I suppose this is my NaNoWriMo project. Not exactly an original novel of my own doing or anything, but at least this will be finished so I can move on to other writing projects! I do not own Harry Potter, and I do not do this for money.

He convinced himself that loving Hermione like that was impossible as he went through the motions of breakfast and training the following morning.

It wasn't that he thought Hermione was a terrible person, per sé; it was that he wasn't quite sure that he could love anyone. He had only just turned 15, for Merlin's sake! The only problem was, he'd tried everyone else he could think of in that spot, and no one fit as well as Hermione. Had he just not met her yet? He settled on the fact that maybe he hadn't, and forced his thoughts back onto training hard.

Hermione had let Harry have his space that morning as these jumbled thoughts went through his brain, as she thought about her own fears. Neville was not the young, scared boy he once was, though he was not yet what Hermione would consider 'war-ready.' And who would be the lover? She cringed at the thought of being a third wheel to Harry and his love interest, because she knew very well that most girls did not like the idea of their boyfriend's best friend being a girl. As a loyal best friend, she would follow Harry to the depths of the impending war, but it felt sad to know that post-battle, she wouldn't matter as much. She tried not to think about it too much as she pushed herself to run faster and farther that day.

With the two of them preoccupied, they trained right past their usual lunch time, Gornuk rapped on the door heavily and entered the room, much to their surprise.

"I see you two are fully immersing yourselves in training. Admirable, but so is punctuality," he wryly remarked.

"Sorry, sir," they said at the same time. They each grabbed extra snacks and drinks and followed Gornuk out of the room.

"No harm done," Gornuk said as he sat on his spindly chair. "This lesson is going to be your last back in time; you'll have three more days here after that, as per our agreement with your guardians," he continued. "We have reason to believe one of our staff members may have reported seeing you to your Headmaster and so we must keep you in the training facility and keep your presence quiet."

Harry nodded, and Hermione appeared to have a worried look on her face but slowly gave a single nod, as well.

Over the next four afternoons, they learned many small, helpful bits of goblin magic. They were able to do a spell similar to disillusionment, but instead of remaining on the ground, they could hover in air to give the appearance that their bodies were not there at all, and thus, they were more protected, unless things should fly into the air.

They next learned a goblin form of distance apparition; instead of creating a portkey, it turned the spell-caster into a portkey so that they could take as many people with them as possible without splinching. This took hours of practice extending into the evening, but both were determined to master all the goblin magic forms by their return. All of these bits of magic were good, clever magic they needed in order to get ahead of the years of training and knowledge that both Dumbledore and Voldemort had over them. Gornuk assured the pair that neither party had been trained in goblin magic; Hermione had been worried about this, but his assurances meant that they had a slight edge, in some ways.

Their last evening, Harry settled into bed. He looked over at Hermione, who was reading, as per usual, and he noticed how even the last week had changed them. He worried about the fourth person on their journey, and wondered how they would contact Neville about any of this, as his Gran was a Dumbledore supporter and they worried that she might have undue influence.

He noticed, after a few moments, that Hermione appeared to be shivering.

"Are you all right? Do you need another sweater?" he asked, getting up to look in his trunk, but she shook her head no and kept her face down. He walked over, and heard light sniffles. She was sobbing.

"What is it, Hermione?" Harry put a reassuring hand on her shoulder, sitting down next to her on her bed. "Did you hurt yourself or something?"

"Oh, Harry. No, I'm unhurt. I'm worried about you," she said. "And-and I don't know, Harry, it just seems like there's so much to be done. We don't even know who's to join us yet and I—" she stopped, putting a hand over her mouth, and sniffled again. "No matter, I just fear for the future. What if everything I've learned can't help you as much as I hope?"

He looked down at her book, now splotched with tears, and fiddled with a page corner. "Hermione, I wouldn't ask someone untrustworthy to join us on this mission. And I would never hold it against you if you didn't know the answer, you know — I never seem to know the answer. Maybe I rely on you too much." He sighed.

"No, Harry, I'm always happy to assist," she said, looking worried. "Don't go trying to get rid of me now, it won't work."

"I'm more worried about how I've got to find a 'lover' before too long," he said, smiling. "I'm fifteen and maybe a bit rash sometimes, I've never even snogged a girl," he continued, getting more serious. "What if I'm awful at snogging, even if I do find the right person, and she doesn't want to be with me?"

Hermione looked up, tears still dripping down her face. "Then she'd be a bloody idiot, Harry!"

Harry laughed. "Did you just swear, Hermione? Not quite what I expected from you," he teased.

She blushed. "Well, it's true. Besides, you're Harry Potter. I'm sure you're good at kissing, the entire country seems to think you're good at everything, and even if you're not, I'm not sure that she would care."

He didn't respond but stared across the room, at the stone wall, thinking. Hermione hated this; she could never figure out exactly what he was feeling, and thus how she should respond.

After a few moments, he looked at her. "You're my best friend, right?" She nodded, and he continued, after taking a deep breath. "Could—could you teach me how to kiss?"

She couldn't help a small grin as her cheeks blushed bright crimson. "Er, I- can it be taught? I think you just know. I hope, at least. I've never kissed anyone, either," she finished, mumbling at the end and staring at the book in front of her, smoothing the now crinkled wet page.

"Just one kiss, please, Hermione. I don't want to risk my first sloppy kiss on the person who is supposed to help us win this war, I have to win her over!" He gave her a begging look, and she acquiesced.

"Fine, one kiss." They turned toward one another, and her cheeks were still red. "I think we both have to lean in, Harry, and I close my eyes, and then you close the distance…" she trailed off, then leaned toward him, closing her eyes gently.

Harry took a deep breath and noticed how angelic she appeared, even in the dim light, and he hoped he wasn't screwing up her friendship. He slowly leaned in, touched his lips to hers, and felt surprising warmth at kissing her. It was over before he knew what had happened and Hermione was pulling back, eyes wide open.

"I-We should get to bed," Hermione said rushedly, cheeks red. "You're fine at kissing, Harry, don't worry about that." She slammed the book closed, looking flustered as she placed it on the table between their beds.

"All right, Hermione," he said, feeling both light and yet slightly embarrassed. As soon as he got up from her bed, she crawled under the covers and faced away from him.

"You aren't mad, are you?" he asked, hesitantly, as he crawled under his own blankets.

"Oh, Harry. No, I'm not mad. It was— surprising. That's all," she said, but didn't turn to face him.

As Harry slept, he dreamt all night of kissing the right girl to find her, but he never saw her face once he did. He tossed and turned, frustrated at his bad luck.

The next morning found themselves and their trunks goblin apparating back to Marauder Manor, appearing in the grandiose front hall. They shuffled off to breakfast, neither one having got much sleep and not really looking at one another, and found Remus and Sirius both looking excited to see them.

"Your parents went to secure their house with a hired goblin security agent, Hermione, but will be back before noon," Remus said as he answered Hermione's unasked question. "Tell us, do you feel better prepared?"

"I suppose so," Harry said as he sat down in his seat. A heaping plate of his favorite breakfast appeared before him, and he silently thanked the house elves for a tastier breakfast than what he had been eating at the training facility.

"Well, come on, Harry, Hermione! What did you learn?" Sirius boomed, excited to know what the goblins had taught, as his and Remus' negotiations had been hard in trying to secure the pair's training.

Hermione gave him a glance, but answered. "We learned basic forms of goblin fighting with daggers, a form of apparition that got us here today, a form of occlumency that reads people's energy, and we trained physically every day. In fact, we'll be needing a training facility for all of us who intend to fight, I think - one advantage we can all easily have is strength and stamina."

Sirius nodded. "I actually expected something like that. There's a small room for exercise in the rear of the house, and it leads to the back where we can run or walk outside."

"Perfect," she said, "And I really hope to be able to teach you both how to do the energy reading. I'm not sure we'll have time to perfect everything else and Gornuk was a great teacher."

Harry finally piped up. "We also learned about a foretelling of my fate," he said calmly. "We know that I am to fight with three others: lover, friend, family." Sirius and Remus looked at one another, eyebrows raised. "I learned that Neville Longbottom is possibly — probably — the family of which the stars speak."

"I see," said Remus.

"What about me?" Sirius asked.

"Sadly, Sirius, I suspect it's going to happen during the school year or whenever I'm without you. And I'm not sure it applies to non-blood family," Harry stated.

Hermione broke in. "This reminds me," she began, with a thoughtful look on her face, "that a teacher reportedly knows the prophesy, according to the goblins. I don't know how they know, but they have their sources, I suspect. We should ask Professor Swott."

The others finished up their breakfast and the four of them walked to the library together, sitting down in front of the portrait."

"Good to see you, good to see you all," the portrait boomed. "It's been far too long."

"It's only been a few days," said Sirius, dryly.

"Yes, yes, well, I suppose you've all been busy?" Professor Swott asked. "Your professor has been told you were at Gringotts lately. He'd been notified by a Bill Weasley."

"That answers that question," Harry grumbled under his breath.

"Yes, we were, but we can't tell you why," Hermione responded. "It's better to not talk about it, I think."

Professor Swott laughed heartily and nodded. "I don't begrudge you your secrets in this war, my dear girl."

"Perhaps then you could answer a question for us?" asked Hermione. "We heard from the goblins that a teacher knows of a prophesy about Harry. Do you know which one?"

Professor Swott adjusted his hat and adopted a grim look on his face. "I can," he admitted. "I should have told you before, had I thought of it. It is that greasy mess of a professor, Severus Snape," he stated darkly. "He overheard Dumbledore being given the prophesy. I know nothing else of Snape's involvement."

"Of course it was Snape spying," Harry exclaimed. "He's playing both sides probably."

"Well, of the mystery surrounding the prophesy, I can tell you a bit more." Swott leaned forward, as if he were going to tell a secret via whisper. "You are the Chosen One. What's more, Voldemort attacked you because he thought by killing you, he would eliminate you as a threat — but apparently he did not have the full story." Professor Swott leaned back into his comfortable, throne-like painted chair once more.

"Remus and I knew of the prophesy surrounding your parents, of course. That was why they went into hiding; Voldemort knew of it. We knew he didn't know the whole thing, Dumbledore had made that very clear," Sirius snarled, "But if any of us had known it was Snape, I would have killed him myself. I may still, upon my return."

"Sirius!" Hermione gasped. "We cannot think like that. We can NOT turn into Voldemort, killing as retribution. It won't do any good this time. We already know not to trust Dumbledore and that Snape has always been untrustworthy."

"You're right," replied Sirius, still looking rather angry.

Remus looked at all of them. "I think it's time to discuss a plan," he calmly stated as he relaxed into his chair. "This could take a while."