This time, after reading Lily's letter over Harry's shoulder, Hermione burst into tears and threw her arms around Harry, who for once didn't flinch but hugged her back just as tightly.

"Parents are so shit!" She exclaimed through her tears into the top of his head.

He nodded into her shoulder, his throat thick.

"Your's is so nice... and so loving and seems so perfect... and she's dead! This is so unfair! How could she be so perfect and not be here!?" she went on, "and then mine aren't dead but don't have any time for me... aren't interested and just don't bother with anything other than doing it for their image. They haven't even noticed my braces are gone!

Then there's your dad!" She fumed between sobbs, "Your dad should have been the perfect well-liked father! He's a renowned war hero! But really he's just an arsehole! Parents are really crap!" She finished sniffling.

Harry nodded his throat thick.

He suddenly didn't want to learn anything else about Lily Marie Evans-Potter. The more he learnt and got to know her, the more he missed her, the more it hurt. He wished he'd never dug into who she was and read her diary's, as now he had something to miss. Ignorance was sometimes bliss. They had a point when they said, be careful what you wish for.

Why the hell had she married James Potter? Hermione was right. Parents really were shit. Family was just not what it seemed. It seemed like everyone's family had a secret bad side. Neville's parents weren't around, though he didn't know why, he suspected they were dead. And his Gran terrified him.

Mrs Weasley seemed like a perfect mum. Loving and caring. But from the howler, she'd send Fred and George as well as the hints he'd got from Bill and Charlie; she wasn't so perfect.

Maybe he was better off alone...

"Oh Harry," Hermione said, hugging him tighter. He must have said that bit out loud, he thought, strangely okay with her continuing to hug him.

"Family is complicated; like you said. But family is more than blood," she went on. "You're not alone. Just like you said, I'm not. We have each other. You said we're family. That means you're stuck with me, like mouldy cheese!"

Harry snorted, wrinkling his nose, and hugged her back, "Thank's Hermione. Gods I'm tired, I'm not usually this much of a mess.

"It's fine. You've been under a lot of pressure lately and had lots of information thrown at you. You've been up all day, haven't you? If you're on nocturnal time, you stayed up to visit me instead of sleeping."

He nodded, then asked, "did I show you that letter from the WEA? I'm going to take all the OWLs and NEWTs there are!"

"What?" She said, wide-eyed. "There are more!? And they didn't tell us!?" She shrieked, practically snatching the letter out of his hand when he took it from his bag. He grinned as she read it furiously.

"You mean to tell me that there are more options! And they didn't tell me!" She practically screeched.

Harry winced, "Yep. I'm super tempted to try and take all of them, just to thumb my nose at all of them. I really want to, but I'm not sure I'll manage. But wouldn't it be great if we got straight Os in everything! Prove them all wrong, that I'm not stupid and that we're just as good as they are. That we're better."

"That would be good. That would make everyone who ever called me a stupid little know-it-all sorry!" She said with a vicious grin, "oh! I'm so mad they didn't tell us! We'll have so much work to do to catch up, Harry." She said, and Harry liked the way she automatically assumed they'd be in it together.

"I'll have to write us up a schedule," she said, planning things out in her head already.

She looked aimlessly at the still open drawer. "What we really need is a time turner. I wish I hadn't given mine back. Maybe we could nick it from McGonagall over the summer. I think the one I used was hers..."

"Hermione!" Harry exclaimed in mock horror at the idea of his friend stealing from her favourite professor.

"What!? It's for learning! And if no one else is using it..." She said as she watched Harry rifle through the last few things in the drawer. He pulled out the muggle money, some photos of horses and some postcards.

"If we had a time-turner we could go back at the end of the day and redo extra hours." she said, thinking aloud. "We'd have to schedule in extra sleep time as well. That's where I went wrong last time. Not enough food and sleep. We'd need a separate space for studying when using the time turner too, so not to run into ourselves and we'd need to schedule everything very carefully..."

"I wonder how many of our study group would be interested in doing more, and maybe the Slytherins?" She asked, her mind still running like an out of control train, "I wonder how many people a time turner would take... but there's no point planning on one if we don't have one anyway."

"I think we do," Harry said in an odd voice.

"What?" Said Hermione, "What do you mean we have one?"

"Look," he said, handing her the jewellery box and pointing to a tiny velvet bag with an hourglass on it.

"No! It can't possibly be that simple!" she said her eyes wide.

Harry nodded mutely as she gently took the little velvet bag from the box and tipped the contents onto the palm of her hand.

A time turner. Very similar to the one she had used back in third-year. It was older looking, and silver, instead of gold. But other than that it looked like Hermione had, complete with a long chain. When she picked it up and pulled on the chain tentatively, it extended as her's had when she needed it to loop around Harry's neck too.

"Your mum had a time turner!" She said, beaming.

"She did," Harry echoed in awe, picking it up in gingerly as if it may break at any moment. He peered at it carefully. The little hourglass was surrounded by two rings with minuscule markings and runes scrawled along them. There was also a small dial on each ring, for spinning the time back.

"But I thought, she only took the subjects we're taking for OWLs," Hermione asked, "how did she get it? And why? And why is it still here? They are heavily regulated by the Ministry!"

"That's what I thought," Harry said, "I'll have to see if it's in her diary," he said, curiosity surfacing again.

"This means we can plan now! It will be much easier now!" Hermione said as Harry repacked the drawer.

"I'll make sure to schedule enough extra time for sleep and relaxing too this time." Hermione went on, "Which will be easier now that the time turner is not one from the Ministry that only had a set amount of hours available like mine did." She said waving her wand over the time turner and making it glow green, with some kind of detection charm.

They flopped down on Harry's bed together and looked at the wooden slats of the bunk above them.

"Harry," she said after a while when she was no longer hashing out a preliminary schedule in her mind.

"Mmm?" He replied.

"What happened at Gringotts?" She asked, "you gave me the highlights last time, and you've lost weight since you left school. Are you okay? What happened?"

So he told her. All the details of the first trip and the subsequent trips that he'd been too anxious to talk about before. And then he told her about the ritual and about the spells.

She sighed, "I might have to go to Gringotts myself to get checked over." She said thoughtfully, "before the Holidays end."

"You should," Harry said. Then after a moment, "why don't you come back to Nocturne with me? You're clearly not happy here and your parents are busy."

"What's it like?" She asked curiously.

"Brilliant!" He said before proceeding to tell her all about Nocturne Alley and the Hung Drawn 'n' Quarters inn and Madame Morbid. When he fell silent, she sighed and thought about it for a moment before climbing out of the trunk and going to the kitchen. He followed her out and watched her dial a number into the phone as if she'd done it many times before.

"Hi Polly, it's Hermione," she said without waiting to see who answered. She knew who would pick it up, "is mum or dad there?"

There was a pause, and she sighed, rolling her eyes exaggeratedly at him.

"No, that's okay. I expected as much... of course, I understand." She said in a somewhat strained voice, "can you let them know that I've had to go back to school early?"

Another pause, "thank's Polly, I appreciate it."

She hung up the phone and said, "let's go then," smiling for the first time. "I'll write them a quick note and pack my things. Then we can leave."

Harry grinned tiredly, "just like that? They'll be fine with just a note?" He asked curiously.

"Yes. They didn't want an owl to communicate with, and won't answer their phone, so they'll have to live with it. It's not as if they can do anything to me for it. I'm at Hogwarts most of the year and their general working for the rest."

"Don't you guys normally go on holidays overseas or something?" Harry asked.

She sighed, "France was for a conference dad and mum went to. I begged them to take me with them that time. They dropped me off in the wizarding quarter and left me to it most days. They picked me up in the evenings for dinner. Though, they did take an extra few days off for sightseeing. That did surprise me."

Harry sighed too and followed her up to her room.

Hermione's room was not quite as immaculately neat as the rest of the house, and it did feel far more lived-in. It was still very tidy. It had white walls and an elegant if impersonal blanket on the bed. The desk was white and had stacks of Hogwarts texts and other magic books on it, while the walls were covered in shelves and framed school awards.

Crookshanks was curled up on Hermione's Gryffindor pillow. Harry smiled and sat down on the edge of the bed. Crookshanks stretched lazily and came padding over demanding scratches under his chin. Harry obliged the cat, who started purring.

Hermione looked speculatively around her room for a long moment before pulling her trunk out from under the bed. It was then that Harry noticed that it had three locks on it. She took off a hair tie from around her wrist and put one of the keys tied to it, into the second lock. The trunk opened to reveal, much like his own, a bookcase.

"Help put these in for me?"

"Sure," Harry said, placing a disgruntled Crookshanks back onto the bed again.

"Alphabetical? by Author?" He asked, knowingly.

She smiled at him, happy he knew her so well, "please. Just start at the next free shelf, I'll hand them to you in order."

"When did you get a new trunk?" He asked curiously, as Hermione handed him stack, after stack of muggle novels and non-fiction books. "I know you said you couldn't get all your books in it in second-year."

"This summer. They gave me money to spend on my birthday, as they didn't really know what to get me. So I got a trunk that fit more books. I miss my books when I'm at Hogwarts. Home is where the books are, and most of them are at Hogwarts anyway so I figured I may as well upgrade to a trunk I can keep all the important things in." She said, handing him another stack.

"So your relative's house isn't really home for you either?" He asked.

"Not really. I've known it for a while, especially since starting Hogwarts," she started, passing him another stack of books. "But this year really cemented it, especially the summer and now this. I hardly ever see my parents any more. And even when I'm home their usually at work. So, no, my home is Hogwarts, like yours is. I don't really belong here."

"I'm not saying I'll never come back," she said handing him the last lot, "but I'm not here much so if I'm leaving I may as well take the important things. I've missed my muggle novels."

She crossed to the desk and put the magic books in next before closing and locking the trunk. She then opened it again to the wardrobe compartment and started packing. Crookshanks padded back onto Harry's lap and demanded more scratches.

"Now," she said, "why don't you tell me what you are still avoiding saying about Gringotts. You told me nearly all of it this time. What did you leave out?"

Harry winced. She always knew him too well. So he told her. He told her about the Soul Shards; about the one in him, about not knowing how to get it out, and about the conversation he'd had with Rodgrip and Bill at Gringotts when accepting his heir rings.

"Dumbledore knew." He said finally, "he mentioned it after the chamber. He said that that night Voldemort put a bit of his power in me, that's why I'm a Parselmouth."

"But that's not true. You're a Slytherin, like your mum," Hermione said looking horrified and disgusted but took his hand reassuringly. Crookshanks meowed in protest at the loss of his chin scratches again.

"Your right," Harry said, "but he doesn't know that. You know what he's done. He wants me dead because I need to die to destroy the Soul Shard, and that needs to happen before Riddle can be stopped."

"Riddle wants to come back," Harry said quietly, "and he wants me. He'll want to start the war again. I don't want to fight a war, Hermione,"

"So we don't. We kids, still."

"There'll be no avoiding it though if he comes back," Harry said tiredly.

"So we prevent it. Because you're right, we both know we'll be dragged into the war if he comes back." She said matter of factly

"How, though? We're kids. We don't know anything about this!" He said feeling frustrated and overwhelmed.

"So we do the sensible thing," she said. "We tell an adult we trust. A competent one, that will listen this time. Not like McGonagall. It's an adult war. It's not our problem. It shouldn't be our problem. It's just a matter of who though." She paused thinking for a moment.

"Professer Flitwick maybe?" She asked uncertainly.

"He works for Dumbledore though," Harry said, thinking a long moment. "What about Bill and Charlie?"

"Yes." She said, "and maybe then Flitwick if we can prove he's not in Dumbledore pocket," she agreed.

Harry pulled his mirror out of his pocket and tapping it said, "Bill and Charlie."

"What's that?" Hermione asked, sitting down next to him on the bed.

"A communication mirror. Bill and Charlie gave it to me for Christmas, so I can talk to them," Harry said, smiling.

"Brilliant!" Hermione said as the image on the mirror blinked and shimmered.

Charlie was awake and said, "Hey, Harry!"

When Bill's image appeared on the glass as well, it was clear he had been asleep, and he rubbed his eyes and said, "Hey, this urgent?"

"Er..." Harry said, freezing, but Hermione just said, "Yes. It is." and shifted the mirror to show them both.

Bill lit his wand, sat up straiter and was instantly wide awake.

"What's up?" He asked, looking serious, "Hi Hermione."

"We need help, or at least advise. We've worked some stuff out, and it's freaking us out too be honest." Hermione said

"I told Hermione about the Soul Shard," Harry started.

"He probably has more than one Soul Shard," Hermione said suddenly, "why have one fall back if you can have lots, and he wants to come back."

Harry continued hurriedly, "if we can put off his coming back, we'll have time to prepare and time to stop him returning permanently. We just need to work out when it's going to happen and how he's going to come back so we can stop it. We don't want to fight in a war. And he'll make us."

"But we have some time. Time to figure it out so we can keep ourselves safe. We'll have to start digging." Hermione said, "we'll research; the Death Eaters, Riddle, and how to keep ourselves safe."

"War will come there's nothing we can do to stop it," Harry went on franticly, "so we need to be prepared. We need to know about Riddle and the last war. If we know the Death Eaters styles, and what they did, we can prepare to defend against them. If we know what he did to himself, we can try and prevent it and get more time for someone else to stop him."

"We need to find out how many Horcruxes there are, and get rid of them before he comes back, or comes back with multiples of himself running around! Who knows what he could do with that many pieces of his soul! He's probably got more than one. Does he have a house? Where did he live?" Hermione babbled

"If he's proud of Slytherin maybe he's got heirlooms or have hidden things in the slytherin properties? If so, the goblins will find them when they look at them for the audit and the ward inspection." Harry continued

"I'll warn Rodrip," said Bill. "Gringotts has already started the process of doing a bank-wide search and crackdown on broken regulations. They started it after the brack in back in your first year. If there's a soul shard there, they'll find it eventually and destroy it."

"I can't fight a war." Harry said, sounding exhausted and scared, "I've been fighting my whole life. I don't want to fight a war. And the only way I'll manage to avoid it is preventing it starting."

Before either brother could say anything else Harry bulldozed on, "but! I don't think he's going to kill me in the next task. He didn't in the last task, Riddle that is. He's behind it. He and his servant. He wants me; to use me or kill me himself, I don't know. But he's going to use this to get to me."

"So we'll need to figure out who his servent is at Hogwarts and stay away from them. History says it's the DADA teacher." Hermione said primly, "pitty we're actually learning from him."

"The map says Moody and Crouch hang out. There's something weird going on with them." Harry said, "and there's also Karkaroff and Professor Snape."

"It's not Severus," cut in Bill only to be bulldozed again by Hermione's anxious babble.

"So there really is a Moody," Hermione said, "the map doesn't lie, so crouch is involved too... Or is it Karkaroff? Because both Moody and Crouch are meant to be very anti-dark wizards. Karkaroff is really worried about something, he was talking to Professor Snape about it. You'd think if Moody was acting weird or up to something Dumbledore would notice. Moody is his friend. So its probably not him. Or Crouch. Crouch works for the Ministry."

"Wow, wow, wow," Bill cut in over the top of them all, "stop. Hold on a ticket. Your both exhausted and scared. I hear you. It's understandable. But you're not getting anywhere right now trying to problem solve."

"Plus you guys are kids still." added Charlie firmly, "you shouldn't have to do any of that. It's not your job to fight a war or to prepare or prevent one. If he comes back and starts a war, you shouldn't have to stay. You don't have to be involved. No-one can make you fight a war if you don't want to. You have a choice. Always. You have a safe haven here in Romania if you need it. Always."

"and Egypt," added in Bill.

"But what about everyone else?" Harry asked.

"You are not responsible for those around you, or for their actions. Reminded Bill gently, "It's not your job to save everyone. That's the conditioning remember Harry. Thats the old spell work talking. Its the job of the Ministry and the Aurors, to keep people safe."

"But Dumbledore-"

"Fuck Dumbledore," spat Charlie.

"He can rot it a hole for all I care." Bill said, "you ow them nothing. Your responsibility is to yourself." He continued, "this is years of conditioning and compulsion remnants speaking Harry. You're tired, don't take on the whole weight of a war that's not here yet, okay?"

Harry nodded and yawned, leaning against Hermione, still patting Crookshanks.

"Look, you two are exhausted." Charlie said, "You've been up all night and day now, Harry. Take some deep breaths, both of you, have a hot cup of tea, and get some sleep. You'll feel better in the morning. your not in this alone. We'll talk about it again I promise. We'll sort something out. I have access to the library's here in Romania, in the city. They're less harsh on the dark arts and necromancy here so I may be able to figure out which ritual he'll use to come back with his soul shards. Then if he does drag you into it, you at least know what's going on. Bill and I will work on it."

"I'm in Alexandra once you go back to school." Bill said, "I'll be looking into soul shards and riddle anyway. Don't you worry about the Soul Shards, I'm on it. The library there is amazing. We'll sort it out."

Harry nodded, still feeling a little overwhelmed, and Hermione bumped her shoulder against his. He nodded, "thanks," he said in a small voice.

"Any time. I'm glad you called us," Charlie said.

Bill nodded, "You only have three hours before our lesson, you going to be okay?"

"Oh yes," chirped Hermione grinning wickedly, "we have time."

"I don't want to know," Bill said, shaking his head ruefully. "I know that look, that look says the twins are up to no good. Anyway, I'll see you at the usual time in the usual place, Harry. Are you're bringing Hermione?"

Harry nodded, "yes, please, if that's okay? She's been working on occlumency too, I've been teaching her."

"Brilliant, I'll see you both tomorrow. Get some sleep, try not to worry too much. Charlie's right, you not in this alone."

"Bill, call me if you need to in your lesson later," Charlie said

"Will do bro," Bill said, yawning again then stretching, "I'll see you later, Harry, Hermione."

They chorused goodbye, and as Harry was hanging up his half of the call he thought heard Charlie say, "you getting up now, Bill? Got another minute?" Before the mirror went black.

Hermione and Harry took the muggle bus back to London, so that if people were looking for Harry, they'd be less likely to find him. She wore his hooded cloak, so not to be recognised and Harry changed his apearence back to Hadrian's; long brown hair and hazel eyes. He happily showed Hermione how to get into the alley as Bill had shown him.

Hermione was just as fascinated with it as he had been and followed him through the twisting and turning alleyways to the Hung Drawn 'n' Quarters.

Despite it being very early by Nocturne standards, Morbid was up and didn't blink an eye when Harry said that Hermione would be staying and sharing his room.

"You'll be paying for meals thought lass, or working for them." Was all she said gesturing to the stairs.

"I can pay," Hermione said, following Harry up to his room.

Harry was just about ready to fall into his trunk and sleep for a week when they get back up to his room, but Hermione stopped him.

"We don't have much time before Bill's lesson, and you haven't slept yet." she said, "we'll go back a few hours, so you can get a proper nights rest, and I can have a short sleep so I can switch over to Nocturne time." She continued, pulling out the time turner and putting it around them both. Then, making sure he was watching her, she explained how it worked and moved it back four turns. Before pushing the dial in to set it in motion.

When the world had stopped spinning, Harry put it on under his shirt and enlarged the bed enough for them both to use it.

"I've been out of the room all day," he said, "so we won't run into our selves here. We were in the trunk. Even if it was at your place." He added.

"Good call," she said before flopping down next to him and pulling out a book.

END NOTES

so I'm basically incapable of writing good parents, sorry Hermione

So with the communication mirrors - when harry called Bill and Charlie's mirrors it doesn't daisy chain them, it connected all three of them. So harry can hang up his side of the call leaving Bill and Charlie's connected, so they can keep chatting.

Why? because I said so thats why ?ᅡᅠ