Author's Note: A generic Harry/Hermione premise set during Chamber of Secrets. Done by multiple other people, except that this is merely powerful!Harry rather than soulbond!Harry. (Technically it's a nerf from Harry's protect-the-entire-school-without-actually-dying feat in Deathly Hallows, but that's so bizarre I don't know how to incorporate it into stories.)

Harry and Ron had tried to visit Hermione, but visitors were now barred from the hospital wing. "We're taking no more chances," Madam Pomfrey told them severely through a crack in the infirmary door. "No, I'm sorry, there's every chance the attacker might come back to finish these people off..."

"No more chances, my foot," Harry said furiously to Ron afterwards, once they were alone. "That's why we had to go after Quirrell ourselves, right? Because Dumbledore's security was so great?"

Ron grimaced. "So what d'you want us to do?" he asked. "Last year, at least, we knew where we were going - I haven't seen any big 'CHAMBER OF SECRETS THIS WAY' signs around, have you -"

"I'm not talking about the Heir, I'm talking about Hermione - and everyone else in the hospital wing," Harry snarled. "If the Heir's going to finish them off - and I'd reckon there's a good chance, since at least one of them must've gotten a good look at him and the mandrakes'll be ready in less than a month - d'you really think anything Hogwarts is going to do will keep him out? Or are we just going to find a petrified Pomfrey and a load of corpses?"

Looking most uncomfortable, Ron said, "Well - what can we do about that, though? It's not like we can help, can we? I dunno how to make those mandrakes grow faster or unmask the Heir before then, and I don't know what more we could do to protect the hospital wing..."

Harry was silent. "There's - one - idea," he managed. He carefully avoided looking at Ron's face. "It's mental, but - you've got to promise not to laugh, all right?"

"Can't really think what would make me laugh right now, what with Dumbledore gone, the Heir stalking the school, and all."

Harry thought that Dumbledore had been a fat lot of help both last year and this one, grand reputation or not, but he didn't say it. "You were raised magic, so you might know if this would work or not, but - Er, d'you think I would count as a prince?"

Ron looked at him in confusion. "Um - Don't know how closely you're related to the Princes, but I don't think so. I heard there was a big scandal when the family's only daughter ran off with a Muggle, but that was ages ago. Dunno what happened to her after that."

"What?" Harry asked, even more bewildered than Ron. "I - No, I don't mean a family named 'Prince'! I mean - the son of a king, or something. Or of a lord, at least - Does it count because I defeated Voldemort?" Ron flinched at the name. "Just - any kind of nobility might do! D'you think I count?"

Ron seemed baffled. "I... Well, my dad says all the 'noble' stuff is a load of rubbish, so I'm not sure. Maybe the Potters are. Why?"

"D'you believe in-" Harry stumbled over the words, but this was more important than embarrassment. "-t- true love's first kiss?"

Looking perplexed, Ron said slowly, "I don't see how this applies..."

"True love's first kiss," Harry said rapidly. "I don't know what wizards think of it, but Muggles - my relatives tried to keep me away from anything magic, but I still managed to pick up some Muggle fairy tales about true love's first kiss, especially from a prince, being able to wake people from enchanted sleeps. And-"

"Right, so you think that might be able to wake them up?" Ron said, realization dawning on his face. Then it disappeared. "No, wait. But they're Petrified."

"It's got more to do with an enchanted sleep than it does with being turned to stone," Harry said flatly. "If it didn't, Professor McGonagall could just turn them back, couldn't she? So it's not a Transfiguration, but some sort of weird enchantment. And if even wizards don't know all the details of this Petrification, reckon tales passed down by Muggles would know the difference between that and eternal sleep?"

Ron shook his head. "Look, I don't know - I've never heard about this," he said. "Er - not that it's saying much, I guess, Mum'd always tell Bill not to talk too much to us about his work about a Curse-Breaker because it might scare us or we were too young to hear it or something. But the only really magical thing I've heard about kisses is the Dementor's Kiss, and that sucks your soul out." Harry stared at him with round eyes. "Don't worry," Ron said hastily, "they keep to Azkaban. Just so long as you don't do anything really illegal, you'll be-"

"Azkaban?!" Harry demanded. "They've taken Hagrid to a place with things that could suck his soul out?!"

"They only give people who have committed really heinous crimes the Kiss!" Ron protested, holding up his hands. "He'll be fine, he'll be fine! Er - as fine as anyone who goes to Azkaban can be, at least. But he should only be in there for a few weeks, because they'll find out the Heir's identity by then-"

"Yeah, and with our luck, they'll suppose he's committed a really heinous crime," Harry snarled. "After all, they're out to get Dumbledore, and Hagrid's Dumbledore's man. Who says they won't make an example of him?"

"Wizard justice is better than that, Harry..." Ron began weakly, but he didn't sound convinced. Nor was Harry.

"You're the one who told me people like the Malfoys walked free just because they claimed bewitchment," Harry growled. "So why haven't they decided Hagrid was bewitched? Because they've got it in for Dumbledore loyalists, maybe?" He shook his head. "Not that it matters right now," he said savagely, "because we really can't do anything about that. Not unless we find out who's the real Heir - and hope they don't make up some rot about Hagrid bewitching him or something."

Ron looked embarrassed on behalf of Wizardingkind. "Er... as I was saying," he said, seeming glad to be off that subject, "only thing I know about kisses is the Dementor's. And I reckon you won't be trying to suck anyone's soul out?"

"There have got to be better ways to do it," Harry said dryly. "No matter how much I hate Snape, I'm not about to snog him."

"Merlin's beard, I hope not."

Harry sniggered at the look on Ron's face, then sobered. "Well - you haven't told me it's just a myth, at least, so there might be some truth to it. And since we've got no other option and the Heir might be around any minute, it can't hurt to try."

"So how are you going to persuade Percy?"

Harry felt somewhat as though he'd been hit upside the head by a Bludger. "Percy? What's he got to do with it?"

"Well, d'you know anyone else who got Petrified who had a date?" Ron asked, frowning. "I don't know if it's 'true love', but -" He blanched. "Please don't tell me you were thinking about getting Filch for Mrs. Norris?"

"God, no!" Harry said, utterly revolted. "How could you even think of that? That's sick, Ron!"

"Well, you weren't thinking of Percy, and I couldn't think of anyone else!" Ron protested. "Who? And for who?"

Harry suddenly found the ceiling very interesting. "Well... look, it doesn't have to be romance, does it?" he said in a voice that came out strangely insistent even to his own ears. "I mean, my mum's love is what protected me from Voldemort, Dumbledore said-"

"It is?" When Harry briefly looked down at Ron, he saw Ron's eyes widen, then blink several times. "All - all right, I guess he would know, then. Maybe this 'love' thing's got something to it." Now Ron seemed to be the one who'd been hit upside the head by a Bludger. "Sorry, sorry. Go on."

"Right. Well - she certainly wasn't feeling romantic towards me, right? So just love counts. Family love." He twiddled his thumbs and found the ceiling extremely interesting. At this rate, he was going to memorize the fine points of Hogwarts architecture... "And love is... lovely love, I mean..." Summoning up his Gryffindor courage, he gabbled it out.

"Hermione. I've got to kiss Hermione."

Harry had several seconds to appreciate the intricate designs on the corridor ceiling before Ron spoke. "I... erm. All right, then..." Another pause. "But - you said it was your mum's love, right? So shouldn't it be their parents-"

Ron cut himself off and said, before Harry could speak, "They don't have magic, do they."

"Yeah," said Harry, relieved to be past the worst of it. "Makes you wonder if there's more than one reason he's going after Muggleborns, doesn't it?"

When he looked down, he saw Ron looking thoughtful. "Could be," he said. "If there's that much magic in parental love - except, wait, hold on a minute. Harry - a lot of families died during the war. Kids included. Don't you think their parents loved them?"

Harry sighed. "I don't know," he said honestly. "Voldemort - at the end of last year, he said he only killed my mother because she tried to keep him from killing me. He didn't say how she tried. Dumbledore just said she died to save me, too. It could be she did something neither of them were keen on telling me - what happened to Quirrell was - well. Dumbledore said he couldn't bear to touch something so good." He looked down on the floor. "I can't imagine that anything purely good," he said, "would - do what it did to Quirrell." He took a deep breath. "But I think my mum did what she had to."

There was an uncomfortable silence.

"Point is - if love can do that to an enemy, surely it can do better things to a - a friend," Harry said. "Surely?"

They'd hastily ducked into the hospital wing, under Harry's father's invisibility cloak, when opportunity presented itself in the form of Madame Pomfrey ushered in a seventh-year girl who had botched a Charm; the poor witch had lost half her hair, broken out in a nasty rash, and acquired a very unpleasant-sounding cough. "There's one every year," they heard the nurse mutter as she swept past, "there's always someone who forgets to go counterclockwise on the seventh spin rather than clockwise..."

Awkwardly, they shuffled their way toward Hermione's bed, freezing whenever Madame Pomfrey came near; the last thing they needed was to be mistaken for the Heir and promptly incapacitated. In retrospect, it might have been better for Harry to go in alone, but Ron had wanted to see her too and... it seemed like a good idea at the time. Besides, Ron could act as a backup if Harry's kiss didn't work... maybe. For some reason, Harry found the idea strangely unpleasant, but if it was for Hermione's welfare, he'd endure that. It didn't make much sense, anyway. It was just as a friend, after all.

Arriving at Hermione's bedside, the two of them looked down at her: rigid as a board, she stared up at the ceiling, eyes unseeing. Or so it seemed - how would they tell if she couldn't move a muscle, anyway? Horribly, Harry remembered news articles about people who had been in comas for years, aware of everything around them, yet unable to give the slightest sign of continued consciousness...

He swallowed hard.

"You keep watch," Harry whispered to Ron. "I'm going to be - otherwise occupied, all right?" He didn't know how the cloak might affect visibility as he bent over her, and the last thing he needed was for Pomfrey to notice one of her patients had suddenly gone partly invisible. Ron nodded.

"Good luck."

"Thanks," Harry mumbled. He looked down at Hermione, his stomach tying itself into knots. Would she ever wake up? Yes, the potion ought to do it... but what if it didn't? No one knew precisely how the Heir was doing this to people. What if it was some sort of awfulness that, somehow, was immune to the roots' restorative properties? What if she was like this forever? What if everyone so Petrified was like this forever? What if that was why the Heir had left them alive? If he knew that, this way, they were good as dead, but they would divert attention away from his real plans? If -

He shook his head; worrying would do him no good. He just had to do it. He shut his eyes and tried to feel as loving as possible, summoning up his shared experiences with Hermione -

The troll - Darting in and trying to save him from Snape, managing to save him from Quirrel instead - The Devil's Snare - Parting between the flames - "There are more important things - friendship and bravery and - oh Harry - be careful!"

A lump in his throat, he bent towards her and -

A hand grabbed him and hauled him back by the scruff of his shirt. Madame Pomfrey bustled past, retrieved a potion, and bustled back past them to the ailing Charms student. Ron finally released his grip on Harry's shirt.

On second thought... this was Hermione. Might as well do things he'd been doing them the entire time he'd known her.

Without further thought, he took a deep breath and bent down - nothing interrupting him this time - to place a kiss on her stiff mouth. Filled with a mixture of awkwardness and desperation, he tried to pour everything he felt into the kiss - love, and concern, and fear, and wanting her to wake up right now - for everyone to wake up right now - for this nightmare to be over, whatever it took from him - anything - he'd do anything for her to wake up and be safe, be protected from the Heir, and - anything -

All of a sudden, he felt a warm, rushing sensation. The world dimmed and seemed to sway around him; his knees gave way beneath him.

The last thing he heard was a cry of "Harry? Harry!"

"-and I would have thrown you out myself if it wasn't for it working!"

"Well - er - I wouldn't say that's insignificant," Ron argued, unthinkingly backing down from the nurse's rant. The two of them stood at Harry's bedside, along with the former residents of the hospital wing.

"But Madame Pomfrey, what happened?" Hermione begged, holding onto Harry's hand. Harry himself was certainly not petrified, but very much unconscious; he'd gone down like a sack of bricks the moment the Petrified patients began to stir, and hadn't responded to any of the ensuing outcry. Ron had found his skin clammy before Madame Pomfrey had shoved him away and moved Harry into Hermione's freshly-vacated bed.

"Given the timing and the situation, it would seem Mr. Potter drove himself into magical exhaustion by restoring all of the Petrification victims at once," she huffed. "To be most frank with you, I don't understand how he persuaded his magic to do it, but potent intentions can sometimes produce results even the greatest wizards cannot replicate." She shook her head. "If they could, of course, there would be no need for Mediwitches - now would there?"

"So Harry wanted to heal us all?" Colin Creevey asked breathlessly, eyes shining.

"Not precisely," Ron mumbled, and regretted it as soon as the words left his mouth. Everyone turned to him. Being the center of attention was not so great as he might have imagined.

"Then what?" Hermione asked, Clearwater and Finch-Fletchley looking equally curious. Even Madame Pomfrey raised an eyebrow.

"Erm - something about - true... er, love's first... um... kiss," Ron said, finding a convenient space on the wall to stare at. Obviously Harry had the right idea back in the corridor. "In a, you know, family way," he added in the world's most unconvincing voice.

There was silence. Ron wondered whether Harry would be interested in speaking to him ever again once he came to... Well, it was his idea in the first place... "I suppose there is some support in the German literature," Madame Pomfrey said slowly. "However, reports were anecdotal and poorly-documented, and took place centuries ago, besides..."

"Funny," Finch-Fletchley said, "I was under the impression those kisses weren't in the family way. Unless they left the girl in the family way." That provoked dirty looks from the two girls, but he was unashamed.

Ron fidgeted. "Well," he said, "Harry said it, and since he made it work, I'd reckon he would know what he was talking about, woulnd't you?"

Absolutely no one looked convinced. Creevey was staring at Hermione, Hermione was staring at Harry with pink cheeks, Finch-Fletchley looked smug, and Clearwater was mumbling something in a hurt voice about Percy. Nearly-Headless Nick chose that moment to swoop down.

"Well done!" he cried, his head falling off in his excitement. "I say, what's chivalry without a fair lady, eh? Done like a true Gryffindor, my boy! I dare say-"

"That you'll be thrown out of this infirmary if you don't quiet down and let the poor child rest!" Madame Pomfrey snapped. Cowed, Nearly-Headless Nick floated away.

"And how are you doing, my dear girl?" Ron heard him say. There was a yowl in response.

"So," Ron said loudly, attempting to dispel the current awkwardness. "This is all really great, but - Harry thought one of you ought to have gotten a good look at the Heir, so, erm - who is it? Any of you recognize them?"

All gazes turned to him. And then they stayed there.

"What is it?" he asked. "Er - everyone? What's the look?"

Only Madame Pomfrey seemed not to be in on it; when he turned around, he even found Nearly-Headless Nick regarding him with the same solemn expression. When he turned back, Penelope Clearwater ducked her head and looked away. Hermione seemed about to cry, while Finch-Fletchley's eyes were cold. Creevey shook his head and gave Ron a look of sympathy.

"I'm sorry," the first-year said. "I've got a little brother too - I don't know what I'd do if -" He swallowed hard and bowed his head.

A horrible feeling settled into Ron's stomach. "What - I don't understand," he said, staring back at them. "What d'you mean - Ginny? What's Ginny got to do with this? Is there something wrong with Ginny?"

But a numb, disbelieving part of him already knew what Hermione, tears trickling down her cheeks, would say before she said it.

"It's Ginny," she said. Her hand tightened around Harry's. "Ginny is the Heir of Slytherin."

Author's Note: Blah. Not sure how to continue from this point, really; I had an idea for an alternate 'final confrontation' in which, the moment Tom Riddle senses trouble, he seizes control of Ginny, barricades himself in the Gryffindor first-year girls' bedroom, and takes any students he can drag along as hostages. Once that concludes, regardless of the outcome, Harry would be heralded as a powerful wizard after his stunt in the hospital wing (with the traditional exaggerated Wizarding histronics working in his favor, for once) and Dumbledore would return to the position of Headmaster, but find himself somewhat less popular amid questions of 'Just how did you let an eleven-year-old girl sneak a powerful Dark artifact into the school, anyway?' and 'If a thirteen-year-old girl figured out the monster was a basilisk, why didn't YOU?'

However, after that would come the Harry/Hermione romance, and I find romance difficult to write unless it's an established relationship. The best route I can think up for a relatively-rapid solution (i.e. one that won't run into a brick wall when Sirius is handled during the summer and third year arrives without a plot) is:

The Horcrux is retrieved intact from the final showdown. (Practically mandatory without a basilisk fang conveniently at hand.) Someone other than Albus "Never Tell Nobody Nothin'" Dumbledore gets hold of it and has it analyzed by an expert, whereupon it is recognized as a Horcrux and destroyed. It is now known by someone that Tom Riddle made Horcruxes. Funniest solution would be to have a Hit Wizard dispatched to hunt down Tom Riddle (since anyone who creates Horcruxes is a bad actor, and Riddle's known intellect and competence makes him dangerous) and "incidentally" come across Voldemort's specter in Albania, since canon implies he went right back to his former hiding-place after PS/SS and stayed there until Wormtail tracked him down. One Ghostbusters homage later, the Dark Lord Voldemort is permanently preserved as a harmless curiosity-in-a-jar in the depths of the Department of Mysteries. Have a great time with your immortality, Voldemort!

Rest is fairly generic - Harry looks into verdicts from the last war, one thing follows another, and Sirius is freed. Harry/Hermione develops. The Dursleys' abuse comes out, one way or another, and they receive their just desserts. Dumbledore mucks with Harry's life. Depending on whether that's due more to malice or incompetence, his fate would vary from a savage end at the hands of one of the many people he wronged to enforced retirement to a nursing home. Happy ending ensues, epilogue probably set two decades later in a reformed Wizarding world.

If necessary, third-year plot could be padded by a furious Lucius Malfoy gunning for revenge (he never did get around to that in canon, did he?) and Dumbledore's attempts to railroad Harry into the personality of a compliant martyr. The trouble would be keeping it interesting while not causing the readers to wonder why Harry and Hermione don't just give Wizarding Britain the finger and flee overseas to Beauxbatons.