She stood in the doorway, watching, observing him from the shadows. She enjoyed watching him like this, there was a crispness to his movements when he thought no one was watching. A precision of movement that sent thrills of something through her body. A something that was more than hormones but baser than emotion. Something filling, and emptying all at the same time.

He moved with the graceful airs and the sheer sense of danger and restrained power of a wildcat; something large and fierce and deadly and wild. His movements flowed with a grace that she was awed by, one she was almost intimidated by. Had she been watching anyone but him, she would have feared the death and destruction that his movements hinted at. The simple knowledge that he could move like that would have fanned the flames of fear; but she knew at an instinctual level that Harry would not harm her. She believed that he was incapable of such a thing.

So, she watched and listened and felt.

Power flowed off him. A rushing torrent of ethereal energy which teased and taunted her senses.

She could feel the touch of its gentle wash, punctuated by short sharp spikes of electric focus as he performed spells. Sometimes it would hover over her skin, caressing it like a stiff breeze. Other times harsh and scratchy like an unwashed afghan.

Occasionally, she could taste the power. An odd tingle just on the edge of her tongue; sometimes the sickly sweet of nearly bad fruit, sometimes the coppery metal of blood.

More often, she could smell the aftereffects. Especially, when he overpowered any spell, when he focused his energy into a singular pursuit. When that happened, there was an ozone that hung on the air. A smell that was not quite the sharp burn of an electrical discharge striking soft tissue, but not nearly as smooth as the smell of rain on the wind.

And of course, there was the sights and the sounds of his magic. The brilliant bolts of colors that shimmered across the spectrum of the rainbow, and the sizzle of the magic as it skittered through the air, and then the thuds or snaps or cracks as the spell slammed into their training dummy.

All of it a visceral awareness of him and his power.

And all of this sang to her. She hungered for it in some odd, unknowable way. The need for it, for his attention, twanged along her nerves, and skittered across her skin. It was an ache, a longing, and one she felt deep in her bones. It was a pull, a tugging of his magic towards hers, demanding that she join him. That she be his. That she claim him as hers.

As always happened when she watched him, barely understood desire flooded her. In those moments, she felt more primal around him.

Her magic flared with that desire, a wild, heady twisting feeling that spun around her sense of self and tangled with the tense presence of his magic in an almost erotic dance that did nothing at all towards calming her hormones. Not that she really, truly wanted her hormones calmed. She thrilled at how those hormones raced and spun and twisted at the bare edge of her control; enjoyed the feel of her magic as it caressed his. And of course, she enjoyed the reciprocal.

Suddenly, his head snapped up. An alert tenseness gripped him and he stilled. The comparison of him to a dangerous predator flashed through her mind again, even as he seemed to taste the air.

He spun towards her. As he did so, his wand flowed through a motion, one which ended with his focus trained onto the shadows in which she stood. A focus which was aimed directly at her. She could feel the tightening of his intent on her, a sense of danger and impending violence coupled with a clenching of her magic that flickered down her back as a shiver, and made her heart thump twice and then skip a beat. She realized that it was his magic that was doing it. His intent. His will. The same intent and will which allowed him to face a thousand year old basilisk and win. The same intent and will which allowed him to face over a hundred dementors and banish them all away.

And a small part of her noticed that red energy had gathered at the tip of his wand; the baleful red flicker of a stunning curse.

Then his eyes found hers; brilliant killing-curse green ensnared honey-brown.

The focus, the sense of danger and death snapped away. Gone as if it had never existed. The fierce clench of his magic against hers lessened. But his magic did not release its grasp on her, instead that harsh steady grip of impending violence, relented; it became something softer, a caress, a gentle almost reverent touch.

"Hi," he said with a easy smile.

She had noticed that he almost always had a ready smile for her. It was something she understood instinctively, for she almost always had one for him. His simple presence almost always made the day that much better; almost always gave her a reason to smile.

She smiled back at him, enjoying the warmth of his presence and that caress of magic. She walked into the room and towards him with the same sense of purpose with which she had perused the library. It was a purpose which filled her and sang along her every action. It was announced in her every step, her every movement. Movement and purpose which all but screamed her intent and her focus. Save Harry. Help Harry. Love Harry.

He met her in the middle of the room, by the lone desk that they had left set up, the teacher's desk actually, and without warning he swept her up in a hug. She could smell him, the smell of his sweat, and deodorant, and broomstick polish and underneath all of that there was a musk that was so uniquely him, that it made her knees go weak, and caused her cheeks to flush. Especially in those rare times when he would initiate a hug.

She allowed her arms to snake around him, pulling him against her, and could feel the tide of her hate and rage ebb. They were still there, still roaring with the need to rend and crush Harry's and her enemies. She could still feel those dark emotions, was still aware of them as they crashed in waves against the shore of her love for Harry, sweeping away all the other feelings, leaving behind just those three elements as a bedrock for her actions.

For an insane moment, she had to suppress a giggle. She refused to be one of those types of girls. Still, she had to discuss the books she had found and could not focus while in his arms, so she pushed him lightly away, "You need a shower."

"I thought you liked the big, sweaty types," he replied, a lopsided grin tugging on the corner of his mouth as he released her from the hug.

She pushed away the desire to just grab him and kiss him.

Instead, she huffed and pulled out one of the books she had gotten from the library. She set it on the desk, her fingers playing across the brown stains and tattoo on its cover. "I have a plan for the dragon!"

He sat on the edge of the desk, his green eyes focused on her brown. "So, spill."

Turning away from him, she dropped her bag onto the floor. Then she pulled off her outer-robes, and bent over to place them on her bag. Turning back towards him, she noticed he was more flush than before, and his eyes seemed darker. They were watching her every move with a predatory emotion she had never seen there before. A need that she recognized in her own feelings for him.

She smiled at him, feeling an ache in her own chest, a knot that she had not even realized was gripping her heart, release slightly.

As she began speaking, she watched him carefully, she sat down in the chair, and crossed her legs, noting the way that his eyes seemed to follow her movements. Noting the hunger with which they glowed.

"Well, as you know, dragons are ectothermic reptiles. That means that they don't manufacture their own body heat. Part of the reason that they breathe fire, is so they can keep their burrows warm during the cold winters, because they don't hibernate. What we need to do, is to induce a hypothermic reaction that will incapacitate the dragon. If you can get their body temperature low enough, then it will start to die. Even if you can't get it cold enough to kill the dragon, it will still become sluggish and confused with as little as a fifteen degree drop in temperature."

He watched her for a minute, his eyes shining with emotion. Pride. Pride and something else she had a hard time identifying. "You. Are. Brilliant! I knew you could find something. So how do we do this hypnothermite reaction?"

"Hypothermic," she replied with a smile of her own. "As for how, well, I was thinking you could start with aquamenti, and then use glacis on it. But then I found this spell: creare liquidas. This is the wand movement, and you'll also need to tell it what type of liquid element you want. Here watch."

She pulled out her wand, and performed a twist and a stab, as she called out, "Creare liquidas water."

An wave of water crashed over the floor, and then with another wave of her wand and a whisper, the water disappeared. She looked back at Harry to see him frowning slightly.

"That's basically the same thing as aquamenti."

She shook her head quickly. "Yes and no. Aquamenti is a jet of water, and can only be water. Watch again." She twisted and stabbed with her wand. "Creare liquidas nitrogen."

A wave of cold washed over them both, a snapshot of the deepest winter, that stole at their breaths. Both of their eyes focused on the steaming liquid, that was rapidly boiling away in the cool castle air. It touch the wood of a chair, and that wood splintered with a cracking sound.

She grinned up at him, and blinked, as he had moved. He had jumped from the desk, and advanced on her, and before she could protest, or even consider the thought of protesting, he had snatched her out of her chair, and was spinning her around; holding her tight against him. A crush of awareness and joy and warmth and him.

She could not help herself. She giggled.

She hated giggling, but at times, especially when near him, she felt that irrational, and unexpected joy twist through her emotions. A joy and happiness whose only escape was to giggle.

He set her back down on her feet, and she gripped him as the world wavered and continued to spin for a moment. She looked up at him, and saw his eyes. They were once again shining and dancing with that dark glow, an ember, a banked fire that smoldered slightly.

In the end, she could not help her herself.

One of her hands slid up and found the back of his head, her fingers threading itself into his hair, and she pulled him towards her.

Confusion flared for a moment in his eyes, and she almost lost her nerve. She almost let him go.

Just as she was about to, he pushed forward, and their lips collided.

Her magic flared, twisted itself around his. She could feel his magic responding to hers, molding itself to hers, even as she tried her best to physically mold herself to him.

At that moment, she knew nothing else. There was no thoughts or flickering ideas. There was no rush to attempt to learn all she could, no desire to read that next book. All that existed, all that was, were the feelings of him pressed against her, the way their magics entwined, the taste of his lips and the thumping of her heart. Adrenalin and magic shimmered across her nerves, even as her heart rejoiced in the feel of his lips pressed on hers.

The kiss ended, and he moved his head slightly. Not away but just enough that he was able to rest his forehead against hers. She watched him, his eyes, as they flickered with emotion. The rest of him did not move, and he did not release the frantic grip of his arms wrapped around her. She did not remove her hands from around his neck, did not take her fingers from his hair. And she was happy with that. Ecstatic.

She stared into the bright, shimmering green as his eyes danced. They seemed to sparkle and twirl with emotions and joy and a unstated happiness that she had never really seen in them before. It was mesmerizing, hypnotic.

"Wow," he whispered. "That was brilliant."

"Yes," she replied, her voice husky and low, and she was not quite sure how it had done that. All she knew was that she agreed whole heartedly with him. It was a brilliant kiss. Something she desperately wanted to try again. "Yes it was."

Suddenly, his eyes darkened. The fires that had been burning in them seemed to bank; the joy seemed to drain away from them. It left her cold and scared.

"This..." His voice was suddenly weak and trembled. "This is going to change things, isn't it?"

She frowned for a moment, as he tried to pull away. Instinctively, almost desperately, she continued to cling to him; she kept her grip firmly around him, holding her to him. Not letting him go. "Personally, I hope it does. I... I was..."

She allowed her voice to trail off, and looked down, and bit at her lip.

"What?" She could hear the confusion in his voice.

"I was scared you didn't... wouldn't like me like that. That you didn't even think of me as a girl."

She blinked furiously, fighting against crying.

"I've liked you since second year. I was devastated when you had been petrified, and was constantly sneaking into the infirmary to see you."

Her head snapped up, and she focused on him. A small, wistful smile, one could call it sad, twisted at his lips. Love and wonder flooded through her, and she felt her heart lift. "Then... why didn't you say something?"

He shrugged, and gave a short sharp bitter laugh.

"I... I was going to, but... that first Hogsmeade weekend... Ron said..." His voice trailed off as his smile twisted, it turned harsh and deepened into a scowl.

"Ron said what?" she snapped.

"He told me that you two were together. That you both had decided to start dating, but were keeping it quiet."

"That... that moron told you what?" She snarled. Her magic stilled as her rage and hate erupted once again. Dark emotions gripped at her chest, squeezing and twisting in her stomach. Finally, letting him go, she took a few steps away from him, and then began pacing even as she muttered things under her breath. Curses about and directed at the youngest Weasley son.

Suddenly, she stopped. Her thoughts and emotions and magic stilled again as she looked at Harry closely, focused intently on him. "And you believed him? Even with the way he makes fun of me, and how we argue?"

He shrugged his shoulders slightly, his head lowered, eyes downcast. "Had no reason not to believe him. That's how Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia tend to act."

She sighed, and closed the distance between them again, wrapping herself around him. Holding him allowed her to once again focus on her emotions, pushing them down and away. She leaned in and gave him a somewhat chaste kiss on the lips. "That's because your aunt and uncle are evil gits who should be destroyed."

He chuckled, and she felt the tenseness leave his back and shoulders. He seemed to melt into her embrace slightly; surrendered to it and her affections.

"Now," she said, as a smile mischievously twisted across her features. "I'm telling you that that was utter nonsense, and I will be having... words with Ronald for his lies. That said, isn't there something you should be asking me?"

"What?"

"I don't just kiss random boys, you know."

He blinked twice, and a frown flickered across his features for a moment. Then he smiled brilliantly, happily. "Hermione, will you be my girlfriend?"

"I'd love that," she responded, her own smile bright enough to light the room.

Then she jumped on him. A single, smooth movement which wrapped herself around him, with her ankles locking together behind his bum, even as she felt his hands snap to hers, to support her. Her hands tangled into his hair again, and she kissed him for all that she was worth, hoping he would know how much she loved and needed him. Home much she desired and wanted him.

After a moment, she dropped back to the ground, still with a bright grin plastered onto her face and a blush bright against her cheeks. Instinctively, she patted at her clothes, and hair, straightening them out. He appeared befuddled and dazzled with an odd, goofy grin on his face. Her smile turned impish as she looked at him through her eyelashes.

"Now, that we've got that out of the way, the final thing in my plan for the dragon is this spell." She opened the book to a bookmark, and pointed at spell that was described.

Harry blinked twice and then gave his head a good hard shake. He stared at her for a moment, before blinking again and then focusing on the book. His eyes flicked back and forth between the text description and the animated drawing of the wand movements. Then he turned to her, "atrumal varis?"

She shrugged. "As best as I can guess from the description of its effects, it's supposed to mean dark bindings. What it does is create powerful chains to hold and subdue things."

"Things?"

She nodded her head, and shrugged again. An almost negligent movement of her shoulders. "Yes. Things. Creatures, people, stuff."

Harry made a wordless sound of amusement as he glanced at the book again, and then lifted his wand. A whip-slash, and a muttered phrase, and dark chains slashed out of his wand, slamming against the training dummy. Magic flared between them. An intense almost heat that writhed and shimmered outwards from his wand. He winced slightly, and staggered.

Then he stumbled a step forward giving his head a short, sharp shake.

"Whoa, wasn't expecting quite that much pull."

Hermione absently nodded her head, and walked over to the training dummy. Her eyes roamed the chain, looking at it, inspecting the results of the spell. The chains itself appeared to be some type of black metal; each link had one or two spurs on it. Spurs which appeared to be eating away at the training dummy where they touched the wood and leather that made it up.

She spun towards him, a triumphant grin on her face. One that she had reserved for him and him alone. "You did it brilliantly."

He smiled at her. It was a soft smile; one filled with warmth and affection. "It's all thanks to you."

She could feel her cheeks flare with a blush at his words, and ducked her head slightly even as she inwardly cursed her hormones for betraying her with that blush.

Before she could think up a reply, she noticed Harry's wand flicker through the tempus spell, and then he once again smiled at her. "Come on, we've got to head towards dinner now. I'm sure Snape would love to give us detentions for not being at a meal."

"Professor Snape," she muttered in response. But her heart was not really that troubled with the lack of respect directed towards the teacher. More, she did not want to give them any reason to focus their ire on them. She knew they could accomplish so much more if they did not spend time in any of Snape's pointless detentions.

She shook away her thoughts and then looked at the results of the tempus spell. It hung in the air as smoky numbers, in Harry's spidery handwriting, an indicator of just who had cast the spell, and nodded. She pulled her cloak back on, and gathered her books even as he did the same.

She paused at the door, waiting on him. And once he had joined her, she reached out and threaded her fingers into his. He started for a moment, and looked down at where their hands were met. Then he smiled at her. His magic once again a warm embrace that seemed to swell around her, comforting and protective.

Hand-in-hand, they left the room, heading towards the Great Hall and dinner.