Chapter 8

The sounds of conversation between Madam Pomfrey and Professor McGonagall were slowly beginning to become less muffled as Harry slowly began to drift back into consciousness. The sensation was similar to that of hearing sounds when you're underwater, Harry thought. The garbled string of sentences was becoming clearer, as he heard the first of the discernable words from Professor McGonagall.

"Death? But how can she have drained her magical core so completely." McGonagall said, pushing her glasses up against her nose and staring at the comatose form of Hermione Granger on the bed opposite them."

"I know, Minerva" Madam Pomfrey replied "I don't know how she did it either; I have never seen such strong and powerful magic than when she walked through those doors. She was glowing. I believe the magic was burning through her."

Madam Pomfrey jumped as she saw Harry's eyes shoot wide open from the corner of her own. Harry sat up straight and launched himself at the chair in-between his and Hermione's beds.

"Harry, you need to get your rest," Madam Pomfrey said, just recovering from the shock and rubbing Harry's back as she began to see tears form in his eyes. Harry gripped the hand of his dying soulmate, looking straight at her eyelids, praying for them to open. He sobbed, his own heart wrenching apart from the knowledge of her situation.

"Come on, Harry," Madam Pomfrey continued "You aren't going to get better if you get yourself into a state like this." Harry ignored her, but moved to sit on the bed next to Hermione before clutching her torso and hugging her closely, his heart spilling on the sheet.

A few minutes later, the matron had realised that it was no use. It was going to be simply impossible to move Harry from Hermione's bedside. Leaving to check on another patient, she decided that she would just have to keep an eye on them; she had managed to fix Harry's cut in mere seconds, anyway.

Madam Pomfrey was just dealing with a rather large cut on the bridge of Justin Finch Fletchley's nose when she heard a large gasp from Hermione's bed. She was completely sat up straight and was wide awake. Harry sat there for a second, stunned before launching himself at Hermione, pulling herself into a strong hug before kissing her face all over.

"I thought that I was going to lose you," Harry said tears of happiness streaming down his face "Pomfrey... she said that you were going to die... I..." But the rest of his sentence was stopped outright by the passionate kiss that his soulmate gave him. The kiss deepened, as their tongues played a fierce battle with one another. It was only a loud cough from Professor McGonagall that broke them apart, their faces flushed with embarrassment.

"Hermione!" she said, beaming "I'm glad that you have come around, we thought that we were going to lose you."

"Thanks Professor," Hermione replied, placing her hand over Harry's, affectionately rubbing the back of it with her thumb.

"Consequently, I've had a look at some of the books in the library, and I wondered if there was something the two of you wanted to tell us, about your soul bond?"

Harry and Hermione sat there stunned. They had been sure that there were no more books on the subject apart from The Book.

"Yes...well." Harry started, but was interrupted by McGonagall again.

"You don't need to explain, Harry. My source explained everything about them, also the fact that you need to be married before the Winter Solstice. Do you know what you are going to do about that?" McGonagall replied.

"We, well, we hadn't really discussed it," Hermione said sheepishly.

"Well now is the best time, I suggest that you set a date."

"Right..." Harry replied "The ninth of October?"

"Why then?" Hermione asked.

"Well, it was just my parents wedding anniversary, so I'd always thought about having mine them, you know, to honour them and all that."

"The Ninth of October it is" reply Hermione, beaming. "I'm going to have to get to work on some preparations; it's only a month and ten days away! Hold on. School starts tomorrow, Professor I haven't got any of the materials I need!"

"Well, if you're feeling up to it today, you can take a trip to Diagon Alley with me? I was going there anyway and I wouldn't mind keeping an eye on you two. Death Eaters probably won't attack Diagon Alley today anyway, but there's Order secrets about that which I can't divulge at the moment."

"Brilliant." Hermione replied, excited for the fact that she was once again going to be able to purchase her favourite things in the world besides Harry – books.

Two hours later, and after a rather lengthy lecture from Madam Pomfrey about how Harry and Hermione should both be taking it very easily for the next couple of days, Harry, Hermione and Professor McGonagall were all stood basking in the sunlight in the extremely busy street of Diagon Alley. While Hermione and Professor McGonagall already had enough money, Harry's emerald velvet drawstring bag that usually held his various coins, there were now only a few Knuts and a Sickle left jangling away at the bottom of the bag. The two females of the group seemed to want to get rid off Harry as they left him on his own to go to Gringotts, and Harry thought this was strange, until he saw the rather excited looking pair heading straight into Flourish and Blotts. Rolling his eyes, Harry headed towards the towering white bank, which was a lot more heavily guarded as usual, and he noticed that a few of them now seemed to be holding magical detectors of some sort.

Harry shivered at the change of temperature as he entered the cool, white marble lobby of Gringotts and began to walk towards the nearest teller. This goblin looked very surly. His face was pointed and menacing, and Harry couldn't help but notice the sharpness to which the goblin's fingernails and been cut.

"Hello sir, I would like to make a withdrawal." Harry said, bowing to the goblin, who looked shocked at the amount of respect that this young wizard had for him. He had heard stories of the way that Harry and a few others were now trying to support the welfare of what the majority of the Wizarding community thought of as "lesser beings."

"Of course, Mr Potter," the goblin said, showing a strange and rare smile to the wizard "Do you have your key?"

"Yes" Harry replied, and placed his own tiny gold key upon the teller's desk. After inspecting it, the goblin motioned for another goblin to come forth to take Harry down to his vault. One wild and particularly sick-making cart ride later, Harry found himself outside his vault – number six hundred and eighty-seven. As the door to his vault slowly opened, his eyes opened widely as he saw the size of his vault, which had grown massively since he had last visited. "It's like, half the size of the Great Hall" As Harry stepped among the new mountains of Galleons that had been deposited there.

"Er...excuse me sir." Harry said nervously to the goblin "But there seems to have been some mistake, my vault was nowhere near this size when I visited here last year.

"No mistakes, Mr Potter." The goblin replied "Funds added to your account along with a number of other possessions were added after the deaths of Sirius Black and Albus Dumbledore. The funds were left in their wills.

Harry turned and gaped at the amount of gold that stood before him. He saw on a far wall, a large glass cabinet filled with objects. After stepping through the mountains of coins to get to this cabinet, Harry opened it slowly to reveal one object only, a small leather black box that was embossed with a gold letter P. Harry peered into the box, and smiled at its contents before pocketing it. It was going to make his darling fiancée very happy. After filling his velvet drawstring bag, Harry stepped out of the bolt and followed the Goblin into the cart, clutching the side strongly to brace himself for the somewhat worse ride back up to the surface.

With a look that Hermione had never seen before from Professor McGonagall, she was led by the hands to the entrance of "From Veils to Vows". Hermione recognised this as a look of girlish excitement as they both looked into the window of the large wedding shop.

"You're taking me in here, Professor?" asked Hermione, amazed at the fact her Professor would be the one to help her to start making her wedding preparations.

"Call me Minerva when we aren't in school Hermione. When I'm not teaching you I'd like to think of us as friends." The Professor answered with a smile, a smile which Hermione shot back at her in kind.

Harry rubbed his neck as he stepped back out into the sunlight that shone brilliantly over Diagon Alley. It was surprising just how busy it was today, as he had heard that business had been failing recently since Lord Voldemort's rise had become public. The first thing he saw was a large group of redheads exciting Madam Malkin's Robes for All Occasions, led by a rather frustrated looking Molly Weasley. At this same time he saw Hermione and Professor McGonagall exiting what looked to be a wedding shop just two doors down from the robes shop. But stopped face to face with the Weasleys, who had just seen the very shop that they had been exciting. He saw Molly snatch a piece of parchment out of Hermione's hand, and began to read aloud to the others. Harry only caught the end of what seemed to be a list as he finally managed to make his way through the hustle and bustle of the other shoppers.

"What's going on?" Harry said, rushing over quickly to put his arm around Hermione.

"Seems like you're getting married Harry?" said Molly with a sneer that would rival a Malfoy.

"Yes, and?" Harry said, challenging the Weasley matriarch.

"But Harry, what about me? I'm sorry, I still love you." cried Ginny through the tears that were openly rolling down her face.

Harry didn't even feel the slightest hint of longing towards Ginny anymore. The more and more he thought about it, he realised that Ginny actually looked like his own mother, and he had to admit that it definitely creeped him out a bit. He couldn't feel the slightest bit of sympathy for Ginny though, after all that she had done.

"I'm sorry Ginny," Harry said, though not meaning it at all "I'm with Hermione now, and I love her."

Ginny sobs just erupted a louder and louder, until passers by were watching the scene as they went about their shopping.

"Didn't take long for you to get you're claws into him, Hermione?" Ron shouted, his face almost as red as his hair "Which potion did you use?" With that he pulled out a wand and shot a rather sinister looking spell straight at Hermione's face, only for it to be blocked with a simple swish of Professor McGonagall's wand.

"I suggest that you would consider not attempting that again, Mr Weasley" said a very pursed lipped McGonagall, her eyes challenging the entire group of redheads. "Otherwise I'm sure I wouldn't be the only one retaliating. Harry, Hermione. We're leaving. We can get the rest of our items by owl order. I will see the rest of you in September."

Unfortunately, Ron had opened his mouth to cast another curse, but Hermione already had that taken care of, casting a quick langlock charm on the youngest male before he could get the spell out. Seeing that it had been taken care of, McGonagall immediately stepped in between Harry and Hermione, and they felt the familiar feeling of being squeezed through a very small tube as they apparated away.