A/N:

They're both antsy as they approach the first private lesson with Dumbledore; Sirius is pacing in Remus's quarters, only barely having been talked out of storming the headmaster's office himself.

They go under the Invisibility Cloak's shroud, to keep from anyone else knowing; Harry's gotten taller, such that he has to crouch a bit to keep from letting his ankles show. They'd told the others not to wait up, but knowing them they're all anxiously waiting an update about whatever the hell Dumbledore wants to teach them in the RoR.

The password is "cockroach clusters", which Dumbledore likely thinks is whimsy and relatable but makes Hermione's lip curl with distaste.

(Pretending to be so lighthearted and friendly as he willfully endangers and harms everyone around him, takes children's lives into his hands and watches silently as they pay the price for his mistakes.)

He's sitting at the desk, of course, smiling like he's thrilled to see them. His injured hand is mostly concealed beneath flowing robes, and Harry and Hermione have grown so used to seeing it at meals and throughout the castle that they don't pay much attention.

"Good evening Miss Granger, Harry."

Hermione narrows her eyes at how familiar he is with her brother, the way he assumes they're on the same side. Her eyes are carefully scanning the room; trinkets, a currently empty phoenix perch, empty frames of paintings whose residents have all coalesced in one spot, whispering amongst themselves. He has a bookshelf along the wall, but the shelves house magical artifacts and tools, sneakscopes and Gryffindor's sword and the like—interesting, that someone who claims to be such a scholar doesn't keep a single volume within reach.

(Or if he does, and they're not visible—why hide them?)

Dumbledore gestures for them to sit, and they do. "How are you both enjoying your NEWT courses?"

Forcing a smile, Hermione nods, the way she knows everyone expects from her. "Perfect, Professor."

"And for you, Harry?"

As he mumbles something about everything being fine and liking Slughorn, Hermione's attention is drawn to the desk; discarded envelopes, a quill, a bowl of lemon drops, a ring.

(A ring cracked down the middle, some kind of engraving she can't see marred by the break.)

(It holds her attention, for reasons she can't understand.)

"Our lessons this term will involve a great deal of looking into who Voldemort is in order to defeat him. In doing so, will be delving into who Tom Riddle was, and how he became the person he is now."

She and Harry both nod, and Dumbledore rises, walking to the opposite side of the room, where he opens a cupboard to reveal a sole pewter basin.

"A pensive!" Harry exclaims, earning a confused look from Hermione. He shrugs. Scratching the back of his head. "Neville has one in our dorm. Uses it to watch the memories of his parents from Dad and Moony sometimes."

They turn their attention back to Dumbledore, approaching the pensive curiously.

"Today we'll be looking at my own memories—those of when I first met young om Riddle, prior to his time at Hogwarts." His expression is grim. "Pay attention to his characteristics, his strengths and weaknesses, his motives. They will be crucial for understanding how he has achieved all that he has, how he has immortalized himself, how we can win this war."

At the mention of immortality, Harry and Hermione exchange a look; both thinking of the horcruxes, but knowing better than to bring them up in front of him.

Dumbledore points his wand at his temple, dragging the silvery wisps into the pensive and gesturing for them to lean in.

Hermione hesitates, expression wary, so Harry squeezes her hand before lowering his face to the basin first.

And then he's gone, and it's not as if she's going to let him go in alone with Dumbledore. She takes a deep breath before doing the same.

She lands in a defensive position, muscles tense as she takes in her surroundings: Harry beside her, as always, dreary weather, old style muggle cars on the road beside them.

The building they face is old, paint faded and peeling; an orphanage, and very visibly an unhappy one. Harry and Hermione follow the imagine of a younger Dumbledore, while his current self trails just behind them.

Harry has an odd look on his face, and Hermione grimaces, knowing he's imagining what life would've been like if he'd ended up in a place like this.

(How things might've been, had he not grown up with the Dursleys-)

(as lifeless as this place seems, if it might've been better.)

Hermione holds his hand tightly, lending her strength as best she can as Dumbledore speaks to the woman in charge, explaining the details of bringing Tom to his school; she's far too thrilled to have him off her hands for their liking.

Then they're following her and the younger version of Dumbledore upstairs, entering a room where a young boy sits alone; his head pops up from the thick tome in his hands, eyes guarded as he takes in the sight of Professor Dumbledore.

"Hello, Tom. My name is Professor Dumbledore."

The look in his eyes—the caution, the distrust, the hypervigilance. It hurts Harry's heart, and he knows Hermione sees it to.

(He might be a monster, now, but back then—he was just a lonely boy the world kept hurting. A boy who became bitter, and dark, because he didn't see another way to get through it all.)

(one of them.)

Hermione winces when he assumes Dumbledore is there to institutionalize him, because she remembers—what it was like living in the muggle world, when the very fabric of your being was odd to everyone else, when a burst of accidental magic meant ostracism and being looked at sideways for years. Meant distrust from peers and authority figures alike, no matter what you did to fit in.

(He did it all wrong, and there's no excuse for anything he's become since, but—god, they can understand how he got there.)

The understanding and validation, when Dumbledore demonstrates magic and tells him he's special, the way his face lights up when he finds out he'll be able to live at Hogwarts during the schoolyear.

(A relief so familiar it hurts.)

He mentions power, and hurting others, and it's clear he's already developed some maladaptive ideas an darker impulses, and it's then that Hermione turns to see the younger version of Dumbledore's expression.

His eyes have gone cold; rather than regarding him with the joy and openness he'd initially approached with, he's very clearly appraising Tom as a weed in a vegetable garden, the task of bringing him to Diagon a necessary evil.

(It's so visible, that he distrusts the child, that he's no longer on his side.)

(It's a game changer.)

/

She's in the library with Neville and Pansy; the Slytherin is focused on her work, expression stoic, but her non-dominant right hand is intertwined with her new-boyfriend's own. His thumb strokes the back of her hand, and small smiles he so clearly can't help creep onto his face whenever he looks over at her, and it's—

(Hermione can't think of anyone who deserves it more.)

Eventually they leave, off to get dinner with friends before going for a walk around the lake; they're shortly after replaced by Ginny and Luna, who are much more distracting but nonetheless Hermione is happy to have with her.

Draco's beside her, disillusioned; he's reading the same textbook as her, which the others are rolling their eyes at but she thinks is romantic, which is the only reason even she's willing to wait to turn the page as he reads just a tad slower than she does.

She doesn't hear Harry approach—footsteps careful and near to furniture to keep from making too much noise—so she's too late to warn him when he goes to throw himself into the seat beside her; she can't help but burst out laughing when he and Draco both shriek and pitch themselves out of the chair, though Draco's collapse to the carpet isn't visible to the naked eye.

"You could really make a signal, or something, so unsuspecting people don't feel you up!" Harry exclaims, fixing his ruffled shirt and taking the next chair over.

"Well if you had waited half a second before sitting, I would've, but I didn't exactly have the chance, Harry," she tells him. "What's up with you?"

"Nothing, just—not excited to do this potions assignment, and my new Beaters aren't nearly as good as the twins, so I'm a bit worried about the match because Ravenclaw's got a strong offense—"

Hermione narrows her eyes at him. "You mean the potions assignment that's due tomorrow."

"Er—yeah, that's the one."

"The one we've had a week to do."

"Mhm."

"The one I helped you outline and walked through the content of on Sunday that you swore you weren't going to procrastinate."

Harry blows out a breath, then grimaces. "Yes, but you see, I read this muggle psychology article about studying over the summer, and it mentioned this thing called 'spacing', where if you work with information for shorter exposures multiple times over a longer period you're more likely to retain it than if you do it all at once, so I—"

"Don't you dare 'I read a muggle article' me, Harry Potter, I invented that line! And I know that's not why you did it." She scowls at him, ignoring the pleading look he sends her way.

A bag of gummy bears is slid across the table toward her, and he meets her eyes with a self-satisfied grin. "Are you still mad now?"

She reluctantly reaches for the candy, putting several pieces in her mouth before responding. "Less so."

"Cool. And I promise I have my notes from everything we went over already, so I'm going to work on it on my own, and it's going to be done on time and everything."

"Heard that one before," Draco mutters, voice teasing. "It's cool though, I can proofread for you so she doesn't bite your head off."

"You're the best, Harry praises, opening up his textbook.

He still hasn't gotten around to ordering a new one, partially because he likes that his looks so well-loved, but mostly because he's lazy and doesn't really care all that much.

Harry groans wen the page in question is covered in annotations and unofficial spells. "I can't with this guy—why would you write it all directly in the book? Make yourself a cheat sheet or something, this is just—ridiculous. And these made up spells—what does he think they do? Do they actually work, do you think?"

Draco leans over to peer at the page in question, but straightens in his chair almost immediately. "Why do you have Uncle Sev's writing all over your book?"

Harry's jaw drops with a mixture of shock and horror. "The Prince bloke is Snape? Are you sure? How do you know that's his writing?"

"Because I've gotten plenty of letters and birthday cards over the years, I know what my godfather's handwriting looks like, moron—you should too, you saw it on the Potions chalkboard every day for five years. Do you really pay so little attention?"

Harry shrugs bashfully. "I dunno, I've just never thought of people's handwritings as being particularly noticeable or unique, I guess. That's wild, though."

"But it makes sense," Hermione adds thoughtfully, expression pensive. "Like we talked about last week, a lot of the comments are strategies we've used over the years—I assumed they were just potions techniques not in the book, but it does make more sense that Snape himself is the one who realized they were effective and thus incorporated them in his teaching."

"Damn, I hate when the overgrown bat is actually a good teacher," Ginny grumbles, winking when Draco gives her a look.

"Me too," Harry agrees.

(Luna rolls her eyes at the both of them.)

/

They're in Charms; Remus and Snape have collaborated to align their curricula—which everyone is confused and shocked by but is going well—so they're doing further practice of nonverbal wandwork.

Blaise is the first to master his attempts, earning glares from both Draco and Hermione, though the irritation at not being first gives them the push to succeed moments later.

Padma also excels, giggling as she repeatedly makes her sister's quill roll off the desk from across the classroom.

An owl appears at the window, and Remus brushes it off, until it begins tapping incessantly on the glass with its beak; it gets louder and louder, until it simply can't be ignored. Sighing, Remus presses a finger to his temple. "Miss Greengrass, if you would please open the window and give the letter to its intended recipient, who is not to open it until the end of class."

Daphne does so immediately, hesitating when she gets the window open. "Professor, it's—it's a Howler."

The students all lean forward intently, eager to see its delivery; Daphne reaches to take it from the owl, and her eyes go wide. "I—Professor, it's addressed to you. And Hermione?"

Hermione and Remus lock confused eyes, but it's Harry who figures it out, barking out a laugh. "Come on, it's gotta be Tonks!"

"Just like her mother," Remus mutters, rolling his eyes. "Thank you Miss Greengrass—please give it here, then."

He makes a face, huffing at the anticipation on all the students' faces and Hermione's exasperation as he tears open the envelope.

"He's here!" Tonks's voice rings through the room, earning a gasp from Harry as Hermione claps her hands together gleefully. "The parasite has arrived! Merlin, the head of hair on this baby you would not believe—and not to be graphic, but the pan! I have half a mind to send Molly Weasley flowers sheerly out of respect."

Remus raises an eyebrow, unsurprised at the tangent.

"We've named him Edward Arthur, after both his grandfathers, though I doubt we'll ever call him anything but Teddy. His hair's already started changing colors, Remus! Oh, morgana, this little boy is about to have the both of you wrapped around his little finger; it's lucky, too, because otherwise I might resent the way he just took over my body for nine months and ripped me so thoroughly St. Mungo's had to cast healing charms on some very tender—"

"Dora, my love, please stop talking now."

"But Perce—"

They're whispering something where no one else can hear, and Tonks sighs before continuing. "It has been brought to my attention that you're both in class so I shouldn't give much detail there, but just know that it was awful. For a moment there I really thought I'd never be able to—"

"Nymphadora! I swear to merlin—"

"I'm going to be fired for this," Remus mumbles, though he can't subdue the smile on his face.

"Anyways, I've included muggle polaroids and a few magical photos as well, so the both of you can see your godson—he can't wait to meet you already! Don't bring too many books when you come to see him, yeah? Save it for when he's old enough to retain it, you nerds. I love you! And you, Harry. Hermione, tell that muggle boyfriend of yours I say hi!"

Hermione watches Draco's careful smile from across the room.

"I expect you to come with them, Ron," Percy adds, the smile audible in his voice. "You're just about the closest to sane this kid has from our side. He'll need Uncle Ron to help him learn all about Quidditch and being a Weasley."

"Bye! We love you! Don't blow anything up!" Tonks says by way of farewell, and the letter bursts into flames on Remus's desk, leaving behind a stack of small photos.

"Well, then. Sorry for the interruption," Remus apologizes to the class, though his joy shines through. "Please return to your practice, and I'll be circulating if you need any clarifications or other support."

They do so, though the room is bursting with whispers as everyone discusses the development; Hermione has to wipe at watery eyes.

Harry bumps her shoulder with his. "What're you thinking?"

She sniffs. "Just—I'm so glad that there's still good in the world, you know?" She rubs at her eye with her sleeves and tucks hair behind her ear. "We've been through so much shit, and everything feels so dark right now, and—it's nice, that no matter how bad things seem, there's still good out there. There can still be happiness, and light." She laughs through the tears, eyes bright. "Things are awful but there can still be a beautiful little baby with blue hair who I already love with my whole heart. I—I need the reminders, sometimes."

He nods with understanding, leans his head on her shoulder and feels a bit of the weigh on his heart dissipate at the sight of the pictures clutched in her hand, the sleeping baby in Tonks's arms while she laughs at the camera, Percy's head leaning against hers—expression exasperated but eyes full of awe.

Beside them, Ron grins. "I have a nephew!" Harry and Dean pat him on the back in congratulation as he tells them all about how excited Molly is, the ridiculous outfits Fred and George have already bought for the baby—including but not limited to teen-tiny WWW merch.

Hermione eyes the inside of her wrist as writing appears; she waits a moment, to make sure no one has been looking at Draco as he wrote, before checking.

Congratulations, love. I can't wait to meet him, too—good to know the kid we'll be raising if everyone else dies has made it into the world safely.

She can't help the snort that bursts out of her, smiles at the thought despite its morbidity—the jokes the only way the world makes sense.

"Good day, huh?" Pansy calls to her from across the room, cheeky grin on her face.

(And it is.)

/

They're in the Chamber doing work before the official study hall—which means not much is different but Draco is there not polyjuiced.

"What's got you thinking so hard?" Ginny pokes Hermione in the side as she asks the question. "You okay?"

The older girl is jolted out of reverie, gives a half-hearted smile as she meets Ginny's brown eyes. "Oh, yeah, I'm fine. Just…can't get my mind off our lesson with Dumbledore the other day. Something about it…"

(The injured hand held aloft at his side, the blasé attitude, ring on his desk—)

"I just feel like there's something I can't quite reach that my brain is trying to figure out."

The ring had to be significant, to be the only seemingly useless object on his desk; and to be kept there, despite its break and imagery being too fucked up to see. And why would such a high quality piece of jewelry be tarnished, anyway? Such a sharp cleaving had to be very intentional, and with a strong motivation, as though the ring itself were a threat—

"Oh, god. That's it," she whispers, before raising her voice. "Harry!"

He's at her side immediately, eyes wide and searching. "What's wrong?"

"His hand—it had to be the ring. They're connected. Dumbledore, I mean," she clarifies, frazzled as her mind moves three steps of ahead of her mouth, trying to fit the puzzle pieces together. "The messed up one on his desk. It must've been cursed, or something, and caused the damage to his hand when he put it on, and then the only way to remove the curse from the stone itself was to literally break it."

Harry turns his eyes upward as he mulls over the suggestion; meanwhile, Draco twirls one of her curls around his finger with a frown. "But a curse that could cause that kind of damage would be detectable—and definitely for a wizard as proficient as Dumbledore. Why would he put on a ring without checking it for anything dangerous in the first place?" He sighs, grey eyes tired. "If he were that careless, 'killing' him wouldn't be such an impossible task. Actually…" he trails off, eyes thoughtful.

Raising an eyebrow, Hermione purses her lips. "You just came up with an idea for one of your pretend attempts."

"That I did," he nods. "I'm going to think on it a bit."

"Okay, so what would keep him from checking for potentially harmful curses?" Harry asks, trying to refocus his sister's attention. "And why would the ring have been cursed in the first place? I mean, a majority of the time defensive enchantments like that are used to prevent muggleborns or non-wizards from touching them; Dumbledore's a pureblood, obviously, so none of them would've had any impact on him, and if it were just a protective old family's object he should've thought to cast diagnostics before touching it. It's like when we were cleaning out Grimmauld, you know? All the old artifacts and jewelry had the protective curses, and we had to—"

"Fuck," Hermione gasps out, because it clicks, just then, a resolute clang throughout her mind that drowns out everything else. "Fuck, fuck, fuck, Harry that's it." She gapes, hands tugging at the roots of her hair desperately. "It's one of them."

"What do you—oh." His eyes go wide, and she knows she's right, because it's exactly like the locket—

(The ring was a horcrux.)

Which meant that one more was destroyed—and that Dumbledore knew about them.

"This changes—everything," Hermione whispers, ignoring the confused glances of the rest of their friends. "And the lessons, the trying to figure out who he is and his motivations…it's to try and figure out what he would choose to be all of them. Oh, god."

"Dad is literally going to lose his shit," Harry mutters, trying to distract himself. "Damn. How do we even—where does this go? How does this end? How do we—"

"We'll figure it out," Hermione promises, as though her own heart isn't racing.

Pansy clears her throat expectantly, eyebrows raised; the others are quiet, but clearly agree with her desire to be let in the know.

Hermione bites her lip, turning to Harry. "I—telling them all puts them in danger, but—I think the more people who know the better. That way even if something happens to us, others who know can carry out what needs to happen. All our eggs not in one basket, and all that."

Harry nods in agreement, swiveling to face the rest of them with a serious expression. "Ever heard of a horcrux?"

/

Winky comes to hang out during their study session; Hermione attempts to command her to relax and not help with anything the whole time, but the elf levels her with a look and threatens to take all of Hermione's own study materials if she does, so they find themselves at a reluctant impasse.

(God, does she love Winky.)

Hermione's doing rounds around the room, making sure no one needs any help and checking in on the people she hasn't spoken to in a while; Harry and Aaliyah are deep in conversation, their back and forth hissing almost as soothing as the sound of rain in the background of the ASA members all working and chatting.

Seamus says something to Hannah Abbott—it's offhanded, which for him usually means offensive, so Hermione's already heading towards them to reprimand him, but Astoria gets there first.

"Apologize, asshole!" She's not very tall, but the force of her presence forces Seamus to meet her eye, and she doesn't flinch when he scowls. "Don't you dare ever insult her again, or I swear I'll dismember you and feed the pieces to the Giant Squid. Hannah is the kindest person in this whole school, I won't tolerate the likes of you acting like you're better than her because she's a Hufflepuff—people like you and I should be in awe of Hufflepuffs!"

Hannah smiles softly. "It's really okay, I don't think he meant anything by it."

"No, he insulted you, it's unacceptable, he—"

"Tori." Putting a gentle hand on Astoria's shoulder, Hannah levels her with a look.

"Fine." Astoria makes a face but pulls back, letting Hannah pull her into her arms even as she scowls at Seamus. "You're lucky my girlfriend is so nice, Finnegan. Remember that next time you want to insult her for her kind heart, because my family has a marvelous garden and I could access so many poisons that wouldn't leave a trace of fair play, and—"

"Tori."

"I mean, I'm so sorry I got a bit upset," she smiels sweetly, batting her eyes when Seamus looks scared. "I apologize for being so aggressive. I'm just a bit defensive of my soul mate, I can be irrational."

Hermione has to hold back chuckles at it—so obviously forced, but the years of society training make Astoria's comportment so impeccable anyone who didn't hear Hannah would believe it.

"Those are the pairings destined to take over the world," Luna murmurs beside her. "Hufflepuffs who would die to take care of everyone around them, and the Slytherins who love them that would burn the world down to keep them safe. There's a balance in it, I think. A beautiful kind of strength and power, and one person wanting to give themselves for the whole world and the other who would give the whole world for them."

(Hermione finds herself staring, nodding in agreement—dreams of all they'll go on to do.)

/

"You know," Draco mumbles into Hermione's hair, curled up in the RoR, "As much as I love calling you Juliet, and you'll always be that first in my mind, I really do wish our younger selves had bothered to read the play before deciding on code names."

A laugh escapes her. "Yeah. It could've been nice not to refer to each other as idiots in a comedy about humanity's irrational decisions, perhaps. Especially given the age difference between them—I know it wasn't uncommon at the time, but it's still incredibly predatory."

"Merlin, can you imagine?" Draco hums as she rubs his back gently. "Although Shakespeare himself was obviously incredibly talented. It's a great play. Just not necessarily the one I would've liked to compare our own destiny to."

"I did tell you from the very beginning it didn't end well," Hermione reminds him, smiling at the memory. "I'm still hoping we'll get a happier ending than them. And I like to think neither one of us would immediately off themselves without taking a moment to think logically, even if we believed the worst."

He snorts. "Yes, there's that too. And the part where we're actually in love, not merely catering to a week-long infatuation, which I think makes us already a bit more likely to end well than them."

"Everything else isn't in our favor, though."

"I suppose." His fingers trail along her arm, pausing when they get to where he knows the duplicate of his Dark Mark sits; he pulls the limb upward, before leaning his face forward to kiss the place on her skin where the horrific image sits. "I love you, Juliet. I'm so sorry that this is on your skin."

"I told you already, I am happy to bear it with you." Her voice is raspy but insistent. "It's—not my favorite image in the world, obviously, but I don't think of that when I see it. I think of you, and how brave you are, and all the good you've already done, and how proud and grateful I am to be bound with you. And if this is the price of the rest of it, then I'm glad to pay it."

Draco nods, pressing his lips to her wrist once more.

"You're going to figure this out," she promises. "McGonagall's already said she is at your disposal for making sure your attempts are believable but don't cause lasting harm, and you know I will help in any way you need."

"I know. I just—hate being this person. Knowing I'll have to hurt people, even if it's necessary to keep them all alive. I hate not knowing what's best, or if my mother's okay, or if we'll make it out of all of this…" he sighs. "I know it's not just me—we're all thinking it. But it…it just feels so heavy, some days."

Hermione nods, but stays quiet, content to let him vent and know that she's there, that she's listening.

Eventually, he calms down some, the angst ebbing as the tiredness overtakes him.

"We'll get through this," she promises him, just before he falls asleep. "We've made more horcrux progress, we have strong numbers, Luna's expose is almost ready to go to print…it doesn't feel it, but things are going to turn up. I know it."

(And logically, she believes the words she says, she really does.)

(If only she could convince the heavy lingering weight in her chest the same.)

A/N: chapter title from we belong by dove cameron

This story now only likes to come to me between 4 and 8 am so here we are lmao

Hope life is treating all of you lovely humans well. xo, so much love