Chapter 12: Dean Thomas

Hermione was awakened from the few winks of sleep she managed to steal by a loud bang of the door and people yelling. She frowned – her eyes stung, her head was pounding from exhaustion. She had stayed up all night by Harry's bedside, and now she had to deal with Ron and Ginny screaming at each other at the top of their lungs.

"You don't deserve to be here! You don't deserve to visit him and watch over him, you betrayer-" Ron's face was beet red, a neck vein bulging, pulsating, threatening to burst.

"You don't even know, Ron, you don't even understand-" Ginny was screaming right back, not backing down.

Hermione sighed and reached for her wand in her pocket. She cast a voice amplifying spell on herself and spoke,

"THAT'S ENOUGH!" Ron and Ginny clasped their hands against their ears and fell silent. Hermione reversed the spell and rubbed her temple.

"I do hope either of you came here to bring me coffee instead of just disturbing me from what little sleep I have, seeing as I'm the only one who seems to be making progress in waking Harry up? I doubt your little screaming match would do the trick." She muttered.

"I'm sorry, 'Mione," Ginny said in a small voice.

"You would not believe what I walked into this morning, Hermione," Ron was still fuming. "I saw Dean Thomas in Ginny's bedroom. He was naked, Hermione." He gestured wildly. "Dean-fucking-Thomas! He should be thankful it's against my code as an Auror to kill him on the spot. I bloody well should have!"

Hermione raised an eyebrow at Ginny, whose angry tears started streaming down her cheeks.

"How could you do that to me, Ginny? To all of us? To Mum, after all she's been through?" Ron pointed at Harry laying down in his bed, unmoving. "How could you do that to Harry? He loves you, Ginny-"

"Does he?" Ginny snapped back. "What do you know, Ron? I loved Harry, Ron. I loved him more than anyone or anything else. I've loved him ever since I met him. And when he finally started to love me back, he left me, Ron! NINE FUCKING MONTHS! Of not knowing where he was, of just desperately believing that he – all three of you, in fact– were still even fucking alive!"

Hermione felt a stab of guilt in her chest. Ginny was shaking with rage, and Ron was, for once, speechless.

"My three best friends, including the love of my life." Ginny continued, sobbing. "Do you have any idea how that made me feel?" Hermione reached out and held her hand as tight as she could.

"Dean was there, though," she continued. "He was there the whole time. He was there for me. Even when he had to go into hiding, he made an effort to send word to me."

"When the war was over, it just wasn't the same. Harry was different. I was different. But… He's Harry Potter. He's the hero. He's supposed to get the girl at the end. We couldn't just break up, could we?"

She smiled, almost sarcastically.

"So we pretended. A little white lie. For mum, for the family, for you…for the whole fucking wizarding world, really, you know how Harry is. Always the martyr."

She walked over to Harry and stroked his black hair. "We stayed together, and everyone was happy. Except us." There was fire in her brown eyes "Aren't I allowed to be happy, Ron?"

Ron strode over to her with large, sure steps and Hermione rushed to intervene. He grabbed Ginny's arm.

"Ron-" Hermione started, but stopped as she saw Ron pull her into a fierce hug. They stayed like that for a few minutes, with only Ginny's sniffles interrupting the silence.

"Harry's my best mate," Ron finally spoke, his voice breaking. "So it's hard for me, okay? But you, Ginevra Molly Weasley are my baby sister." He held her tightly by the shoulders. "I'd do bloody anything to make you happy. You understand?"

Ginny smiled and rubbed her eyes.

"Dean-fucking-Thomas gets a pass this time."

After all the drama of the morning was over, and the three were finally settled in- with breakfast and large mugs of coffee, to her delight—Hermione began to brief the two on her research.

"So here's what I have so far. I haven't figured out a way to safely and without damage, disengage their consciousness from each other. In fact, it seems to me over the last three months, that they're getting even more, uh… interconnected. But I've been working on this spell. It's a modified Legilimens… Yes, I know what you're thinking. It's what put them in this mess in the first place, so I've been very hesitant to try it. Instead of actually entering the person's mind, what if you could just use the spell to communicate with them?"

She did a little wave of her wand towards Ron and Ginny.

And I think I've finally gotten it to work. To their awe, they heard Hermione's voice inside their heads even as her mouth wasn't moving.

"Blimey, Hermione, how do you manage to do these bloody amazing things?" Ron craned his neck to kiss her on the cheek.

Hermione beamed with pride. "Well, to be fair, Narcissa helped me a lot last night. Now I think I'm ready to try it on Harry. You're here in case anything goes wrong. If I could reach out to Harry, maybe they could find a way to separate themselves from each other." Ginny nodded and began casting the spells to monitor Harry and Draco's vital signs.

"Ready when you are."

Hermione took a deep breath, and grasped her wand.

Harry? Harry, can you hear me? It's me, Hermione…

"So you can hear Granger's voice? Right now?" Draco asked, absently intertwining his fingers with Harry's.

"Yeah," he answered. "It's coming from everywhere... but sort of vague, and faint. Almost like a bad radio broadcast."

"Are you sure it's her?"

"Yes, absolutely."

"Is it a memory?"

"No. It's either I'm hallucinating, or it's really her trying to talk to me. She, uh… she said I've been asleep for five months."

Draco felt his heart sink down to his feet. The idea of them being disconnected from the world for five whole months… time was hazy in the place they were in, in fact, Draco felt as if they had spent an entire lifetime there, and to have that time frame presented to them was strange and sobering.

"I mean… leave it to Granger to figure out a way to find us here. It's quite believable." He answered.

"HERMIONE!" Harry cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted. "HERMIONE, WE'RE HERE!"

Draco listened but could only hear Harry's voice echoing down the long hall.

"Anything?" he asked Harry. He shook his head.

"But now I have a connection," He said, grabbing the handle of a light wooden door. "I know Hermione is out there. She's near, I can feel it. They're trying to get me out of here, so I've to try to get out as well." He flung the door open and the two boys found themselves facing the sea—waves crashing, stars twinkling overhead, the air dense with salt, and a young man, with his back turned to them, carrying what seems to be a small bundle of clothes close to his chest.

A/N: We're at the last stretch of the story! Things will happen much faster now I promise. I've mapped this out as a 16 chapter story, and by the looks of it it's gonna have to be 17. Hope you're still entertained xoxo