Chapter 28

Perhaps imagination is only intelligence having fun. George Scialabba

Hermione opened her eyes slowly. She gazed up at the faces looking down at her from the edge of her bed.

Harry was gently running his hand across her forehead, brushing off any stray hairs. Ron was holding her hand. Neither boy was looking at her, and they quite clearly hadn't realised she was awake. Hermione starred at her friends, and realised for the first time that they were no longer boys, but men. They had all faced many trials throughout their lives, and these had undoubtedly aged them, but now, these were men watching over her, not boys.

They looked so wise so dignified, so caring, if they weren't her best friends, Hermione probably would have been in love with at least one of them! She met Harry's gaze, his beautiful green eyes alight with – was it compassion, anger, guilt? Hermione didn't know.

Had Hermione not been recovering from the effects of a very powerful Crucius curse, she may have cottoned on to the peculiarity of the situation, and realised how odd it was for both Harry and Ron to be there, both looking so sombre. It didn't even register when Ron said:

"Hermione, we know."

"About what?" she replied, her confusion growing (as was her level of consciousness.)

"About, about the rape" said Harry with great difficulty as his green eyes blazed with fury.

"I… I, I don't know what you're talking about. Now please leave, I want to get dressed." Hermione said in a voice that was way to stern, even for her!. It was obvious to even Harry and Ron that Hermione knew exactly what they were talking about.

The thing that she had been dreading was confirmed, she was devastated. Harry and Ron knew. Shit. She had sworn not to let them find out about it, ever! She would not let them put themselves in danger, especially not over something that they couldn't change.

"Hermione, don't lie. We know. Why didn't you tell us?" asked Ron quietly.

"I…I, You can't know, you mustn't. It's not important now any way, it's over with. There's nothing you can do and, and everyone agreed it best if you didn't know, it's just better if you don't know" She finished, tears welling in her beautiful eyes.

"Hermione, don't. You know that's not true, we care about you, you can tell us anything."

"No, I really can't , and if you two dare do anything, anything at all, to try and get revenge or something and end up getting hurt, I could never, ever forgive myself. Please, promise me you won't do anything stupid, just act as if this never happened, please, promise me."

"No, we can't act as if this never happened. You're our best friend and we weren't there to help you then, but we want to help you now, however we can"

"You can help me by forgetting this ever happened. When I find out who told you-argh! Just when things were getting better, and now this!" She said, before covering her face with her hands. Harry placed a reassuring hand on her back.

"Who told you? If Sirius said anything- I'll kill him" she muttered

"It wasn't Sirius, it was Malfoy."

"That little piece of shit, he probably enjoys knowing that you two will go gallivanting off and put yourselves in danger to "avenge my honour" or some other ridiculous notion like that. Maybe this is their plan; maybe they were trying to get to Harry through me. This could all be part of some big design to get Harry."

"Maybe, but I don't think Malfoy was meant to tell us, I mean, he seemed pretty upset about his father, I'm not even sure he intended to tell us, right Ron?"

"Err, yeah"

"Hermione, don't worry about us. We won't do anything stupid, we promise" Harry had yet again been very careful with his choice of words, he had promised not to do anything stupid, and to him, avenging Hermione was far from stupid.

"Good, now you two better get back to lessons. Will you take notes for me in transfigurations and potions, and not to mention charms…"

Harry grinned to himself, no matter what happened, Hermione would always be Hermione.

X X X X X X

Charms that day was most interesting, they were studying a variant of the shield charm. Which required the class to be divided into pairs, one of each pair was the attacker, the other, the defender. The attacker was to use a harmless spell, such as a cheering charm, and the defender was to try and protect themselves from it. So, as you can imagine, the class was in utter chaos.

Harry and Ron, both having been highly active members of the D.A were already proficient in the shield charm, and could both do it with their wand hand tied behind their back (according to Ron anyway). So Harry and Ron used this chaos to their advantage. They were discussing how best to get revenge on the death eaters. Their plan (so far) was to go to each of the death eaters' homes by apparating illegally from Hogsmeade next weekend. They had learnt to apparate the previous summer at Sirius' house, although the adults hadn't approved, they had consented when it was put to them as a matter of safety and security, the boys would always be able to escape if in danger, so they had reluctantly agreed. Any way, they would apparate to the Death eaters' homes, and beat the living hell out of them, attempt to get a confession out of them (neither boy was aware that confessions made under torture were no longer viewed as concrete evidence). If the death eaters did confess, they would be stunned and taken back to Hogwarts, where Dumbledore would deal with them. They knew that they wouldn't be able to get all the death eaters as word would quickly spread between them, but they might be able to get one or two. They had chosen to target the most prolific, 1) Lucius Malfoy, 2) McNair.

This plan may seem very, very haphazard and floored to any one else, but we mustn't forget that this plan was conceived by two extremely angry teenage boys during an extremely chaotic Charms lesson.

X X X X X X X

The rest of the week passed pretty much without incident. Hermione returned on Wednesday, her absence blamed on a highly contagious bought of flu which required her to be kept in quarantine. That weekend, third years and above were permitted to go to Hogsmeade, so on Saturday, Harry, Ron and Hermione set off towards the sleepy little village. Harry and Ron had much more then new quills and dung bombs on their minds, they had a plan…

A/N: This chapter hasn't been bettered because I was too lazy/busy to type it before today, and I didn't think my wonderful betta Kyra4 would have time to proof it for me, but hey, it's an update. Hope you enjoyed it and hope you review it, lol. A HUGE thank you to my lovely reviewers:

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