Gryffindor tower turned in early for the most part that night and with a few exceptions, fell to sleep quickly. Some slumber was peaceful and deep while some had odd and strangely realistic dreams again. Prophetic dreams.

Hermione was one of the last Gryffindors to pull the curtains to around her that night. She was still quite upset from earlier although talking to Ginny did make a big difference. Hermione set her mug of cocoa (for some reason I typed cocaine first, I have no clue why…) on the nightstand and laid back on her pillow. With one hand she pulled the covers up and with the other waved the candles out. She expected to be up long into the night but fate took over and dropped her into slumber early.

The first thing that she saw in her dream world was a gigantic moon hanging extremely low in the sky. It seemed as if she could tiptoe and touch it, it was that close. Her head panned down and she saw a grassy field filled with a handful of people in a small circle. A few of the people were arguing animatedly and pointed at each other, mostly a man and a woman dressed in what appeared to be olden clothes, perhaps from the time before the Romans.

Everyone turned on the man and drew weapons. In her dream, Hermione screamed and looked away. She looked at the sky and heard a blood curdling scream, a deep, rattling death throe, and then nothing. Dream-Hermione had closed her eyes at some point and when she opened them again the landscape changed dramatically. She was in Hogwarts. She wasn't sure how she knew it, but she was. More precisely, she was on Hogwarts. A roof, maybe. The moon was the same as before, just as low and predatory. Her gaze lowered again and this time she saw Ron. They were now standing in a room now, she and Ron, and he was gazing intently at his hands. "Oh Merlin," Hermione screamed, not in her dream, but to herself. She remembered this from before. Something horrible had just happened, but what she didn't know or couldn't see. This time, Ron only had one thing in hand, a glowing, fiery orb. Ron was clearly agonizing over a decision of some sort and he finally chose one after what seemed like hours in the dream world. He held it up and there was a rush of flames that clouded her vision.

Hermione woke sitting up in bed. She barely held in a scream by biting her tongue. The only sound she heard in the dorm room was Dean's snoring. (he's still there) Hermione realized that she was out of breath and put her hand over her fluttering heart. "That was a lot like last time," she said quietly, not worrying about being heard over the snores. "I wish I knew what it all meant." She replayed it as best she could and tried to compare it with what she remembered with her previous dream like this one. She was almost sure that Harry was in the first one, but not quite absolute. No Harry this time.

She glanced over at her table and saw that it was only 1:43. She didn't plan on going back to sleep anytime soon, so she picked up the closest book, her oft-read and dog-eared History of Magic, and began to read until the creeps she felt went away. She finally drifted off sometime after three.

Not far away, in the boys dorm, fateful dreams awaited a few more souls. Long before Hermione had her dream, Harry and Colin said goodnight to Ron and Seamus and Neville and climbed into Harry's bed. They pulled the curtain around them Harry cast a silencing charm, not to keep their noise in, but Seamus' and Neville's out.

This was the time of day that Harry loved the most. He settled himself down into the mattress and pulled the up the covers. Colin scooted close to his side and nuzzled his head on top of Harry's arm. Harry moved it a little and mussed up Colin's hair just a tad and smiled at him. The stone around Harry's neck was glowing with faint heat, as it nearly always did when Colin was around and it warmed the chilly tower nicely.

"I love you, Colin." Harry told the smaller boy.

"I love you more, Harry," Colin replied. He usually smiled at this time, but he didn't and that caught Harry's attention.

"Is something wrong, Colin?" he asked. Colin wouldn't meet his gaze for a few seconds before finally looking up to his face.

"Harry, you aren't, well, you aren't mad at me because we're not, you know…" he trailed off.

"We're not what Colin?" Harry said in between yawns as he looked into his soul mate's eyes.

"We're not um, well, doing what Seamus and Neville do, are you?"

Harry paused for a second as his brain translated Colinese into the queen's English. "Colin, that is not important to me at all. I won't ask you to do anything you don't want to do or aren't ready to do. I love you for who you are, nothing more, nothing less. Being with you is enough for me." He reached his head a little further down and kissed the top of Colin's head. "I love you, just remember that."

"Thanks Harry." Colin said as he draped an arm around over Harry's chest. The two boys fell asleep to the soft warmth of the stone and their love.

Harry found himself in a dark field. He walked around and discovered that he was in some sort of burial ground. He could tell by the crude grave markers that it was very old. The ground was then illuminated by an enormous moon. The marker closest to him appeared to have some sort of runes carved into it. He looked at them but could make no sense of them except for the first one which he recognized as the symbol for an 'S'.

Dream-Harry was still studying this marker when a small child came to him and pulled on his sleeves for attention. Harry looked down at the boy, some part of him already knowing what the lad would say and he was correct. "They have your beloved." That was all the boy said before Harry started to pull away. The boy grabbed him again. "They have Colin." The boy disappeared after that and Harry saw himself from across the way. He had pulled out the stone he wore and was brandishing it at something. The other Harry yelled something and a gout of flames enveloped him a minute later. That was the last thing he remembered before he woke up, sitting up in a cold sweat with Colin calling to him. Harry didn't hear him for a little while.

"Harry!!" Colin called for the fifth time, and by this time he was crying. He shook Harry's shoulder rather hard, trying to shake him back to now.

"Colin," was all Harry said and he wrapped his seeker arms around him. Now Harry was the one crying. He sobbed into Colin's shoulder for a long five minutes.

"Harry?" Colin said once Harry had calmed down some, "was it a bad dream?"

"It was horrible. All I remember is that someone took you from me and that there were flames. Many flames. That's all."

"Well don't worry. I'm here and I'm not going anywhere. I promise." "This is quite the opposite of normal," Colin thought to himself. Usually it would be him with the problem and Harry would end up holding him until he stopped crying. Colin found that he liked this after all. They fell back asleep with Colin stroking Harry's head and whispering in his ear that it was only a dream.

A few feet away, Ron lay in his bed tossing and turning as usual. He was having another odd dream with Professor McGonagall on a fashion model's runway in the latest Spring Fashion. The silliness of that dream faded quickly into somberness. Ron found himself back in that indigo field he had last seen in the middle of summer. Ron knew that he had been here before somewhere in the back of his mind, but he was unable to do anything as the dream progressed.

Ron walked on as before, searching for something, or someone, he wasn't sure. He crossed England's countryside at great clips, hundreds of miles in a few steps. He ended up in some old stone building and there was a large moon hanging over his head. He had arrived, wherever it was. He now had to find whoever it was he was looking for. He walked in and looked around for a bit, suddenly feeling very dark and cold. Something had obviously just happened, but he didn't know what. He just felt groggy. He looked to his right and saw Harry suddenly wrapped in a wreath of flame and fall backwards.

A voice then spoke to him, a voice that had ageless wisdom and power. "You have the power to right a wrong at this very moment if you choose to do so, Make your choice."

Dream Ron made his choice. Everything sped up to chipmunk speed and the only things that Ron remembered when he awoke a few seconds later was one more burst of flame and Hermione's piercing cry of his name. He sat up in bed and looked around. He was still in his bed but he was terrified of something. He couldn't quite remember what, he almost never could remember his dreams. Something about flames and Hermione screaming.

"Dammit, Ron, think. What was that about?" he told himself. It weighed heavily on his mind, the meaning behind it became vital to Ron. He racked his brain but only remembered what he did before along with a deep, old voice. Nothing more. He knew that sleep was not going to come back to him anytime soon, so he bundled up in his robes and returned to the common room. He waved the fire back into life and hopped down in front of the fireplace. An hour or so later he dozed off into the typical deep Weasley slumber.

The dreams that they experienced faded into the backgrounds of their memories soon after they woke up, nothing more than nagging feelings of something that they should remember, but not quite able to.

[A/N here: I honestly have lost track of chronological time for this story, so as of right now, I am arbitrarily setting it as the third week of October, just in case you care.]

The group was eating breakfast the next morning, enjoying oatmeal, but mostly not talking about what happened to Hermione the last evening. Finally, Harry could restrain himself no longer and her turned to face her. "Okay Hermione," he began but she cut him off and allowed him not another word on the subject he was going to broach.

"Harry, you know, you never have really explained that stone to me." Harry looked resignedly at her and realized that if he was going to discuss last night, it would be Hermione who began the discussion, not him.

"Well, like I told you a while ago, it came in the mail by eagle soon after school started. I put it on and it's glowed with a bit of heat ever since. Sometimes it flares up a lot warmer and brighter, but it is usually like this." Harry pulled it out of his shirt and showed Hermione.

"Interesting. It is warm. When does it get warmer and brighter, Harry?"

"Well, it's usually like that when, um," Harry stopped to think for a second. "Well, it's like that when Colin is around for the most part."

"Very interesting," Hermione said. "I'll have to spend a bit of time in the library on that, I believe." Harry was about to tell her to not worry about it, but telling her not to go to the library was like telling Ron not to breathe.

"You know, Hermione, it will be a lot easier for you once you memorize all the books in the library, don't you think?" Seamus asked her.

"I suppose it might. I'm over halfway there," she said.

"Was that a joke?" Harry asked.

"I don't know, was it, Harry?" she responded. Harry laughed at her, but there always was that small outside chance that she was telling the truth.

The day went on as nearly normal as it possibly could. Hermione still hadn't brought up the previous evening and spent the majority of her free time in the library looking up information on Harry's rock. Seamus and Neville did all sorts of cute things, although Seamus did take a bit of time out to work with young Dennis more.

"Here, Dennis, practice what I just showed you on Neville here," Seamus told Dennis.

"Okay, here goes." Dennis cleared his throat and turned to Neville. "Excuse me, Nev- I mean Hermione, could I have the pleasure of this dance?"

"Why certainly, Dennis," Neville said in a poor copy of Hermione's voice. This caused Seamus to cackle madly. Neville laughed too, but Dennis wasn't laughing.

"I'll never be able to say that to *her*, Seamus."

"And exactly why not, Dennis?"

"Because, whenever I get around her I loose the ability to talk. I just stand there and look like a statue. I can't do it."

"If you can say it to Neville, who in my completely unbiased opinion, is a lot more attractive than Hermione, you can say it to her."

Dennis giggled at Seamus' comment, and the three of them went on with their impromptu lesson.

[[[Author's Note: I really am loving this Dennis and Hermione thing I've set up and it won't stay out of my head at work. But, I don't think I can do it justice here in this story. Fear not, for it will be done justice in its own story in the not-to-distant-future (like once I finish this monster). Just look for 'The Courtship of Hermione Granger'. In this story, I'll just leave Dennis as a fawning loverboy.]]]

In the Slytherin common room at about the same time--

"Hey, Draco, wanna come with us and harass the Hufflepuffs?" Draco looked up from his text and saw the face of Christopher Dunn, a younger Slytherin, in front of him.

"Nope. Sure don't, now go away," he replied, liking the shock on his face. Christopher was extremely puzzled at Draco's reply because he had always seen Draco jump at the chance to harass anyone.

"But Draco, you love that, are you alright?"

"I hardly think it's up to you to decide what I like and dislike, don't you. And yes, I am quite sure that I don't want to come with you," and as an afterthought, he added, "And why exactly do you like doing this, Dunn?"

"Well, we've always done it, it's like a tradition."

"That's not a reason. Try again. Do you even like it?"

"Um, yeah, sure I do."

"Right. Now run along and play your games." he looked at him as if he had a finger sprouting from between his eyes. "Go. Catch your little friends." He took off, throwing one glance behind her.

"How could I have been that way?" He asked himself. There was no answer, so his mind drifted. He came back to reality after rethinking all the things that he'd done to people over the years, how horrible he'd been to everyone, all the suffering he'd caused. A tear actually fell from his eye. Hardened Draco Malfoy was shedding a tear of remorse. As it fell, he felt a new light fill him. He felt clean, clean after years of being dirty. He rose, intent on getting dinner before as many Slytherin as he could.

He arrived in the Great Hall and it was only beginning to fill. He sat at the far end of the table, his new seat, away from the students in his year and past the first years. He was halfway through his meal when the hall was filled.

Across the way, Harry and the gang were enjoying their dinner as usual, being friendly as normal, when Hermione looked across the room and noticed Draco sitting by his lonesome. 'Hey Harry, what do you make of that?" she asked, nodding her head to the dragon.

"Well, it would seem to be a problem with Draco and the other Slytherin, I wonder what it's over. Where're Crabbe and Goyle, I wonder."

"They're with the other students, where he used to sit."

"Hmmm…interesting," Harry said and they all watched as a small drama portrayed itself on the Slytherin table.

Draco was nearly finished with dinner, all he had left was a bit of applesauce, when he felt the hairs on the back of his neck bristle. He turned to his left and looked down the table to see the rest of his class staring at him. Instead of giving them any response at all, he simply showed them his complete disinterest and picked his spoon back up and finished eating. They were still watching him when he stood up and faced them. He looked over the faces of the people he'd shared classes with for years and saw nothing friendly at all. Draco stood his ground for a full minute, not backing down from their glares before he turned to his right and turned his back on his house. Draco felt the eyes boring into him as he walked slowly and deliberately out of the room, but he cared not a bit. In fact, he felt even better than before.

"Well I'll be damned," Harry said, completely shocked. His thoughts were mirrored by the rest of the group and a few others as well. They had been silent throughout the stare-down and had hardly taken a breath.

"I wish I knew what went on over there," Hermione said.

"Well, Draco, that wasn't about the smartest thing you've ever done," he told himself as he left the Great Hall. "Oh well, it had to be done," he said aloud. Somehow he knew that going to the Slytherin room was the last place he should be now, so he went wandering throughout the castle halls and eventually came to rest in the Astronomy Tower.