A/N thanks for the reviews so far.

A special thanks to padfootsgrl79 for a very good idea, that solved quite a few problems!

Enjoy and review.


"Harry, have you seen the McTallon file..."

Ron Weasley stood in the door, mouth agape. There was his fiancée, holding onto his best friends robes, crying her eyes out and he was holding her tightly in his arms. What was going on here?

"Hermione, What are you doing? Why are you all cuddled up with Harry?"

Harry's head snapped around. He could see in the face of his friend, that he had gotten more than just the wrong end of the stick! It was the wrong flipping stick altogether!

"Ron, she just needed..."

"What? A shoulder to cry on? I thought, it would be my shoulder my fiancée would want to cry on."

"Ron, this is Hermione! I've hugged her lots of times. What's the big deal all of a sudden?"

"She is my fiancée! Get your hands off her!"

"What are you talking about? Have you totally lost your marbles?"

Hermione looked at Ron. His face was showing a beetroot tinge. She just buried her face at her best friend's shoulder. She didn't want to deal with an insanely jealous Ron right now.

"I have lost my marbles? You are having your way with my sister and now you want to get in Hermione's knickers as well?"

Harry looked at him. What had got into Ron?

"You don't know, what you are saying! She is your girl and she is also my friend. If she wants to cry at my shoulder, I'll be damned, if I sent her away."

"Ha! You admit it!"

"I don't admit anything, as there isn't anything to admit! She just needed a friend, that was all. If you wouldn't be such a moron sometimes, it might have been easier for her to come to you rather than to me."

"Oh, I am a moron, eh?"

"Ron, please!" Hermione's voice was pleading, but he ignored her.

"If you need a harem to satisfy you, there are enough girl around the Ministry, that wouldn't mind being shag...!"

"RON!" Hermione yelled from behind Harry.

He glared at her.

"And as for you..."

"Why were you meeting Parvati?" She screamed.

Ron's face went pale. Harry wasn't quite sure, what to make of this. Was he seriously having it away with another girl behind Hermione's back?

"I didn't..."

"LIAR! I know, you have been meeting her in the Three Broomsticks! Merlin knows what you have been doing there."

"Hermione, I swear, I have nothing..."

"I don't believe you! Why didn't you tell me then? What was so important, that you couldn't tell me?"

"..."

"HA! I knew it!" She looked at Harry. "He was right after all!"

"Who?" Demanded Ron.

"The man I am bound to! I found him!"

There was something like relief on his face.

"That's good, isn't it?"

"If being bound to Draco Malfoy is something good, than yes." She shrieked.

All colour drained from Ron's face. Draco Malfoy! He slowly moved backwards. Horror was the only expression his face seemed to be capable of in this moment. Then suddenly he gave the impression of a pressure cooker before exploding.

"THE BLOODY FERRET! You have been meeting him, haven't you? Behind my back you have been colluding with this scum."

A made half a step forward,.

"What have you been doing with him? Enjoying long horizontal lunch breaks?"

Harry gasped.

"How dare you! How dare YOU of all people accuse me of something disgusting like that? Is that what you have been doing with Parvati!

"Leave her out off this!"

"Why should I? I haven't been sneaking about with other guys behind your back. I have met only ONE of the possibles on my short-list and I will be damned, if that was a very pleasant meeting."

"Why did you meet him then?"

"Because I had been invited to do so. I am a polite person, therefore I followed the invitation."

"And what has he been doing with you?"

It wasn't that he tried to insinuate anything, it was more him seemingly stating facts.

"We had an argument, if you must know. We were just yelling at each other."

"Ha! Was that before or after you have..."

"THAT'S ENOUGH!" Harry shouted.

He looked seriously angry and distressed by the behaviour of his two best friends.

"Ron, just go! Don't say any more horrible things! GO!"

The other man turned and vanished, though not without slamming the door behind himself so hard, that the files on Harry's desk rustled.

Harry looked at Hermione. Who in turn gave him a look, as if her world had just imploded. Moments later she was back huddled against his body, clawing his robes and bawling her eyes out.

The young auror wrapped his arms around her and was trying to think of what he could do to get this mess straightened out again. He sighed. He didn't have that much hope, that there was anything left worth straightening out any longer.


Draco was still sitting in the library. It was dark and shadows were swirling around him. Though it felt strangely peaceful. There had been a time, earlier when he had still been trying to read, when he had felt a sudden burst of anger and then his heart had felt, as if somebody had just plunged a knife into it right up to the hilt. He had clutched his chest in pain. It had passed, but he couldn't understand what had happened. He had never felt anything like it before.

His mother hadn't looked for him in all the time he had been here, but he had not doubt that she knew, where he was. She seemed to have a sixth sense for his whereabouts at times.

He watched the moon light illuminate the spines of some of the old tomes with fingers of silver.

'Gently fingers...'

He lost himself in a world, where he wasn't alone any more. Where there was somebody by his side. Somebody he could trust, somebody that cared about him, somebody that didn't judge him but felt compassion and... He closed his eyes. Whom was he trying to convince here? He had made all the wrong choices for so long, that there was no way back for him any longer.

Should he have gone back to Hogwarts to redo the last year? Would he have been able to find some proper friends in that year? Would Potter, Weasley and Granger have granted him some of their abundant happiness? Would she have been willing to fight for him by the end of that year? Would she have been willing to defend him without thinking as she did for Potter and Weasley? Would she have made him laugh? He had seen her laugh in the Great Hall, when she was with her friends. He had seen genuine happiness in her eyes during these times.

He sighed. He wasn't even able to talk to her for more than a short while. How could he expect her to want to do anything for him? She would expect something in return. All the girls he had ever encountered had wanted something in return for what ever he got from them. For a moment he wondered, if that was the actual secret of their bond: They didn't expect anything in return?

He turned the book in his hands. Hermione loved books. Would she talk to him, if he got her a book, that was special to her? He had no idea, what kind of books she read. Textbooks obviously, but other than that? Did she read romantic stuff? Crime stories? Poetry? What? He shook his head, feeling defeated. He had spent so many years in the same school, in the same classes and he didn't have a clue about her.

She wasn't the girlie type, so romantic fluff was probably not for her. Then again, maybe she would like to read something like that, as nobody ever bothered considering it for her as a gift. No. She was far too noble to be bought. She was a Griffindor and as such she would not appreciate him buying her something to say sorry. He needed something special. Something that was worth to be owned by her. Or enjoyed by her.

Something worthy... Was he worth her time?