Riddle, promising them more abundant prey in return. We should have realized it then."
She wiped her eyes and cleared her throat while Sam and Dean waited. "Azkaban wasn't satisfying for them anymore. They stayed there at first, after everything was over. But more and more left over the years and we started getting reports of them being seen in villages and towns. People started to go missing. We had lost control."
Hermione's lack of sleep that night was curbing her ability to think straight, and bringing more emotion than usual up to the surface.
"You lost someone," Sam said quietly.
Hot tears ran down her cheeks and Hermione nodded, keeping her eyes on her lap when a box of tissues came into view. She took a few and thanked them sloppily.
Wiping her face, Hermione cleared her throat. "My husband. He's at St. Mungo's now."
"I'm sorry," Dean said, placing his hand over hers.
"My poor Ron," she said. "He was caught off his guard, alone and overcome. Took us days to find him. I – I should have been with him."
She breathed for a minute, calming her nerves, and looked at the two of them. "You need to know that about me, I think. That's why I'm so desperate to find a solution to this. I shouldn't even be talking about this with you. I can't imagine what they'd say at the Ministry," she laughed a little. "But I'm willing to try anything, and that includes this plan of yours."
"We'll get them, H," Dean said determinedly. "Do you mind if I call you, H? Makes it a little easier."
"For him to remember," Sam said, his lips twitching upwards.
"No, I don't mind," Hermione smiled, feeling a little better. "But, I have to tell you again that this is a mad idea."
Dean shrugged. "Insanity is our usual area of expertise."
Hermione turned her unconvinced expression to Sam who mirrored Dean's shrug and nodded.
"One chance," she said.
"And if it doesn't work, you do that little witchy thing you do and Sam and I won't be any the wiser," Dean said, repeating their agreement.
"I suggest we get some sleep," Sam said, already pulling the sheets down on his bed.
Hermione stood with Dean beside her, their hands slipping apart.
"Until tomorrow, then." she moved her wand around in a half circle, and the room vanished.
Hermione slept until early afternoon that day. She couldn't remember sleeping like that for a long time. It felt good, but made it difficult to get out of bed.
She immediately went to her bookshelves and began pulling down volumes about experimental spells and potions, impregnating objects with magic, and dark creatures. After making herself some late breakfast, she began to read and didn't stop for several hours until Harry appeared in her living room, this time without two unconscious men in tow.
"Have you found anything?" he asked.
Hermione sat back from the open volumes spread across her desk and rubbed her eyes. "Harry, you can't simply pop into my home whenever you like."
"Works wonders with my kids," Harry reasoned. "They never know when Dad's going to pop up suddenly and catch them."
"You can't apparate into Hogwarts," Hermione said for what she thought was the millionth time.
"Neville's gotten me in before."
"That's a bit unfair. You never had anyone checking on you at school."
Harry took a seat next to her on the sofa and leaned forward, putting two fingers to his temple. "I'll wait here while you think about that for a minute."
Hermione couldn't conceal her laughter. She, Harry, and Ron got up to things in their school days that, if she thought on them now, were absolutely bonkers. They definitely should have had people checking up on them. If the Hogwarts staff had thought on it more, they would have locked the three of them up somewhere, only letting them out for classes and perhaps the toilet once in a while.
Harry leaned back in his seat and grinned. "It's good to see you laugh, Hermione."
"It feels good too, thanks. Have you gotten everything?"
"Everything is set. They're waiting for me to get you."
Hermione nodded and went to find her shoes. Harry followed her into her bedroom and leaned against the door frame.
"Do you think that maybe we should just … make them forget this entire thing?" he asked seriously.
"I don't want to stop them from helping now," Hermione said, looking for a pair of socks. "It may work, their plan."
"His plan," Harry specified.
"Fine, Dean's plan," she agreed. "Haven't you seen it, Harry? They seem to really want to help, like the other hunters we've met. Protecting people is all they do. Generally, most muggles don't seem that way."
Harry nodded in agreement when she found her shoes.
"We are going to have to erase their memories, Hermione," Harry said sternly. It was a tone of voice she heard from him only when addressing his children when they misbehaved.
She looked up at him, her eyes narrowed. "Why are you stating the obvious?"
Harry sighed, scratching the back of his head in attempt to appear nonchalant. He was never good at that. "Right, I just noticed something last night, and I was a bit … concerned."
Hermione, shoes on, stood and folded her arms defensively. "Yes?"
"You and Dean," Harry said, failing at finding the right words.
"Oh, Harry, go on and spit it out!"
"See, I was trying to keep you from shouting at me, but that never works. I just noticed the way you were looking at each other. I haven't seen you look at someone like that since – well, for a long time."
"You think I'm attracted to the man who tied me up last night?" Hermione said huffily.
"Not because of that, no."
Hermione opened her mouth to argue further, but there wouldn't be a point. Harry had become really protective of her since Ron was attacked. At times, she would say overly protective. This was just another sample of that. Dean Winchester was attractive, there was no denying it. But, she'd only just met him; and he would be forgetting her soon enough.
Instead, Hermione closed her mouth and put her hair up in a ponytail. She grabbed her jacket and her wand, and stood close to him.
"Harry, let's go before I hex you."
They arrived in an empty warehouse on the outskirts of the city. It was old and dirty from years of neglect, Hermione concluded.
"Hey, H," Dean said when he saw her.
"Hello, Dean." Hermione, with Harry's suspicions in her head, did her best not to look at him too much.
"So, what do you think?" Sam stepped around a large structure in the center of the warehouse floor.
It was a large hexagon, made out of metal polls in each corner, connected by chain link fence at least twelve meters high. Above it was a flat sheet of metal cut into the shape of the hexagonal cage hanging from a thick chain which was attached to one of the cement beams in the ceiling.
"If and when we get one of our guys in here, we bring that down on top," Sam explained, pointing to the metal sheet. "With your magic, it should work as a holding cell."
"Temporarily, anyway," Harry said.
"Right," Hermione said, studying the contraption. "What's your plan on luring one of them in here?"
"That's the dangerous part," Sam continued.
"Yeah, the only one," Dean said sarcastically, rolling his eyes.
"Dean and I have some ideas to help, but to guarantee one of them going in, we have to have at least one person inside."
Hermione laughed disdainfully and looked at Harry, who wasn't laughing.
Her smile dropped off of her face when she realized who was planning to be the bait. "No, no, no," she said, shaking her head. "It has to be one of us, and it should be me, Harry. You have a worse reaction to the dementors than most people."
"I don't know," Harry said quietly. "I think I used to have. Not anymore, though." He looked at her significantly with those bright green eyes and she understood.
A thrill of fear rushed through her at the thought of what she might be forced to see if a dementor came close. Usually, when she went out on patrols, she managed to keep a short distance away from the creatures and work the patronus charm without having to be affected too much. In this case, that wouldn't be an option.
Harry must have seen the fear in her eyes because he nodded and looked away, the decision made. "Your job is much more important anyway," he said, gesturing to the makeshift cage they'd built.
Hermione nodded and produced her wand. "This may take a number of tries before I can find the right combination."
"No problem, you've got this," Dean encouraged.
Hermione tried to bring the spells up in her mind, but they jumbled together and she couldn't straighten them out. They were still new to her.
Approaching a section of the fence, she placed the tip of her wand against a single piece of metal.
"Lychnus patronum cuonom," she muttered.
Her wand lit up brightly in response to the spell, and a thin ribbon of light wrapped itself around the section of metal as Hermione drew her wand tip along the link. But as her wand moved further away from the first point, the light faded and disappeared, leaving the ordinary chain link still ordinary.
"You nearly had it. Keep going." Harry had moved close to her as she worked.
Hermione nodded and attempted another combination of the words, which gave less of a result than the first time.
She stood up, her mind going through the problem as she tapped her wand in her hand and stared at the fence. "I think I'm missing something. It worked the first time."
"Did it?" Harry asked, raising his dark brows.
"Oh yes. It just wouldn't keep for very long. I need something … to strengthen it. To reinforce it."
Hermione thought for another few seconds and made her third attempt.
"Vinculi lychnus patronum cuonom vinculi," she spoke the words, trying to keep her thoughts on joyful, happy things. It was extremely difficult.
A thin sheen of sweat developed on her forehead as she worked. She thought of her wedding. Harry and Ginny stood next to her and Ron, muttering jokes under their breath in attempt to make them laugh out loud during the ceremony. Mrs. Weasley would have had a fit.
Hermione smiled, and her wand tip brightened as she drew it along the chain link, muttering the spell over and over again. In the wake of her wand, the link continued to glow with the white ribbons of light wrapped tightly around it.
After she'd done a small section, Hermione stopped just to breathe. She wiped her forehead with her sleeve and observed her work. The spell was holding.
"Well done," Harry said. "We need to do the entire cage."
Hermione laughed a little as she took in the whole contraption. It suddenly seemed a lot bigger than before.
Sam approached the glowing section of the fence, putting his hand close to it and pulling it away quickly. "It's hot. Almost like pure light. That's amazing," he said in awe.
"What can we do to help?" Dean asked
"I'm sorry, Dean. Harry and I have to do this. It will just take some time," Hermione said. Seeing his disappointment, she touched his arm to reassure him.
It took Harry more than a few tries to get the spell right, but once he managed it, he and Hermione started at the same point where she experimented, and moved around the cage in opposite directions. The susurration of their muttering the spell over and over was the only sound in the place for at least an hour.
Sam and Dean set up ladders and moved them accordingly for Harry and Hermione to reach the top section of the cage.
When it was done, and the top was lowered, creating a makeshift ceiling on the cage, the magic clung onto the edges of the top and spread up until the entire contraption glowed and sparkled as though it were made of diamonds.
It dazzled and shined as all four of them stared at it. Harry and Hermione staggered over to a corner and sat down to rest while Dean and Sam continued to admire the work.
"That's pretty awesome," Dean said.
"We need to disguise it, right?" Sam asked. "A dementor won't go near this thing now."
Hermione nodded and Harry got up. "Concealment charm should do it."
"I really hope so," Hermione said and laughed.
Harry reached down to her. She took his hand and he pulled her back to her feet.
Once more, Hermione and Harry walked around the cage, working spells of concealment until the faintest glow of light was gone and the warehouse went dark around them.
The sun had set some time ago, the small windows showing nothing but a blanket of darkness outside.
Dean turned on a torch as Hermione lit the tip of her wand.
"We ready to go?"
Hermione believed they'd never really be ready for what they were about to attempt, but she nodded.