The Harmony bond, chapter twenty-nine.

Author's note...

IMPORTANT – To those who are worried by the last few paragraphs of this chapter, please read the author's note at the end before jumping down my throat!

Disclaimer:-

To anyone who has been on another planet since 1997, this is to let you know that Harry Potter belongs to She Who Must Not Be Named, her various publishers and a certain film company.

In the previous chapter...

Harry and Hermione talk in their dreams. Hermione rows with Snape and Harry senses her feelings from his dormitory.

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After lunch, Harry had Herbology while Hermione had History of Magic, which the Slytherins shared with Ravenclaw.

Professor Binns was boring. There was no other word for it, even Hermione had to admit. Even most of the Ravenclaws were either nodding off or reading something else. At least, they were at first.

About three quarters of the way through the lesson, Hermione suddenly felt something wet hit her face. She rubbed where it had hit and her finger was smeared with blue ink. A minute later there was another, then another, while she tried desperately to make notes on the lesson, until her white blouse and presumably her face, was spotted with blue.

The Ravenclaws were awake now, watching with fascination as the Slytherins attacked one of their own.

Hermione heard laughter from behind and swung around, to find that someone had dipped the ends of her hair in ink.

As the lesson ended, Malfoy passed her desk and knocked it, sending her ink bottle over her notes and the ink dripping down onto her skirt. "So sorry, Granger. It was an accident, you know?"

Hermione seriously thought about going to the dorm to clean up, but didn't want to miss her first Herbology lesson. She knew, after all, how important could a first lesson be.

"Are you all right, Miss Granger?" asked professor Sprout, after seeing her enter in such a mess.

"I'm fine, thank you, Professor."

"Let's get the worst of that ink off of you." She waved her wand over the places with most ink and it almost completely disappeared, leaving just slightly blue marks on her face, blouse and hair.

The Herbology lesson went well enough that Hermione was glad she'd decided not to miss it.

But at the end of the lesson, as they were leaving, a sudden shove from behind meant that she ended up in a pile of something which smelled foul.

"Oh, look," cried Draco with delight, when he saw what had happened, "The mudblood's in the mud."

"Not mud," Pansy corrected him. "She smells even worse than usual now."

"Mr Malfoy, Miss Parkinson, ten points each from Slytherin. And for using that word, Mr. Malfoy, you can come back this evening and give manure to all the plants in Greenhouse one."

"I didn't push her," Draco protested.

"I know you didn't, or you'd be facing worse than a detention. Miss Granger, did you see who pushed you?"

"No, Professor."

"Very well. Just be warned. I will not tolerate bullying in my class and I will be having words with Professor Snape about this."

Hermione thought she heard someone snigger at that.

The Professor magically cleaned off the worst again, then told her, "I'm afraid you'll still need a shower."

"That's okay. That's where I'm planning on going."

When she reached the Slytherin Common Room, she found Professor Snape there. "Miss Granger. I understand that you don't get on with your fellow Slytherins, but Slytherins stick together when outside of this house. Keep your private squabbles to yourselves and stop making this house into a laughing stock." Before she could reply, he added, "That goes for all of you," and swept out.

Hermione was letting the anger simmer with the hot water, but then an explosion, made almost deafening by the confines of the bathroom, brought her crashing down back to Earth. Then she pulled aside the shower curtain, just in time for a piece of something foul-smelling to hit her in the chest.

As she stepped out of the shower, she slipped and fell. The entire floor of the shower room, was covered in mud. Worse still, somebody had brought all her clean clothes from her room and thrown them on the dirty floor.

Hermione put on the dirty clothes she had just taken off, the only ones not totally covered in the wet, sticky mud, and gathered her clothes. She put all the dirty clothes in the huge basket for the purpose and went outside. Gathering up the muddy clothes had made the clothes she was wearing even dirtier. She wasn't surprised when Harry soon joined her. "What happened?" he asked, angrily. "And what's that awful smell?"

Hermione briefly explained, then, "Where are you going?"

"To send an owl to mum and dad," he replied.

"You'll just worry them. It's better they don't know."

Harry ignored her and walked off. Once he'd sent the owl, he went back outside to find Hermione sitting on the grass. "I think you should tell McGonagall," he said.

"Professor McGonagall," she corrected automatically.

Harry smiled. She obviously couldn't be that upset. "Whatever. You should see her anyway."

"What can she do? Professor Snape's head of Slytherin and he just told them off for doing things in front of other houses."

"Well, if you're still not going to detention with that prat tonight, you need to see someone anyway."

"Yeah. I suppose."

"Are you coming to dinner like that?"

"These are the cleanest clothes I've got, and the only dry ones," she pointed out. "And if anyone doesn't like it, including PROFESSOR Snape, then tough."

Harry smiled at her.

When they entered the dining hall, the effect on others was noticeable. They edged further away from Hermione than usual.

Only Fred and George came over to Hermione and Harry. "I smell the er... aroma of a dungbomb." one of them said.

"So that's what it is," replied Hermione.

"Nasty things, dungbombs. We'd never use them to prank anyone, would we, Fred?"

"Of course not, George. We'd never do a thing like that. It would be too cruel."

"That's right, so you'd best get up early and leave the Slytherin dorms tomorrow."

"Do I want to know what you're planning?" Hermione asked, beginning to feel a little more cheerful at last.

"Us? Planning? Never."

"And just how do you get into Slytherin anyway?"

"Trade secret, that is, isn't it, George?"

"Yup. I could tell you, but then I'd have to kill you."

"I'm not sure I want to know what you are talking about," came the firm tones of Professor McGonagall, "but I do want to know what's happened to you, Miss Granger. You really can't come into dinner in that state. When you've told me what's happened, you can go and shower and change. Some food will be saved for you."

"I can't. All the rest of my clothes are wet and muddy."

Professor McGonagall's eyes narrowed dangerously. "What happened today? I want to know all of it."

"Don't forget Snape this morning," Harry reminded Hermione.

The Professor was about to say something when Hermione turned to Harry and said "Professor Snape," so Professor McGonagall had to cover her mouth to avoid them seeing her smile with amusement. Harry might be something special in the wizarding world, but Hermione seemed determined not to let it go to his head.

"There's no point. Professor Snape is head of Slytherin, so you can't do anything."

"I think as Deputy Headmistress, I might have a little influence in this school," Professor McGonagall replied smoothly.

"When Ron came over to sit with me when nobody else would, I gave him a hug. So Professor Snape..." Hermione managed to make Professor sound like a swear word... "took ten points from Ron. When I said that was unfair, he doubled it, then gave us both detention. So I told him I'm not going to do his detention and walked out of his class."

"Hmm. While I don't agree with what he did, you should still do his detention."

"She's not gonna be punished for doing nothing wrong," said Harry. "I told her to see Dum... Professor Dumbledore."

"I will have a word with him. In the meantime, that doesn't explain the state you are in."

Hermione briefly described the events of the afternoon's lessons and Professor Snape telling them all off afterwards for making the house a laughing stock and not sorting out their squabbles in private.

Harry hadn't heard that bit before and he looked ready to explode. "So it's okay to bully you if nobody else knows about it."

When Hermione told about what happened afterwards when she was in the shower, Professor McGonagall looked almost as angry as Harry.

She cast a few cleaning spells on Hermione. "I'll ensure your clothes are cleaned and returned to you at once."

Without saying anything further to Hermione she walked to the head table and had a word with Professor Snape. The whole school stopped to look as the two teachers left the hall, some students muttering about the unaccustomed look of thunder on the face of Professor McGonagall. As she reached the door, she called out. "Mr. Weasley, Miss Granger, you are to report to me with your books at seven thirty. Oh, and Mr. Weasley. Fifty points for overcoming prejudice." A stunned Professor Snape followed her out of the door.

To Hermione's amazement, when she got back downstairs half an hour later, she heard a small popping sound and found her clothes washed, dried and folded neatly on her bed.

She still wasn't happy about Ron and her having to do a detention, but there would hardly be a single Gryffindor or Slytherin that wouldn't hear about what had happened and that Professor McGonagall had effectively overruled Professor Snape's punishment. Even though she still thought any detention was unfair, especially for Ron, she felt that she owed it to Professor McGonagall to go anyway.

As she had guessed, and hoped, the Professor spent the two hours taking them through any points either of them were finding difficult in any of their lessons. She was extremely well read, even on the subjects which she didn't teach. Even Ron tried his best not to be too annoyed at having to study the extra hours.

She managed to see Harry briefly before bedtime. For once he didn't object when she gave him a huge hug. When she released him, he asked her, "Are you all right?"

She nodded.

"You're not."

She looked annoyed at him contradicting her, then snapped, "So I'm scared, all right? It's stupid, it's not like they could really do anything bad. I... I just wish I was you, that's all."

"Me?" asked Harry incredulously.

"Yes, you. If I were you, they'd never let anything happen."

"What do you mean?"

"Do you remember? Back before we started the school, and we were all arguing with Dumbledore about obliviation..."

"No," Harry replied. "I don't have a computer for a brain."

"Actually," Hermione pointed out, "the human brain is much superior to a computer. Anyhow, whether you remember or not, I said to Dumbledore that you were important somehow, that's why he wouldn't risk obliviating us both."

"What did he say?"

"He didn't admit it, but he didn't deny it, either. Harry, it all makes sense, the training, the support for the school, the way he let you choose a school... He was trying to make you trust him... You're important somehow. For some reason, he needs you, desperately. But I'm just the know-it-all that got in the way. If anything happened to me, well I don't think anyone here would miss me much."

Hermione said all this quite calmly, but it was the fact that Hermione missed something obvious which told Harry just how upset she was. "Hermione, we're bonded. If you die, I die. They can't let that happen to you."

Hermione brightened a little. "That's true."

"Get up early tomorrow and I'll meet you twenty minutes before breakfast, okay, Her?"

"Okay," she laughed, "but don't think you can get away with calling me Her."

There was a minor irritation when she tried to get into bed, her bed had been apple-pied, meaning that the sheet had been rearranged in a way that she couldn't get into it properly. It took a minute, while the other girls in her dorm sniggered, for her to remake the bed.

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It was ten minutes before breakfast and Hermione hadn't arrived. Harry felt himself beginning to panic. This wasn't like Hermione.

Five minutes before breakfast and Hermione still hadn't arrived. Walking outside, Harry desperately tried to remember the technique Professor Dumbledore had taught them to reach each other's minds, but they hadn't practised it since their bond had stabilised and become safe. That was almost two years, and they had always been close to each other, or even touching, then.

"Hermione! Hermione!" he said in his mind, desperately searching for her. Nothing.

He barely noticed the twins come into the hall. "Oh, Hi, Harry. You didn't see anything okay?"

"What?" Harry replied with frustration.

"We're going to prank the snakes."

"Forget it. Hermione's in trouble. I'm going to Slytherin. Go and get Dumbledore or McGonagall or someone."

The twins stared at him for a moment as if he were crazy, then George spoke up, "Fred, go get McGonagall. I'm going with Harry."

Still concentrating as they left the hall, Harry finally heard something. "Harry? Is that you?"

Almost tripping over with relief, Harry asked her, "Are you all right?"

"No. I can't move or see and I'm itching all over."

"I'm coming for you."

"You'll never get into Slytherin."

"I'll get in somehow."

George was looking at him strangely. "I'm talking to her. She's hurt." With that they ran the rest of the way.

But when Harry and George reached the door, it remained stubbornly closed to them. Even after Hermione passed the password to Harry ("Pureblood"), the door just growled "Not Slytherin" at them. "I'm going to try my shield spell. Remember? It knocked those boys flying."

A feeble shield came from his wand.

"We had to hold hands, remember?" Hermione pointed out.

"Hermione. Think shield, now," ordered Harry.

This time a huge orange disc battered against the Slytherin door, but it held.

"It's working! Again, Hermione. Shield. Now!"

This time the shield didn't so much as open the door as blow it to smithereens. The Slytherins in the common room stared at the angry first year who had just done what was supposed to be impossible and wisely stayed away from him. His anger hadn't dimmed in the slightest as he ran, following directions given by Hermione.

He reached her dorm and found her motionless on the bed, staring at the ceiling, seeing nothing, every exposed part of skin covered with some kind of sores. Nobody else was in the dorm.

He'd found her, but them he realised that he didn't have any idea whatsoever to do to help her. He looked at George.

George shook his head. "I think we'd better wait for McGonagall."

"Don't worry, Hermione. Fred's gone for McGonagall," Harry told her.

It was only a few minutes before Professor McGonagall came rushing into the room. She took one look at Hermione, then at Harry. "Don't worry, Harry. She'll be all right."

"No thanks to anyone at Hogwarts," Harry replied, acidly.

"I'm going to take her to the hospital wing. Madam Pomfrey will soon put her right. You can come with her, of course."

"Not yet," said Harry, to the professor's surprise. "I have something else to do first." To Hermione, he said, "I'm going to see Dumbledore. I'll see you in a few minutes."

"No, Harry," Hermione replied. "I can feel you. You need to eat after that. And then probably sleep a while. See me later."

"I'll see you after breakfast, then I can sleep afterwards."

Hermione didn't argue, knowing that that was the best compromise she was going to get.

On their way up from Slytherin, they met Professor Dumbledore. Harry rounded on him angrily, "Happy now?"

"Harry, I..."

"Forget it. Just get her out of Slytherin, now."

"I don't have any control over the sorting, Harry. I will speak with Professor Snape."

"Hermione reminded me of something last night. That, for some reason you won't tell us, I'm important somehow. So important that you've bent over backwards to gain our trust the last two years so we'd come here."

"Harry, now is not the time..."

"Get her out of Slytherin by tonight or we're both out of here. And we won't be coming back."

"Headmaster," George interrupted.

"Yes, Mr. Weasley."

"Whatever you're hiding about Harry... It's to do with... I mean, you think You-Know-Who is coming back, don't you?"

"Yes," Professor Dumbledore admitted. "I believe Voldemort will return, some day."

"Well, I saw what Harry did to the Slytherin door. You allow anything to happen to Hermione, I think Voldemort will be the least of your problems."

Professor Dumbledore looked at Professor McGonagall.

"The door was totally destroyed. I wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't seen it. I didn't even know you knew any demolition spells, Mr. Potter."

"I don't, Professor. That was a shield spell."

Harry made his way to breakfast. When he entered the Great Hall, it fell silent, everyone looking nervously at Harry. Obviously, word of what he had done in Slytherin had got round.

Finally, Professors Dumbledore and McGonagall came in and began to eat. As they did so, an owl dropped a small red envelope in front of Professor Dumbledore.

It opened itself and began to shout in the familiar voice of Molly Weasley. "Albus Dumbledore. Arthur and the Grangers and I have discussed this. You get that poor girl away from those bullying Slytherins today, or I'll be coming tomorrow to take Hermione, Harry, Percy, Fred, George and Ron away. The Grangers are making arrangements today to formally adopt Harry to ensure that they can take him away. And I can't see any other Muggles risking sending their children to Hogwarts either." The voice finally softened. "Oh, and Ron. Congratulations for making Gryffindor."

It was hard to tell who was more embarrassed, Ron or Professor Dumbledore.

Professor McGonagall finished her breakfast quickly and stood up, walked behind the central chair and whispered loudly over Dumbledore's shoulder, "If you don't take Miss Granger out of Slytherin, you'll have succeeded where Salazar Slytherin failed, in keeping Muggleborns out of Hogwarts."

After breakfast, Harry went to visit Hermione, while Professors Dumbledore, McGonagall, Snape, Flitwick and Sprout went to the headmaster's office to discuss the problem of Hermione Granger.

"She's as bad as Potter, arrogant, thinks she's better than everybody else and above the rules."

"Perhaps if you concentrated on stopping bullying and didn't encourage it by picking on students in your classes, the situation might not have arisen," suggested Professor McGonagall.

"Professors, we are not here to argue, we are here to make a decision about a girl's future," Professor Dumbledore reminded them. "Firstly, Severus, have you found out who was behind it?"

"Not yet. I spoke briefly to the girls who shared her dorm. They knew nothing. I believe they had been obliviated."

"That would suggest a senior student, and an able one at that."

"So would the complexity of the spells used," agreed Professor McGonagall. "But this is getting us nowhere. Are we going to resort Miss Granger?"

Albus stood in front of the sorting hat. "My decision remains the same," the hat said. "I have sorted Hermione Granger to Slytherin until things change."

"What is that supposed to mean?" asked Professor Snape in frustration. "What things?"

But the hat remained silent and would say no more.

"It appears that I am left with no choice. Please arrange for Miss Granger's things to be placed in Ravenclaw."

"Out of interest, how often has the headmaster had to place someone and overrule the sorting hat?" Professor Flitwick asked.

"To the best of my knowledge, never," replied Professor Dumbledore.

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Madam Pomfrey had, with her usual efficiency, reversed all of the spells affecting Hermione and allowed her to go to dinner that night.

As she walked to her place in the great hall with Harry at her side, Professor Dumbledore stood up and called out, "Miss Granger. Wrong table. I'm afraid that I have placed you in Ravenclaw, for the time being."

If Hermione thought her troubles were over, she was sadly mistaken. As far as the other Ravenclaws were concerned she was a Slytherin. That was where the sorting hat had placed her, and it was only Professor Dumbledore, not the sorting hat, who had changed that.

On her second evening in Ravenclaw, she was sure she had a book missing, as well as her pyjamas and she intended to confront the others about them. But as she was about to walk into the common room, she overheard herself being discussed. "I know she's clever, but I just don't trust her," said one.

"Yeah, I mean the hat reads minds. There must be some reason it placed her in Slytherin."

"There you go! Everyone knows that the hat never places Muggleborns there."

"She must really be a monster of a Slytherin, then. I don't want my sister to have her throat slit on her bed."

"I want to know what the hat knows about her that we don't..."

Hermione couldn't bear to hear any more and turned around and went back up to her bed, crying.

Her only comfort was the fact that she and Harry could now talk to each other in their minds easily whenever they wanted to. Hermione had already made Harry run outside to the edge of the grounds to see if distance affected their communication. So far it hadn't, though of course, they hadn't had the opportunity to test really long distances.

Immediately Harry left the Hufflepuff quarters and went to find Professor Dumbledore. To his surprise, the gargoyle guarding the stairway to the headmaster's office moved aside to allow him in. When he was about to knock the door opened by itself as Professor Dumbledore said, "Good evening, Harry. Did you want something?"

"Professor, I was wondering if I could ask the sorting hat something?"

The old Professor smiled. "Of course, Harry. I rather think that you are expected. I will leave you alone for a moment or two."

The next morning there was a stool in front of the head table. Professor Dumbledore stood up to make an announcement. "The sorting hat has asked to join us this morning." He waved his arm towards the stool and the sorting hat appeared. "Would Mr. Potter and Miss Granger please come up here?"

Hermione looked surprised, but Harry just gave her a smile.

It was a squeeze fitting them both on the stool, but fitting the hat around them both was easy, as it magically grew in width until it could rest over both their heads together.

"That's better," the hat said. "How can I possibly sort a bonded married couple when you aren't together?"

"Married?" Hermione squeaked.

"Of course," the hat replied.

In shock, Hermione pulled off the hat and ran out of the Great Hall, leaving a stunned Harry still sitting on the stool alone.

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Author's note...

IMPORTANT – To those who are worried, a soul bond may constitute a wizarding marriage LEGALLY, but that does NOT mean that you can expect them to be shagging at age 11 or anything like it.

So they are to be resorted together. At this point, when this chapter was first posted I asked readers to review and suggest where they should be sorted AND WHY. That poll is now closed.

Before anyone posts a review saying that the Grangers adopting Harry would make it impossible for them to marry, under English and Scottish Law, both in the 1990s when the story is set, and under the new Acts of Parliament in the early 2000s, adoptive siblings can marry legally. I know this is different to the situation in many of the U.S. states.

Nachoman says: "besides, we aren't only talking about marriage in the modern legal sense, but as an arranged marriage, arranged and signed by magic itself. They will always be so close to each other that anybody who comes to marry either of them will be effectively marrying the two of them, and they'll never trust anybody as deeply as they trust each other, so the actual paper is just a formality."

Thanks to my beta, Nachoman1, a.k.a. Ignacio Ramírez.

Please review.

Brian