Disclaimer: Mr. Potter, Ms. Granger, and all the rest of the characters here belong to JKR. No infringement intended.

Author's Note: An unexpected visit leads to way too much expository dialogue as H/Hr finally have "the talk" and try to puzzle things out together. I'm least satisfied with the structure of this chapter (and there's really no easy way to break it up); perhaps at some point I'll try to fix it and make the middle less tedious. I do think it's realistic that Harry and Hermione just need to talk this through for a couple hours, but it's difficult to make all of that interesting to read.

But I promised the story would be finished for 9/1, so this will get us to the ending (which is already written and hopefully much better than this chapter).

The final chapter will be delivered as promised on Epilogue Day on September 1st.

Chapter 9: Resonance

February 3, 2016

Harry was paging through yet another set of reports, his third this morning, as the young auror across from him fidgeted nervously. "Auror Laszlo?"

"Yes, sir, Head Auror Potter, sir!" The red-haired young man stood at attention, even though he was seated.

Harry rolled his eyes. It was always this way for the new aurors. "Just call me Harry, okay?" That never worked, either. "Victor, you've done great work on several cases, though it seems you have had a few mishaps with defensive spells. And I see here a few weeks ago you accidentally struck an old Muggle woman with a disarming spell, which sent her cat flying through the air and into a nearby tree, requiring some effort to retrieve the animal."

The young man hung his head in dismay. "I'm sorry, sir. It was dark, and we had a tip on alleged dark magic activity in the area. I thought I saw someone flash a wand in our direction."

Harry gazed out of his office window. "We all have accidents from time to time. You know, you actually remind me of a close friend of mine at your age. We had all sorts of mishaps together, though you seem to be quite a bit more uptight." He looked back across his desk. "Just relax and try to remember to identify your target clearly next time, okay?"

"Yes, sir, Head Auror... er, Harry, sir."

Harry sighed. "That's all. You may go now."

"Thank you, sir. I appreciate the opportunity to serve."

Harry wrote a few short notes and closed the folder, glad to be done with these performance evaluations for this morning. Mostly, he really was just trying to help the young aurors out and give some friendly advice, but he also knew that for many it would just take some time on the job for them to settle in.

Auror Laszlo's red hair and eagerness had reminded Harry just a bit of Ron in his younger days, when they were both aurors for a while together. It seemed so long ago, and Harry would never have predicted where they'd be now.

Ron had finalized the divorce with Hermione not even a week before. After a truly spectacular fight over the Christmas holiday, Ron declared he was moving out. Harry hadn't actually spoken to him for a few months before the holidays and was surprised to find out that he had stopped going into work at the Weasley magic shop in the early autumn. Although Hermione was willing to try a separation for a while, Ron thought there was no point, that this had been coming from years. They were divorced barely a month later.

Last Friday, the evening after they had signed the documents, Hermione had shown up to Harry's office looking as if she hadn't slept in days. The kids were with their grandparents, she said, and she just needed someone to have a drink with her. But she didn't want to go back to her house that night: she said it had too many memories. Harry suggested Grimmauld Place, which hadn't been occupied in over a year now.

Ginny had never been fond of Grimmauld Place, and Harry had taken to letting friends and family stay there over the years, often at minimal or no rent. Neville had lived there for a while after Hogwarts, and he and Hannah took care of the place until they ended up above the Leaky Cauldron. Some remote cousins of the Weasleys had been the most recent tenants, but they had moved on as well. For the past few months, Harry took to keeping an office there with some extra storage, and he'd occasionally go there when he needed time alone or to work late at night.

What he couldn't quite admit to Hermione is that he'd been spending an occasional night there now too, even when work didn't demand it. After the brawl between Ron and Hermione over the holidays, it seemed Ginny was finally motivated to deal with the silent dissolution of their own relationship. They had grown apart over the past decade and were now very different people. And they had simply lost interest in tending to each other. But Harry wasn't at all willing to go through the kind of fights he had seen his two best friends participate in. Sometimes it just made things easier for him to be away. He of course hadn't mentioned any of this to Hermione, who had her own problems. With Casablanca now closed, and with the recent death of Roger, Grimmauld Place became his quiet refuge from the world.

Harry and Hermione apparated there and found themselves wine glasses before settling in the sitting room on the first floor. As they relaxed together before a roaring fire, she complained of Ron's behavior for a while, but they soon settled into discussion of the children and reminiscences of old times. After two bottles of wine, Hermione had produced an expensive French bottle that had been part of a wedding gift from Fleur and Bill. They had given them several bottles intended to be opened on various anniversaries, chosen by a sommelier to be aged appropriately. The tenth anniversary bottle was the last of the series, and it had been forgotten last year amidst Ron and Hermione's continual relationship struggles.

Harry thought they already had enough, and he felt strange drinking an anniversary bottle. But Hermione convinced him that Ron didn't really want to drink wine anyway, so it shouldn't go to waste. They raised the first glass in memory of Roger, after which they both fell into a long silence. It seemed to be uncommonly good wine, though Harry could hardly tell by that point.

The next thing Harry knew, he awoke spooned up to Hermione on the one small bed he had cleared for himself at Grimmauld Place. His memory was hazy, but he vaguely remembered helping Hermione to lie down, before realizing she was weeping softly. She had earlier confessed to Harry that it had been over a year since she and Ron had been intimate, and she just needed to feel close and comforted for a few moments. Harry obliged, and in their inebriated state, they had rapidly drifted off to sleep together.

But it was then Saturday morning, and Harry needed to get home to help with the children. He managed to extricate himself without disturbing her sleep, though not before stopping to stare at her tranquil face in the soft morning light for several minutes. Harry had no idea what Hermione's reaction would be after their slumber together, so he went out to a shop and left her a cappuccino and a croissant, along with a brief note that he was happy to talk more when she needed.

That morning was now five days ago, and she had been avoiding him. Aside from a couple terse professional exchanges at Ministry meetings, they hadn't even spoken. Harry was worried about her, but he didn't quite know what to do. He wasn't sure he had ever seen her more vulnerable and lonely than she was that night, but part of him feared that she'd just pull away and shut down if he tried to bring it up.

A knock at his door startled Harry from his thoughts. "Mr. Malfoy is still waiting to see you," his assistant said. "Shall I keep telling him you're busy?"

This was the third day this week Draco had come to the Auror Department, requesting to speak with him. Harry didn't know what to make of it and had sent him away without seeing him. But now Draco had been waiting for over two hours, and Harry's curiosity was finally getting the better of him. "I'll walk out with you," he said.

A minute later, Harry came down the hall to the main entrance of the Auror Department. Draco stood as he approached.

"What is it that's so important, Malfoy?" Harry eyed him with suspicion.

"Uh... Harry, can we talk privately?"

Harry could not have been more surprised at the mode of address. He couldn't remember the last time Draco had called him by his first name. His tone was strange as well, lacking the general haughtiness and superiority. "What's this about?" Harry asked again.

"It's a private matter. I swear this is something you'll want to know – about a potion."

Harry got the hint and motioned to the guards at the entrance. "You can come back to my office. But you'll need to leave your wand - and anything else you might be carrying – here." He glanced down at Draco's antique walking stick, which was distinctly different from the one Lucius Malfoy used to carry. Rather than a snake's head, there was only a simple silver knob with the Malfoy crest on it.

"Is that really necessary? How do I know you're not going to ambush me?"

"Malfoy, I'm the Head of this entire Department. If I wanted to hurt you, you'd already be on the floor."

Draco reluctantly handed over his wand, and Harry motioned for the guards to pat him down to check for other weapons. "He's clean," said one of the guards. After examining the walking stick carefully with a wand, they returned it to Draco.

A few minutes later Harry shut his office door and sat down opposite Draco. Harry's tone was immediately aggressive. "What's going on? Why do you keep coming here?"

"No social pleasantries, Harry? I heard Weasley and Gran... er, Hermione finally split. Where's he now? Living alone in some King's Cross dump?" The typical Draco sneer threatened to return.

"Did you just come here to insult my friends? I have better things to do." Harry started to get back up.

"I apologize. Sincerely." Draco looked over at him and seemed legitimately contrite, and Harry relaxed a bit. "I just thought you'd be happy that he got the boot." His tone had dropped from pretentious to merely dismissive.

"Not that it's any of your concern, but it was a mutual decision, and Ron just has a temporary flat until everything gets settled." Harry didn't know how to react to this strange attitude from Draco. "How do you even know about this? I wouldn't think the lord of Malfoy Manor would bother with our trifling lives."

"It's been in the papers. Anyhow, that's part of the reason I'm here, along with your recent purges."

Harry knew that Draco was referencing the widespread crackdown on dark wizards in the past six weeks. Luckily, there weren't too many questions about the night at Stratford; Harry had just reported it as another investigation of dark wizard attacks that got out of hand, though privately he was determined that Roger's death wouldn't be in vain. Harry had been rather rough in the interrogation of the wizard they had captured, a former actor who had been seduced by dark magic. They had quickly located the nurse of the old wizard, who also confessed to having sympathies with Death Eaters during the War. Over two dozen former Death Eaters and other dark wizards had been arrested based on that information and further tips. It seemed that the recent Pureblood legal reforms had spurred a resurgence in the Death Eater cult, which Harry was determined to quash once and for all. They had even finally located the wizard behind the strange ritualistic murders nearly a decade ago, whom Harry always thought of as the "Zodiac Killer." He turned out to be a former junior associate of Lucius Malfoy's, a new star among the ranks of former Death Eaters after the War.

"What of them?" Harry asked. "Have I inconvenienced some of your friends?"

"Actually, I'm rather relieved, to tell you the truth. I know you think I'm the worst of them, and I don't blame you based on our past." Draco paused. "But I would like to be on your side of things."

Harry sat up. "You must be joking..."

"I tried to tell you that night at Hogwarts. I swear I didn't come there to hurt you. I... I was drinking a lot back then, because..." He halted and looked down at his hands, which were idly toying with his walking stick. "I never was good at choosing sides. When we were in school, it all seemed clear to me. And Weasley was absolutely right to accuse me of switching sides too often during the War. Afterward, I was stuck with my father's legacy, and Astoria and I don't want that for Scorpius. I know you'll probably never believe me, but I support Shacklebolt's and Hermione's reforms. I'm not interested in the old Death Eater cult and Pureblood nonsense anymore. We've been trying to raise Scorpius not to believe those things either..." He sighed. "Though you can imagine that creates some problems with my family."

"I have to admit, I do find all this all difficult to take in." Although Draco seemed earnest, Harry didn't know how to reply. Unlike his father, Draco had sought privacy for many years, but the idea that he could have given up the family obsession with Pureblood regulations seemed unthinkable. And Harry's patience was wearing thin. "But why are you here? You mentioned a potion?"

Draco now seemed hesitant. "I couldn't speak out publicly about these things, because there were so many dark wizards who still are close to my family. But there's also something much more personal I couldn't reveal. Your recent arrests may finally remove some pressure, though."

"Get to the point."

"I don't know how to tell you this, so I'll just say it. The potion for you and Hermione during the War was formulated specifically for the two of you, and it was brewed by..." He swallowed. "...Snape."

Harry's jaw dropped open. "Malfoy, you can't be serious."

"It's the truth."

Harry was dumbfounded. What was Draco's angle here? "I asked you about this years ago... you never said..."

Draco's eyes lit up with a burst of anger for the first time. "You didn't really ask me, did you? You broke into my home and beat me until I confessed." He then saw Harry begin to tense up; he hadn't come there to pick a fight. Draco breathed deeply, again staring down at his hands. "Look - I was wrong. But there were some wizards interested in this information who couldn't know more about it. And with the position I was in, I couldn't say more, even to you." He looked back at Harry, more confident again, but not haughty. "Would you even have believed me back then if I told you?"

Harry was shaking his head, unsure of what to make of it all. "I still don't believe you." Harry now regretted not attempting Legilimency on him years ago, though he knew now as he did then that Draco's talents for Occlumency would have made it pointless.

"There's more, though. Snape knew that my allegiance was in question: he had looked after me, and he knew that I didn't want to be with the Death Eaters anymore. One night, after I had been given the task of delivering the potion, he told me that it was 'meant to restore balance.' Those were the words he said. He said that without it, that Voldemort's forces could come to great harm, but so could you... and her. Whatever he did, I think it was partly to protect the two of you."

"PROTECT US?!" Harry cried in disbelief. "By stealing our memories?"

"I told you before that Voldemort wanted to confound you about something, and I don't know anything about your memories. But I swear to you that Snape said that, and I'll take any test you wish to prove what I'm saying is true, if you need it." He stood up and walked to the window, staring out into the distance. "I know I hurt you. You and Hermione saved my life. It's probably too late for you to ever respect me, but I know you two have suffered over the years because of what I did." He paused, unsure whether to go on. "I remember the look on your face at that pub... when you mentioned her..."

"Get out."

Draco turned to face him again. "Snape wouldn't have wanted you to come to harm. Harry, I swear I'm tell-"

"Just get out. I don't know what your game is or whether you're telling the truth. But I can't listen to this anymore."

Draco slowly walked to the door, then halted, turning his head slightly. "Tell Hermione that I'm sorry." Harry glared at him until he turned and left.

"Ms. Granger?"

Hermione was startled from her reading and looked up at her assistant's voice.

"Ms. Granger? I know you asked not to be disturbed, but the Head Auror is here to speak with you. He said he needs to see you immediately."

Hermione took a deep breath. This conversation had to happen sooner or later. Hermione of course knew that she and Harry had spent the night curled up in bed together last week. She could vaguely remember feeling him against her, holding her during the night - a memory that had distracted her from her work occasionally in the past few days - and she could smell his scent on the pillow when she awoke alone. Surprisingly, her head had barely ached, but the breakfast she found waiting for her brought an immediate smile to her face. Even in Ron's better days, he rarely managed to know so precisely what she would have wanted.

But Harry's sweet gesture also made her feel even more incredibly embarrassed. She had had too much to drink, overwhelmed with a sense of failure over her marriage. And in a moment of weakness, she asked Harry to do something she shouldn't have, something they shouldn't have. Even though it was barely more intimate than ways they had cuddled together perhaps hundreds of times over the years, this felt like it had crossed that line.

And now she was full of anxiety at the thought of having to talk with him. Part of her wanted to just ignore it, like they always had done. But this was too much to just dismiss as another friendly embrace, wasn't it? He was married, and this was certainly not something Ginny would understand. Though, as Ron had so succinctly noted, the two of them weren't normal. And another part of her deeply feared that Harry might pull away again, that they'd spend more years in that purgatory, punishing themselves for doing nothing other than caring too deeply. With her marriage now finished, she needed that solace seemingly only her best friend could provide more than ever. But she had asked for too much...

She took another deep breath and stood up, steeling herself. "Send him in."

Harry came through the door at a swift gait. "We need to talk."

She sighed, looking away. "I know, Harry. I'm sorry about-"

"No, not..." He immediately saw the trepidation in her expression, and it stopped him in his tracks. He stood for a moment and then approached her haltingly, before putting his hands on her shoulders to turn her body to face his. "Come here..." He waited to gauge her reaction and hesitantly drew her into a warm embrace. In an instant, all of her worries seemed to vanish. They stood there hugging for a while, neither knowing quite what to say next. Finally, Harry broke the silence. "Did you like the croissant?"

She began to shake as she softly laughed into his shoulder. "I can't believe you. Don't you think we should talk about this?"

"I am," he continued, still holding her close. "Ottolenghi has the only decent croissants in the neighborhood. I think it's the resting and folding... so many places don't take enough time to make the layers develop for that flakiness. They must use quality butter too. I considered for a moment apparating off to Paris, but that seemed a bit much..."

She pulled back, a smile on her face, her eyes shining in amusement. "Harry, what are you going on about?"

He looked more seriously at her. "I didn't know what to do that morning. You were there, and I didn't want to ruin things again. I couldn't lose what we..." He couldn't find the words. "But I'm glad now to see that you're... that we're okay. We are, right?"

"Of course we're okay." But her brow furrowed again. "I just shouldn't have asked you-"

"Shh..." He put two fingers gently across her lips. "It's not like it's the first time I woke up in bed next to you. At least this time you weren't drooling." He smirked.

"Hey!" She gave him a gentle push in his chest, but at least his jest broke up some of the tension between them.

He disengaged his arms from her. "But that's not what I'm here about. You'll never believe who came to see me." They sat down around her desk as he recounted Draco's story about Snape to her.

"But that's absurd!" she cried. "Why would he say all this? Why now?"

"He claimed our recent arrests had made it easier for him to come talk to me. Would you believe he even told me to apologize to you for him, that he privately supported your reforms?"

Her expression shifted from one of disbelief to mild concern. "Harry, that part is likely true."

"What?"

"As Kingsley and I have been pushing through the new laws, we obviously encountered resistance from the Pureblood factions. But just in the past few months, we've seen some shifts in opinion among the Pureblood representatives at the Ministry. I began to suspect that someone with a lot of influence had switched sides and was helping the reform campaign. Eventually I discovered that some of the spouses of these representatives were meeting regularly, supposedly for some sort of social luncheons. I don't know for certain, but I'm reasonably sure Astoria has been trying to exert influence to promote reform."

Harry didn't know what to believe anymore. Draco was telling the truth about that? Could he possibly have been honest about everything?

"Ms. Granger," Hermione's assistant called again. "I'm sorry to disturb, but remember you have a meeting with the Minister in five minutes."

"I'm sorry, I need to go," said Hermione. "We can talk more later."

Harry got up to leave, a look of determination coming over him. "We need to do more than talk. When can you be free for the day? We need to take a trip."

"I have meetings until half three. Where are we going?"

"Back to where it all happened," he said as he exited the room.

They apparated onto a desolate outcrop, strewn with large boulders. Off on the side of the hill, the forest stretched out below. The mid-winter sun was descending in the sky, mostly hidden behind wispy clouds.

A wind gust arose and blasted them in the face, chilling them. Without thinking, Harry pulled Hermione into his side, attempting to shield her from the cold. It was a day like this, he thought.

"I'm not sure what you expect to do here after all of this time," she finally said.

He guided her over to the edge of the clearing. "This is all I found." Harry pointed to three trees growing among the rocks off the side of the hill that must have been close to where their tent had stood. Faded dark marks still marred small spots on the bark, perhaps remnants of a fire or lightning strikes long ago.

Hermione bent down, examining them closely. "This could be magical, but I suppose it could have come from a brush fire, perhaps caused by lightning or hikers who let a fire get out of control. Yet it's been years since you've been here; this damage was deep. A fire of that magnitude should have spread down the mountain and harmed other trees as well." They both walked about, circling the area where their tent had stood. After several minutes, she looked up abruptly, catching Harry's eyes.

"What? What did you find?" he asked.

"Nothing. But I remember seeing a report: isn't there a spell some forensic wizard has been researching at the Department, to bring together remnants of objects that had been burned in a fire?"

"Yes, Paul Henreid showed it to me a few months ago when we had a case of suspected arson. I've only attempted it a few times. And I have no idea if it could restore something from decades ago."

She looked out across the boulders again. "I can't think of anything else to try, Harry. This place is pretty barren."

Harry held up his wand and uttered, "Surgat ex cinere." A cool breeze blew around them, making a tiny whirlwind, blowing up some dust around the boulders. But it dissipated almost instantly.

"Try it over here," said Hermione. "I can't remember exactly where the tent was." Again, the spell failed, as it did three times more. Harry was about to give up, but Hermione pointed to one more spot on the ground.

"Surgat ex cinere!" he intoned. The wind again whistled among the rocks, but now tiny bits of dust began to swirl upward. Patches of earth between some boulders released particles that were buried deep from long ago. Harry kept his focus on the area, as the whirlwind coalesced into a ghostly gray shape, hovering above the ground. It had a vaguely rectangular top, with a few strands of particles flowing down on the sides toward the ground.

"Fascinating." She stooped down and stared for several seconds, marveling at the results from this new spell, until a glimmer of recognition came across her face. "It's my table. The ashes are so scattered now that I can barely see it, but that's what it was. I just thought we had somehow misplaced it or left it somewhere... Those days were such a blur." She stood up and walked toward the edge of the clearing, where she sat on a fallen log, now deep in thought.

Harry let the spell decay, and the ashes fell back to their resting place. "What table, Hermione?"

She looked up at him. "It sat beside my bed, don't you remember? I used to keep books on it when I was reading late at night."

"I really don't recall. But are you saying there was a fire in our tent?"

"Perhaps. I've suspected something like this since we met the old wizard. Before everything went to hell over the holiday, I did spend a few days researching the ancient scrolls he mentioned." She was shaking her head. "I just didn't think it could really be true... but the old wizard must have seen it in us."

A gust of wind blew again, sending another chill through them both. Harry walked over and conjured a small fire among the rocks before sitting beside her. "I don't understand. What's going on?"

She turned to face him. "It's hard to explain, and I'm not quite sure I can make sense of it all myself. But do you remember when we talked about magical resonance years ago around those murders?"

"Yes - wands attuned to their owners, building up energy... like the building in Ghostbusters." A smirk emerged on his face.

Hermione rolled her eyes, but couldn't help a hint of a smile. "That's not quite right, but yes. On that night at Stratford, you took down four powerful wizards without a wand or even uttering an incantation. How did you do it?"

They hadn't much talked about that night. Harry had called almost the entire Auror Department immediately to begin looking for the other dark wizards. With all the investigations and then the issues in their families, Harry hadn't wanted to reflect much, nor did he care to relive Roger's last moments. And, truth be told, he hadn't brought this up for another, much more personal, reason.

He stared off, feeling suddenly uncomfortable. "I don't know. I looked at you, and I just knew... how you felt about me." He swallowed. "It wasn't like Legilimency: it was stronger, more... raw. But then it became deeper: it's like you were inside of me somehow, giving me strength I never felt before. And then the spells just erupted out of me faster and more powerful than I expected. I didn't even intend to throw a fireball at them - I don't know what I thought." He hung his head down, shaking it. "I'm not making any sense..."

Hermione slipped her arm around his shoulder, and she felt him relax slightly. "I felt it, too, Harry. This intense wave of emotion came from you, and then we were somehow together, all of my magical energy directed into you." She couldn't describe how strange and amazing that connection had felt, but she could tell Harry was struggling with it too. "I can't be sure, but I think it's what those dark wizards were trying to do so many years ago. The leader you caught recently - has he given up any more information?'

"You mean the Zodiac killer? No, it's like it was with the others. His mind is completely shut. We know they were after some sort of resonance phenomenon. But what's the connection?" He paused, as the realization came over him. "You're not saying that the resonance is what we felt, how our magic came together? But how? I mean, years ago, you said the wizards ended up dead because they tried something like this... under a full moon in the house of Jupiter or whatever it was."

She pulled her arm away and brought her hands together again, warming them before their small fire. "Well, I think it's a similar process, but I realized after researching the ancient scrolls the old wizard mentioned that we may have something dark wizards and Death Eaters couldn't understand." She turned her head to look back into his eyes. "Harmony."

His brow furrowed. "Do you mean music? Like chords and stuff?"

She smiled. "Yes, actually. But it's a lot more. That's why the old wizard mentioned Marsilio Ficino. In Florence in the fifteenth century, the wizard Ficino helped to start the entire movement Muggles think of as the Renaissance, but Ficino was interested in ancient dark magics himself, particularly the cult of Pythagoras. Millennia ago, the Greek wizard Pythagoras had discovered the secrets of harmony in a blacksmith's shop, where he found simple mathematical ratios that related almost anything in the universe. The birth of empirical science was the birth of harmony, and wizards following Ficino led what Muggles call the Scientific Revolution. They just forget how much it was driven by magic. Even Isaac Newton himself was an alchemist, whose theories of mystical and magical unseen forces acting between all things led to the first true understanding of gravity, built partly on Pythagorean principles."

Harry's eyes had glazed over. "I'm sorry, Hermione, but you're losing me."

"Honestly, Harry, you must remember the story of the path of wizards leading the Scientific Revolution, followed by the ignorant rejection of magic by Muggle scientists and the subsequent International Statute of Wizarding Secrecy signed in 1689." Her voice had became rhapsodic. "It was one of the most exciting lectures ever in the History of Magic! Weren't you paying any attention to Professor Binns at all?"

He was shaking his head at her, amused by her passion. "You know no one paid in attention in that class. No one could stay awake in that class other than you." Harry tried to bring her to her point. "I thought you were talking about music..."

"It was music that drove science, Harry. For centuries, it was investigations into harmony and music that brought forth one of the greatest collaborations of Wizards and Muggles in history. And it was wizards like the astrologer Johannes Kepler who finally found the underlying Music of the Spheres that drove the planets in their orbits. The scientists only remember his laws of planetary motion, but Kepler always stated that the true order was to be found in celestial music that the planets made. He even called his entire treatise the Harmony of the Universe. Unfortunately, he was frequently distracted from his work by ignorant men who persecuted his mother for being a witch! And he was forced to defend her by resorting to scientific explanations of everything she had done." She sighed heavily. "If only Muggles and Wizards had continued to work together, we'd probably have understood this kind of magic long ago..."

"Hermione, now I feel like I'm attending a class with Binns," he said in mock frustration. "Normally, I do like to hear your stories. But what does any of this have to do with dark wizards... and us?"

"Don't you see? The dark wizards were trying to harness the energies of celestial harmony, the resonance from the planets we talked about. But those forces, though very powerful, are too remote to have much influence on earth. It was their misguided attempt to summon a kind of music, because they knew they couldn't recreate the harmony they really needed."

He was now perplexed. "Are you saying if the Death Eaters wanted to take over the world, they just needed to start a sort of... rock band?"

Hermione started to laugh. "No, though normal musical harmony has a power itself. That's part of what allows it to bring forth such strong emotions. It can even control mystical energy..."

Harry's face lit up immediately. "Like the end of Ghostbusters II!" But then he looked down awkwardly, as did Hermione. Neither wanted to talk about that movie.

Hermione continued. "But normal music's power is limited. As the ancient philosopher Boethius noted, there are three kinds of music: musica mundana, musica humana, and musica instrumentalis. The first one, musica mundana, is the harmony of the universe, which Kepler searched for and the wizards were obviously trying to use. Musica instrumentalis is the power of normal music created by singing and instruments-"

He cut her off. "Let me guess, it's the other one."

Hermione smiled at him, happy he was finally beginning to follow. "Yes, musica humana is the harmony created between people. It's what binds people to each other, parents to children, friends to friends... every kind of relationship based on caring and loyalty and love. It taps into the same types of energy as the universal music, channeling the musica mundana, but it's more accessible. Dark wizards could never understand that; they could never move beyond their quests for power and their own selfishness. And that's ultimately what helped you in your final battle with Voldemort, Harry. The power of love from your mother saved you - it saved all of us."

"I knew that before you began your extended lecture... well, not about the musica bit. But I thought we were trying to explain the fire we found here."

"The fireball in Stratford clearly was like the ones at the murders years ago. You remember that magical energies seemed to be depleted in the victims, as if some force had blown it out of them?"

Harry was finally seeing the connections. "Like the strange magical damping field that night."

"It wasn't a damping field. Musica mundana interacts with fundamental forces of the universe: the explosion of energy must have created an imbalance, temporarily disrupting normal magic, which is so much weaker. But there's one more piece, Harry, and I only made the connection by reading more about the fallout from musical research in the Scientific Revolution. It's about fundamentals."

"Fundamentals?"

"They are the basis of all harmony. Musical sounds are made up of many components, sounded at various frequencies, sometimes called harmonics. But we only hear one pitch from an instrument, even though there are all those different waves vibrating at different rates. That base pitch is called the fundamental. Magical energy from every wizard is like that too: all of the types of energy and spells we cast occur at different levels of energy, essentially a kind of vibration. But all of these join at a elemental level to create a fundamental vibration. If the fundamentals between two things are in a consonant harmonic relationship, it creates the strongest connection. It's that kind of vibration that the wand picks up on to resonate, the unique foundation of magic for each wizard." She paused, the corners of her mouth turning up, anticipating the logical connection she was about to make. "Now, Harry, imagine two wizards had vibrations that could interact together."

"You mean like my connection to Voldemort?"

Her burgeoning smile turned quickly into a frown, but then her eyes moved back toward him in curiosity. "Yes, of course! You had the same wand core. Your magic interacted because of that resonance, but it wasn't a good fit otherwise. The other elements of your magic - the harmonics - could never coalesce together at that fundamental level. In acoustical terms, the sound would be unfocused and noisy, like an out-of-tune bell. The musical vibrations would be off, you wouldn't-"

"...be on the same wavelength," concluded Harry.

Hermione was startled for a moment, but now smiled at him with a bit of awe. "Yes, Harry, that's... exactly what I was going to say."

"It's just something the drummer at Casablanca always used to talk about. How when musicians played music together the right way, they would be able to respond and interact together without even thinking about it. He said it was like being 'on the same wavelength.'"

She had admired his intuitive leaps that sometimes took a short cut around her methodical logic, but it still mystified her sometimes. "Well, despite your potential connection with Voldemort, it was never a productive one, because the components of your whole philosophies of life repelled each other. That small amount of resonance was always destructive to both of you. But my theory is that the two of us..." She hesitated for a moment, knowing what this would imply. "...have developed an unique compatibility of our magical fundamentals over the years."

"How? You mean our magic resonates between us because it has some kind of – what did you say? - harmonic relationship?"

"I've never been able to explain it, but it makes so much sense now. Normally every wizard's magical energies are unique and variable. But when we're together, Harry, most of the time there's this overwhelming sensation of peace and tranquillity that comes over me. I tried to explain this to you before: it's like the world is somehow complete." She looked away from him, shyness coming over her.

"I know. I feel it too." He squeezed her hand, causing her to smile again. Harry was relieved to finally admit it aloud, but he couldn't understand the implications. He wasn't sure he even knew what to ask about it. "With all of this talk about these fundamental connections - I know we've always been best friends. But Hermione, are you saying we have a... er... something like a soulbond?"

Hermione rolled her eyes and chuckled a bit. "You've been watching too many movies. No, Harry, we weren't destined to have this connection from the dawn of time or from birth or whatever. That's nonsense, the stuff of sappy romance plots. This is something we created, together. I mean, you must remember when we first met. We didn't always get along so well. I was a bossy know-it-all bookworm, and you were-"

"A bit of an impulsive, undisciplined, self-absorbed prick." They laughed together.

"Now I wouldn't go that far. We were adolescent kids. But we built this connection over years of friendship: every obstacle we overcame together, every time we were there for each other - every one of those events must have gradually attuned our magic to each other. At first, we came together because of the potential we saw, and then as our friendship grew, we must have silently begun to feel that harmonious connection. It's what makes us feel so comfortable together, and the more time we spent with each other, the stronger the resonance grew."

"I get it, I think." He looked back over the boulders they had investigated earlier. "But how does any of this relate to the ashes of a table from our tent?"

"Well, you saw what happened that night with the old wizard, how you produced a fireball with barely any effort or thought. Wizards who have close relationships or work together for many years sometimes see a small kind of resonance that boosts their power together slightly. But nothing like we saw that night. Maybe back in the forest here we could have been attacked and used a spell like we did a couple months ago. Or perhaps some other event could have unbalanced our magic, excited stronger vibrations, which would have created a productive resonance." She bit her lip, as she contemplated how much she could dare to say. "That is, there are a few historical accounts of accidental magic produced from... romantic interactions." Her face reddened a bit.

Harry was now intrigued. After all these years, she had opened the door to finally talk about what happened. "Do you mean - this was something we could have created by dancing together?"

"I don't know, but I don't think so." She shook her head. "Probably not. It most likely required something of a... much higher intensity."

His eyes grew wide. "You mean, we shagged?"

"Harry!" A look of shock came across her face before she looked away again. "I... well, no. I mean, I don't think so. I was a girl, and I'd hadn't... you know, before..." Her cheeks now reddened more deeply. "I think I'd have known if..."

Her meaning dawned on him. "Oh..." He hadn't intended it, but there was a distinct tone of disappointment in his voice.

Hermione reacted without thinking, feeling like she had unintentionally wounded him. "Oh! I didn't mean... Not that the thought of you and me like that would be so horrific... Er, not that I've ever really thought about... I mean, that we... oh, bugger..." Her face, now crimson, fell into her hands.

Harry couldn't help laughing at how flustered she became. He put his hand on her back and rubbed it gently in a friendly manner. "Hermione, calm down. It's me here. This has to be the weirdest conversation I've ever had in my life, but no part of our lives has ever seemed normal. At this point, if you told me that the evidence suggested half of the Hogwarts faculty showed up that night in our tent to have a giant orgy together along with us before lighting your table on fire to roast marshmallows, I really wouldn't be surprised." He started laughing. "I mean, I can just see Flitwick chasing around Sprout, and I always thought McGonagall would like to have a go with Madame Hooch on her broomstick..."

Hermione's embarrassment gradually gave way to a fit of laughter. "That's so utterly absurd, Harry!"

"Well, clearly everyone on the planet has had some sort of bizarre fascination with the idea that we were lovers, so why not speculate on them? It certainly seems like everyone knew about us... well, everyone except the two of us..." The smile had now left his face.

Her laughter quickly subsided. "What do you mean?"

"If you're right about all of this harmony and resonance business, clearly Voldemort was worried about us spending too much time together, and for some reason I still cannot fathom, Snape ended up erasing our memories, apparently so we couldn't discover this. They all must have seen the potential for something we were too blind to see. Even Dumbledore."

"Dumbledore?"

Harry was now staring out into the distance again. The clouds had begun to pass, as the sun descended lower in the sky. "He basically asked me during sixth year if we were dating, wondering why we spent so much time together. Of course, I told him we were friends, because we were. But now it seems like a strange question, given that he must had read my mind over the years. Why would he ask it?"

She puzzled over it for a few moments, her brow furrowed. "I can't actually believe this, but they were monitoring us. Dumbledore must have sensed something, but he needed to know what you consciously felt, how it might influence what we might do." She looked back to Harry. "I wonder how much he actually knew."

"Not much, apparently. Or at least he didn't tell his portrait anything."

She looked at him in surprise. "How do you...? You went to Hogwarts?"

"Earlier this afternoon, as I was waiting for you," he explained. "McGonagall let me in. The portrait was very circumspect when I asked about us, and it was outright surprised when I said Snape might have given us a potion during the War. If Snape really did this, he must have acted on his own. But why? Why would he do this to us? How would it restore balance to hide this from us?"

"I don't know, Harry. Snape only knew parts of Dumbledore's plan. If the two of us discovered this resonance, what would we have done? At that time, we were pretty lost together. The potential power here is extraordinary, but no one knows how to control it, and it still wouldn't have helped defeat Voldemort unless the Horcrux within you was destroyed. And the ancient accounts suggest this magic is unstable and that resonance could easily become dangerously destructive. After all, we know that four wizards died because some Death Eaters tried to experiment with it, and that was only a tiny fraction of what a true harmonic connection might be able to create. " Her voice became quiet as she realized the ramifications. "We might have burned down the forest around us or even blown ourselves up before we figured it out."

Harry thought this over for a while. "You once said this resonant energy could tap into energy as the Elder Wand does. Dumbledore told me, when I saw him in that vision after the battle with Voldemort, that he kept the information about the Deathly Hallows from me because of their danger. He said he counted on you to slow me up in running after that sort of power, from being distracted from the Horcruxes. He knew you were always cautious. But would the two of us have been able to resist something like this, something that was actually part of us?"

"Whatever happened, it must have been enough for Snape to think that Dumbledore's plan was in jeopardy. There must have been a disruption that Dumbledore had never anticipated."

They both were silent for a few moments, before it dawned on Harry. "It was Ron."

"Ron?" Now it was her turn to be confused.

"Don't you remember? We were always together, the three of us. Dumbledore knew it, Snape knew it, Voldemort knew it, everyone knew it. You were the genius, and I had the gifts to fight, but Ron was always the faithful one, the loyal friend who stuck by us and kept us sane, kept us from following the more crazy ideas that came to us. Even when we fought occasionally, he would always be there if we were truly in need. How could Dumbledore predict that Ron would ever abandon both of us?"

"He did leave Ron the deluminator," she noted.

"Yes, because he knew that you and Ron would always want to find me, in case I ever tried to go off on my own. That's why he gave you the clues too, so I'd depend on you. But Ron would always want to be with us, to hold the three of us together. Even someone like Dumbledore, though, couldn't have known what exactly we'd be doing, that we'd be walking around with a Horcrux locket around our necks for so long. How could he predict that it would only drive Ron away, but leave you with me? The idea that we'd be separated for many weeks, that the two of us would be abandoned with only each other, isolated from everyone..."

She followed the logic to its conclusion. "With no other distractions, alone in the wilderness together, it was only a matter of time before we..." She paused. "...discovered the power within us."

Harry couldn't help chuckling. "That's a nice euphemism for it, isn't it? 'Discovered the power within us'? You just implied a few minutes ago that we had a nearly unprecedented connection that was apparently, well, hot enough to literally set things on fire. Isn't it obvious what happened?"

Hermione smirked playfully at him, now a bit more relaxed as the topic was finally out in the open. "I know what you think happened, Harry. But there are still other explanations. The fire could have come from magic in some other way. Maybe there had been a battle, like what happened with the old wizard, and we-"

"Nothing was disturbed, and, you know, we did end up sleeping in the same bed." Harry was now grinning openly at her, daring her to deny it.

"Maybe for comfort... because we had discovered a new and terrifying magic..." She knew she was reaching.

He sighed in frustration. "We've been making these excuses for years, Hermione." He gathered his thoughts for a moment before standing up. "There's one more piece of evidence I think it's time you finally knew about. I need to take you somewhere else. Do you trust me?"

She looked up at him, uncertain about what else they might uncover. But she could see in his eyes that he needed to work through this. Rising from her seat, Hermione nodded and took his hand, before they disapparated with a crack.

The two appeared now within a forest, where the ground was covered with a light blanket of snow. The entire area was bathed in an orange glow as dusk approached. They stood near the shore of a frozen lake, their breath fogging out in the calm but frigid air.

"What is this place, Harry?"

He led her toward the ice-covered waters of a smaller pool that adjoined the larger lake. "We're in the Forest of Dean. This is where I found the Sword of Gryffindor, where Ron found me."

"This is where you swam to get the sword? Under ice like this?" She looked over at him with an expression of bewilderment. "I heard the story, but standing here now - were you insane, Harry? What if Ron hadn't shown up at just that moment? What if you had drowned or become hypothermic? Why didn't you just come and get me?"

Harry was flummoxed. "Uh... daring, nerve, chivalry, valor..."

"Sounds like stupidity, if you ask me, Gryffindor or not. You could still have been valorous and daring with a lifeguard on duty, you know." She was smiling at him, but they both knew she was right.

He began to walk along the shore, and she took his arm, walking beside him, ever more conscious of the dying sun. "Hermione, the next time I see an ancient magical artifact buried under ice in a frozen lake in the middle of nowhere, I promise I'll come get you in the middle of the night and pull you out of bed, okay?"

She laughed softly, leaning closer to him. "Okay." There had been something playful in his voice, even flirtatious, but she wasn't quite ready to think about that. Right now, she felt like they were back in the wilderness together, except without the worries of the War, and Harry was keeping her warm and safe. And there was a tiny girlish part of her that was distinctly enjoying being alone with him, watching a beautiful winter sunset together.

"Anyhow, I didn't bring you here to debate my poor teenage choices." He paused, hesitating. "Ron never told you what he saw that night with the Horcrux, did he?"

"What do you mean?"

He was studying the ground in front of them as they walked. "All these years, I thought it was merely tapping into his insecurities. But the Horcrux was tied to Voldemort, just as I was. It knew what Voldemort was thinking, what he feared."

She now looked to him, perplexed. "I don't understand, Harry."

Harry stopped walking and let out a long sigh. "After Ron pulled me from the lake, the locket tried to stop Ron from destroying it. It wanted to keep him from trusting me, from trusting us. The Horcrux showed images of you and me, terrible visions of us rejecting him, saying we didn't care for him."

Hermione's mouth dropped open slightly. "He never told me." That explains so much, she thought.

He continued, "I know it worried him for years. But the Horcrux's last image was of us, embracing..." He swallowed. "Kissing passionately. Right over here." He pointed to a large slab of rock elevated slightly from the ground around it. He might have been imagining it, but he thought he saw a thin, white line on the stone surface, perhaps created by the sword long ago. "The Horcrux was connected to Voldemort, and to me. Perhaps it not only showed Ron his fears, but also drew on Voldemort's thoughts..."

He bent down and examined the stone surface for a moment before turning and sitting down, feeling the coldness from the contact run through him. She joined him in silence, pushing herself close to him as they sat together, watching the final remnants of the sun pass below the horizon, the red rays glistening on the surface of the lake. They both unintentionally drew closer as the glow faded.

She finally broke the silence. "I know what you're thinking, Harry. I know you've always suspected something happened between us that night. But we've been over this years ago. No matter what strange vision happened on this spot, that's just one lost memory..."

"Hermione, it wasn't just one memory."

She looked up at him, a new look of concern on her face.

Harry took another deep breath, before he continued. "Remember when I told you about the strange sensations about the Yule Ball, the memories in the album that Dumbledore sent me?"

"You dismissed that, said you were mistaken."

He didn't meet her eyes. "For years, I did think I had imagined it. But after what happened at the restaurant, I couldn't ignore it. I couldn't tell you either, because of the emotions it brought out. It didn't bring back memories, but it's like it brought them into a new light. My head was throbbing and... All the time we had spent together as friends when we were young - it's like I suddenly remembered how deeply I cared about you, sometimes in a way that... felt like something more." He stared off across the lake.

She followed his eyes into the distance as she sat up slightly, though still wanting to remain in contact with him for his warmth. Her mind flashed back to that night at Hogwarts, also when they had sat by a lake together, the night she first realized how deeply he felt. But there was no moon tonight, nothing to stave off the encroaching darkness on that frozen landscape. "I think something like that happened to me too. That night at Hogwarts, with Draco - after you were injured, and you said..." Somehow, after all they had been through, she couldn't bring herself to say it aloud. "I felt something Harry, something I didn't feel again until that night at Stratford. I didn't know what to make of it either. I thought I was just so upset at the thought of you dying. But it was as you said, like memories of our time together grew more powerful." She hesitated as she chose her words. "I... I never felt more strongly about us."

"I didn't imagine it..." Harry mumbled, before turning to look at her, thoughts long buried coming back to the surface. The earlier wind had left her hair somewhat wild, and he brushed back some strands away to stare more deeply at her face. The shadows of the twilight softened her features, and she was once again the young girl who had stayed with him in the forest so long ago. "As you said once, it was never one day with us."

Not quite able to process the look in Harry's eyes right now, she dropped her gaze and sighed deeply as she thought for a few moments. "The potion must have had a second component. Even though Snape's skills were legendary, I had no idea he was capable of something like this."

"A second component?"

"As Draco told you, I don't think the main effect was to affect our memories. The primary function was supposed to confound us, to prevent us from understanding the truth about the harmonic connection between us. Any hint of that understanding must have been erased, which I assume is why we still can't remember that night completely. Snape couldn't have known when we might learn about it, and the confounding charm acted on anything we knew. That memory might be gone forever. Based on my research with the ancient scrolls, it seems clear that some wizards feared such forces enough to theorize a type of potion to counteract the effects temporarily. Like the resonance, it would have to be specifically attuned to us, and only someone with Snape's abilities likely could have created one. It would act as a sort of reverse love potion, suppressing the feeling that would draw us toward the connection."

A light dawned for Harry. "Which is why you felt almost like a sibling to me afterward. I mean, at school you were always a kind of sister to me, though it was always deeper too. But that explains why I was mildly repulsed by you, with your wild hair and drool when I woke up next to you..." She pulled back from him a bit, and Harry rapidly became apologetic. "I... I didn't mean it to sound that way. It's just that it did feel so wrong and strange, even though I knew how close we had always been. I think any other day, I'd have been happy to wake up next to you... er, I mean..." Now Harry's head fell downward, shaking in his hands.

At this point, it was easier for them both to pretend to ignore what he had just said, even though Hermione had to smile to herself for a moment. "Harry, my point is that effect wouldn't be enough. Even Snape couldn't brew a potion that would suppress such powerful magic permanently; like Amortentia, the potion's effects would eventually be undermined. If he really didn't want us to realize our connection, Snape needed to go deeper. He had been practicing Legilimency on you. He had been in your mind so many times, and he likely saw into my mind too. He must have known what we felt, even if we couldn't figure out how to express it to each other. The only way would be to confound our memories and ensure that we never could see that potential for ourselves. But I can't believe he actually succeeded; only someone with his boundless magical creativity could have targeted a potion so precisely, without even a single trial..."

Harry suddenly stood and took a few steps toward the lake, looking away from her into the deepening gloom around them. "You're sitting here analyzing his technical achievements. But he... he took away our... love." He had finally forced his mouth to utter the word. It sounded cheap and overly romantic, but they needed to stop dancing around the issue.

The pain in his voice struck her to her core, even though she struggled to remain rational. "No, we had our friendship, Harry. We always had that. Snape could never take that love, which has carried us through everything. The memories were just refocused, until we found them again. He needed us to focus on Dumbledore's plan, not on each other." A shudder passed through her beyond the winter chill, as she recalled a memory she tried never to think of - Harry's lifeless body being carried in Hagrid's arms. "Dumbledore had told him you had to die, that you had to be sacrificed. Snape probably thought of this as just another sacrifice."

"It wasn't his choice to make!" he cried out over the ice, his voice echoing before being absorbed into frozen snow.

Hermione heard his helplessness, his anger. But there was nothing to be done. She tried to work out a rationale in her mind that could explain it all. "Draco said Voldemort had forced Snape's hand, and he couldn't reveal his true allegiance. I don't know all the answers, Harry, but he must have believed it was the right decision."

Harry stood motionless for several seconds before returning to sit beside her again. He seemed unusually nervous and agitated, avoiding her eyes. Night was fully upon them now, and he stared up into the heavens. She followed his gaze, awed by the multitude of stars now visible in the Milky Way. They had both forgotten how truly alone they had been in the wilderness together. Hermione then looked back to his face, concerned at the anxiety she saw there.

Finally, he spoke softly, "We've been speculating for hours, but this is all worthless. We need to test your theory." His voice now carried a note of resolution.

"I... I don't understand."

"I don't care why they did it, but they took this from me... from us. For the first half of my life, I always felt like everything was beyond my control. First, with the Dursleys, and then the continuous struggle against Voldemort, with all of the prophecies and everyone - Voldemort, Dumbledore, Snape - scheming about our lives without telling us. But I could always trust you. You were the first person who didn't look at me as the Chosen One, as some pawn in a larger plan. You were the first part of my life that was always true and pure and..."

His voice trailed off. She took his hand, entwining her fingers with his, needing him to know she was still there... always.

They sat in silence, but his tension only seemed to grow. His voice began again, full of emotion, "Everything was taken from me, and I could deal with it. I always had to accept it, but not this... not you..." He suddenly turned to her with a look of desperation. "I need to know, Hermione. Just one time, with you... I need to know what we might have lost..."

Harry then did something he had never before dared to do. His fingers brushed back a lock of her hair, tucking it behind her ear. Then his hand slowly continued to the back of her neck, gently threading his fingers through her hair, as his eyes dropped to her lips. His glance quickly flew up again as he gazed deeply into her brown eyes, his embrace now bringing their faces close.

Even in the shadows, she could see everything in those green eyes: anger, hurt, frustration, and now yearning, giving way to an outpouring of emotion for her. And she couldn't fight it anymore. A part of her she had never allowed a voice was now crying out, as she gave into the forces driving them together. Was it her loneliness and despondency in the past weeks, the physical closeness she and Harry so recently shared, perhaps even a remnant of dark magic from the Horcrux? It didn't matter. She could see his need to know, his need for her, and nothing else mattered in her world. She closed her eyes, ready for him, eager to give herself to him completely. A wave of heat passed over her entire body, warming her in the cold night air as his arms drew her close.

But then time stopped. Hermione could feel his hot breath on her lips, only a hair's breadth away. He had halted, and she knew immediately that he couldn't demand this of her. She needed to assent, to cross the final threshold with him, the point from which they might never be able to return. And in that moment she remembered: he had pulled her back from the brink years ago, had been able to see clearly when she couldn't. He didn't know what was right any longer; she had to think for both of them now.

Her lips turned downward, as she buried her face in his neck. "We can't..."

A moment passed before his voice came softly to her ear. "It doesn't matter. I think we have our answer anyway."

And suddenly she was aware that the heat was still upon her, warming her from the winter chill. It hadn't been an illusion. She opened her eyes to see dozens of trees alight around them. The entire forest seemed to be in flame.

Harry was instantly on his feet, casting an Aguamenti, and a few seconds later Hermione joined him, water rushing forth from their wands, causing billowing smoke to erupt from the conflagration around them. They moved away from each other, trying to expand their efforts, but it seemed to have little effect. The roar of the fire grew louder, as most of the water dissipated into steam the moment it came in contact with the raging inferno.

"Don't cross the streams!" he yelled.

"Why?" she called back over the din of the fire.

"It would be bad."

"What are you talking about?!" Is he really doing this now? She had just been about to kiss this insane man?

"Uh... something about total protonic reversal?"

"FOR THE LAST TIME, THAT MOVIE IS NOT..." An enormous dead tree, already weakened by the flames, now crashed down beside them, scattering sparks up into the heavens. And with the sun now gone, the settling of the night air brought a fresh steady breeze above them, which carried the fire farther away, catching hibernating trees in its wake. The patches of light snow on the ground seemed to do nothing as dead leaves and fallen branches were set alight.

She halted her spell and ran to Harry. "This isn't working. It's not enough, and the effect of our magic is probably weakened by the energy that created the fire anyway. This entire forest will go up in flames if we don't stop this soon."

He stopped and turned to her, coughing at the smoke rising about them. "What else can we do?"

She only thought for a moment before a tiny grin came to her face. "We'll cross the streams."

"Huh?"

"Harry, you're brilliant!" She leaned over and was about to kiss his cheek, but thought better of it. They didn't need to make this fire worse. Instead, she looked intently into his eyes. "I don't quite know how all of this works. But Harry, I need you to close your eyes and think of me. Think of... us. Our happiest memories together... Can you do that?" He wasn't sure what she was asking, but then she wrapped her arms tightly around his neck and whispered in his ear. "Focus on how you feel about me. I know we can do this together."

She pulled back and saw his eyes closed, brow furrowed in concentration. She walked to the side of the lake, staring down at the ice and holding forth her wand. Closing her eyes, she thought of him, dared again to feel the depth of what she had never been quite able to express. She had always had a bit of trouble even with spells like the Patronus Charm; her intellect seemed to get in the way of her emotions, and what she would now attempt was significantly more powerful and difficult. Nevertheless, she focused her mind and intoned a long incantation. "Copulet nobis fundamentum harmoniae velut si ex una essentia facti simus, ut musica mundana in aquam exsolvat. Surgat lacus ex glacie et incendium exstinguatur!"

Somehow, she could now hear his heart pulsing with her own, joining their rhythms as one as she began to breath hard and fast. He was carrying her along with him, their love bringing them together in a deeper connection than she had ever imagined. And then it happened. Hermione opened her eyes to see a large fountain of water burst forth through the surface of the frozen lake, sending enormous shards of ice flying outward, their whiteness gleaming in the glow from the flames. She could feel him, closer than they had ever been physically, every part of his being within her, his energy coursing through her. She threw her arms upward, directing her wand into the heavens, and two more thick columns of water shattered the surface, throwing forth another icestorm as jets of water leapt high in the air. She could barely handle this power as she propelled the water aloft toward the forest, dousing the inferno around them.

But Harry's magic was too much for her. Her entire body was sparking with electricity, her knees threatening to buckle underneath her. She became overwhelmed as two more dark jets rose from the lake, joining with the other streams, seeming to coalesce into one enormous column of icy water. It took all her strength to send the tempest forth and quench the last of the fires. But then she lost all control, as the hovering water sprayed forth in all directions. A stream landed on Harry, drenching him thoroughly as he was thrown to the ground from the force of the impact.

Hermione had fallen to her knees, completely overcome as the magic slowly dissipated. Aftershocks continued to pulse throughout her body, leaving her drained and disoriented for over a minute. But a cold wind suddenly rushed in her ears and drove her back to awareness. In an instant she was on her feet and ran to Harry, her face flushed, still panting when she arrived. She knelt down and pulled him into an embrace. "Are you all right?"

He was deathly pale and shivering uncontrollably. Through chattering teeth, he managed to get out, "You know... m-m-most girls would just tell a g-g-guy to go take a c-c-cold shower..."

"Harry, this is serious. We need to get you out of here, now." She stooped in close to him and grabbed his hand. "Hold on."

A moment later, they apparated into the sitting room at Grimmauld Place, arriving on the thick antique rug before the fireplace. Hermione pulled a blanket from a nearby chair. "It was well below freezing out there. You're soaked." She yanked his boots off and then sat him up on the floor to remove his coat, before peeling his wet shirt from his frame, revealing his bare chest, whiter than she had ever seen him. All the while, his body was spasming out of control from the shivering. She shed her coat in an instant and pulled him close, wrapping her arms tightly around him as she pulled the blanket over the two of them. She turned to the fireplace, but it seemed to erupt into flames on its own.

"Her... Hermione?" he stammered. "Are you tr-tr-trying to create another h-h-happy memory for me? Because..."

She nearly whispered into his shoulder, "Shh... I am a trained healer. We need to prevent hypothermia." His body still felt ice cold to her and his lips had a bluish tint. She pulled her blouse off in a quick motion, only a thin camisole now between them as she embraced him even more tightly.

A minute passed. She was running her hands over his back, creating friction, and he finally started to feel a bit warm again before he spoke. "And just how many patients at St. Mungo's did you treat this way? It must have been a popular therapy..."

"Just shut up, Harry. Your body temperature was dropping precipitously." The shivering finally began to calm. "Believe me. I'm trying to help."

"Oh, I want to believe, Hermione. I was once told the best way to generate body heat was to crawl naked into a sleeping bag with somebody else who is already naked."

She groaned, not in pleasure, but at his continued antics. "It's not going to rain sleeping bags tonight, Harry." But even as she said that, she had become suddenly aware of just how close he felt, their chests and bodies pressed as close as they could be. Two sets of hands were now moving beneath the blanket, caressing each other's backs as the fire grew significantly brighter.

He spoke again. "You know, that night at the frozen lake years ago, Ron actually pulled me out after I swam in it. Somehow, Ron and I didn't end up like this..."

Abruptly, she let out a growl of annoyance and threw the blanket off of herself. She stood, rolling her eyes the entire time. "Just take off your trousers," she commanded.

His breath stopped short as he looked up at her in disbelief. "I... I was kid-"

But she was already walking away from him, heading toward his bedroom. "You're right, Harry. There are easier ways. Take off your trousers, and I'll bring you some fresh clothes."

In a couple minutes, she returned to see him curled up in a ball sitting in front of the fire, the blanket wrapped loosely around him. His bare feet and legs glowed warmly in the light from the flames, and she was glad to see a little color returning to his face. But he still looked cold and alone. She desperately fought the urge to resume their embraces, to run to him and bury herself under that blanket with him. But her fears halted her: there were so many reasons she couldn't do that, not the least of which was a novel concern that they'd unintentionally set the house on fire.

Hesitantly, she approached him and held out the dry clothes. He looked up at her, a bit perplexed at her sudden change in attitude, but took what she offered and began to dress. She picked up the remnants of their clothing that had been strewn about the floor, setting his to dry and slipping her blouse back over her head. Eventually, she joined him back on the floor in front of the fire, deliberately sitting a short distance away from him.

She finally broke the silence. "I'm sorry... That got a bit out of hand."

Harry began to laugh incredulously. "Which part? The part when we set a forest ablaze because we stared at each other a little too closely, the part where you brought forth an icy tempest that Poseidon himself would be envious of, or the part where we reenacted a somewhat more explicit version of some X-Files shipper episode in front of the fireplace?"

She shook her head and sighed. "The last one. I should have been prepared for this. It happened before, after all."

"I think I would have remembered that..."

"No, Harry. After you fought the dark wizards at Stratford, I know we felt the urge to be close, even in that crazy situation. And I just started randomly saying... odd things?" She looked down, embarrassed. They hadn't discussed that element of that strange night either.

"Oh... You mean when you started doing your best DeForest Kelley impression? I meant to compliment you on your geekiness. Though I always imagined you as more of a Next Generation fan, with Dr. Crusher and all."

Her face turned a shade of pink. "Why's that, Sir Patrick? Because Captain Picard seemingly spent that entire series wanting to get into her pants?"

The color now truly returned to his cheeks. "I... I didn't mean..."

She smirked. "I'm kidding, Harry. Two can play at your constant TV and film banter, you know." Her expression grew serious again. "But that night... It was wrong. Roger was dying."

"I somehow think he would have appreciated it, even saw it as a final tribute."

"Be that as it may, I didn't mean to say those things. They just came out of me, without a thought." She looked back at him. "I'm sure it was the resonant magic. It left a residual connection between us; that was a part of you still manifesting within me, eliciting those reactions. When we're both focused together, it's overwhelming. Normally, the harmonious qualities bring us close and settle our spirits. But drawing that sort of energy - it must create an enormous imbalance within us, just as it disrupts magic in the physical world around it. And afterward that balance needs to be restored." She crossed her arms and tried to calm herself without going to him. "I'm sorry... when I brought us back here, you were right: I wasn't thinking clearly. Your core temperature wouldn't have dropped so quickly that it required emergency attention. I... I just needed to feel you close."

A tiny smile crept across his mouth. "I wasn't objecting."

"Harry, I know you make jokes to avoid talking seriously, but we need to address this. This entire situation is far out of control. We've been through a lot of strange things lately, but this isn't right. It isn't fair to our families."

He sighed, not looking at her. "I'm not sure Ginny would care anyway."

"What?"

He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. "Unless something changes, I'm pretty sure we'll end up separating soon."

Hermione now remembered the fresh stack of boxes in the bedroom when she had retrieved Harry's clothes. They weren't there when she was at Grimmauld Place last week. How much time is he spending here? "I don't understand. I know things haven't always gone smoothly between you, but you never fought like Ron and I did."

"Actually, I think that's the problem. For so many years, things were fine - no, honestly, they were great with her. But now we're such different people that we almost can't be bothered to care enough to fight. We barely even talk anymore."

She finally understood the depth of sadness she saw in him earlier, a feeling of defeat she knew all too well. "But the two of you... even at Hogwarts, you were always the couple that seemed meant to be."

Harry finally turned his face to her, with that look of hurt in his eyes again. "After what happened tonight, can you honestly say that with a straight face? Whatever's between us, apparently both sides in the War felt the need to conspire to keep us apart!"

Looking down, she realized she didn't have the strength to hold back from him much longer. He was lost, and she wanted nothing more in the world than to lose herself along with him. But this wasn't right; it wasn't supposed to happen like this. "It doesn't matter, Harry. We may know more now, but it doesn't change the fact that it was all decades ago. We have families we need to look after. They wouldn't understand this, whatever this even is anymore." She paused as she tried to figure out how to reason with him. "I'm sure you can still work things out with Ginny. I can see now that you still care deeply about her and obviously about your family. We can't disrupt that."

He was silent for a long time, staring into the flames in front of him. "Do you love me?" he whispered.

"What?"

"Do you love me?" he repeated.

She didn't look at him, trying to ignore the implication she knew he meant to convey. "Harry, you've been my best friend for decades. Of course I do."

He turned, now looking at her intently. "Do you love me?"

We can't do this. She stood and walked a few steps away, unable to trust herself so near to him. "There are other people to think of. I can't be that person... the other woman. I can't be responsible..."

"You aren't. You did nothing to create the problems Ginny and I have had. But it's very simple. Right here, right now, we are just two people. Do you love me, Hermione?"

Her voice wavered. "You can't ask me that."

There was a crack, and then he was left alone with his thoughts.

Harry turned back to gaze into the fire, knowing he shouldn't try to follow her. It would only make things worse now. He didn't even know why he had pushed her to say what both of them already knew, what both of them had felt within every fiber of their being earlier that night. Some part of him just needed confirmation that his world still made sense, that there was at least some reason for their involuntary sacrifice long ago.

But she was right: everything had moved too fast, had spiraled completely out of control. Neither of them was thinking clearly.

After all these years, they both needed time.

Footnote: February 3, 2016 was the date of an interview with Rupert Grint, admitting not only that he thought Ron would be divorced from Hermione by then, but that he'd be living on his own in a one-bedroom apartment without a job. Obviously this does not have canonical status, but it certainly tracked with the earlier JKR revelations about marriage counseling, etc., as well as the few R/Hr hints offered in her Rita Skeeter updates at the Wizard World Cup.