Well I'm in the crux of puberty now. Over the school year and the summer, I grew to five-nine, my voice got deeper and acne came and swept my face with zits, my beard though, is in full swing, not quite viking, more an exceptionally long stubble. Dad's trying to get me to shave, but that won't happen. Hermione likes the beard. She developed some acne of her own, but just enough that it can be believably covered with a little foundation. Lucky her. Otherwise, she didn't change too much before Ron's family invited me on their trip. This birthday went much better. Harry even showed up (for a bit before leaving with a new WheyPoynt, he broke the old one), I didn't cry this year, so that's a plus. I didn't get many presents, maybe they realized that I'm fourteen. Anyway, when I left Hermione hadn't changed too much, so imagine my surprise to walk into the Diagon Alley hotel and find Hermione twice as beautiful as when I left her. Which, for me, is saying a lot. Even if it's just a little height in the legs and a haircut. She holds an orange cat in her arms.

Ron looks at me. "So yeah, if you want to stay with us you can."

I turn to him and look at their expansive family. "Dad didn't get me a room?"

"No, Mum said she'd get you one but we spent all our money already. Your Dad brought all of your school stuff to Hermione's room yesterday. You could ask to stay with her."

"Wouldn't that be awkward?"

"You two already cuddled under blankets at school and you almost always pass out while leaning on her shoulder." Ron smirks, "How awkward could it be, Sam?"

"Sammy! Ron!" She cheers, running towards us.

"Uh oh, looks like we've been caught." Ron laughs. We walk towards her. Ron eyes the cat, "Who's this?"

"This is Crookshanks." Hermione says, "He and Shakespeare have made quick friends."

"Good." I say, looking at her. She's… gorgeous. I mean, she always has been, but… "You look good, Golden."

She blushes and brushes the hair out of her face, "Thanks."

"I'll leave you two be." Ron decides, before bowing and walking away. We both crinkle our noses at him, before I look at Hermione.

"May I?" I hold my hands out.

"Sure." Hermione says, handing me Crookshanks. I scratch him behind his ear and he warms up to me immediately, rubbing his face across my chin. "He likes you. Thought he would." She looks at me, then gets flustered. "So… I heard that you'd be sleeping with the Weasleys in their room, and I was wondering… since your dad dropped your stuff off in my room, maybe you'd… like to stay with me?"

"You know, I was just about to ask you if I could stay in your room." I laugh a bit, "Yeah, I'd love to bunk with you."

"One problem, there's only one bed." Hermione says.

"We've shared a couch."

"Yeah, but not overnight." she blushes, "I mean," Her voice shrinks to a whisper, "I don't know what you wear to bed."

I burst out laughing, "Shorts." I wheeze when my fit is done.

"No shirt?" her blush deepens.

"Well if you're uncomfortable-"

"Whatever makes you comfortable." She blurts out. Then she has a face that practically screams she didn't mean to say that out loud.

"Well, why don't you show me the room before we talk about what we'll be wearing?"

"Yeah." Hermione nods, taking Crookshanks and setting him down before leading me upstairs. We enter a medium-sized room with a kitchen area, a bed and a couch. Shakespeare rushes to me and I pick her up, giving her love as I look around.

"If you want me to, I could sleep on the couch."

"If you want to." She waves it off like it's no big deal, but I can feel a different emotion in her voice. To her this is. This will tell her whether or not I like her. Whether I should be waited for.

I lay down on the bed and Shakespeare curls up contently on my chest. "What'll you be wearing tonight?"

"Tank top and shorts." She says. She seems… happy. Good. "Oh, I got a few new books to read to you." She hands me a small pile of books, Midnight Lamp, How I Live Now, A Good Year, Millennium People and our newest book, The Fallen Empire. I smile at its cover, our names written. "We're #1 New York Times Bestsellers twice now."

"How's this one doing compared to our last one?"

"Actually, better. Both in reception and sales. People love post-apocalyptic stories."

"I mean, yeah. That's kinda the idea behind a book like this. But I bet the romance was well-received."

"Well, there's already fanfiction online."

I snicker a bit. "So we made another hit?"

"Yeah. We beat out Lockhart again. He's been a close number two for a while."

"We'll beat him. Just like last time."

"You're confident." She teases.

"Correction: I'm arrogant."

"Same difference."

"I don't know." I rub her arm a bit, before I blush and stand, "Lets uh… get some food."

"Sounds good." Hermione says, a little flustered herself.

We get back and she showers first after she's done, wearing that tanktop and those shorts, I try my best not to stare at her smooth skin or her newly developing breasts. We're both blushing hard before I go into the bathroom, hand balled into a fist in my pocket. I take a shower, brush my teeth and slip into my clothes. When I get out, drying my hair, I hear a small "Wow." I look down at my torso. Despite my lack of any real care, I still have a relatively built body. I'm not buff or anything but I'm lean, just muscular enough to be fit. I look at the scars on my body, some of them from the past two years, most of them from Awfelts. War scars. I walk towards the bed and she stops me before tracing a finger on one of my scars.

"What happened?"

"A lot."

"Does Colson-"

"Dad didn't do this." I cut in. "Wizards in America are essentially all Malfoy to a degree of a thousand. They attack on the drop of a hat and are entirely willing to kill. At Awfelts, I only succeeded in my intelligence. I outsmarted them and won a turf war."

"Jesus." She shakes her head. "I never thought you'd tell me."

"I figured you already knew." I smile, joining her on the bed. "When did you find out?"

"I did research on the Hedrich family last summer. Found out about everything, but I never heard about this."

"Yeah. I'm not proud of everything I've done."

"You are a truly brilliant man, Sammy."

"I wish that were true." I sigh, "So what are we reading?"

"Our book." She manovers her head to my chest and I shiver beneath the contact, before reaching up and starting to comb my hand through her hair. I think I hear an audible purr. She might actually be part cat forever. Oh well. Smiling down at her, I realize that I'm at a good place mentally, but I'm still waiting for the right moment. As perfect as this moment now is, it isn't right.

While she reads, I trail off in my thoughts a bit. Every night, I've gone to the Spirit World, met the Great Wizard and trained. First, I mastered wandless magic, now I'm working on transfiguration mastery. The Great Wizard is very careful in what he does, everything is intentional and his teaching ability is second-to-none. My favorite moments are the ones where he shows me the inner workings of the Spirit World, one day on Earth is their equivalent of a week, he keeps me for three hours, in their world before letting me dream, so I'm in the Spirit World for less than half an hour, and get to dream the rest of the night. Eventually, I'm back from my thoughts and Hermione's still reading. I smile at the sound of her voice.

The Spirit World is great, but this is heaven.

"You smell good." I mutter. Shit I'm tired. How long was she reading to me? I check my phone. Three hours. Nice.

"Thanks." She yawns, "Bloody hell, what time is it?"

"Eleven."

"Bloody hell! Why didn't you tell me?"

"I like listening to you." I mutter.

"Even so." She marks her page, "I likely would've read until three in the morning."

"Probably. But then you'd hear me snoring."

She turns her head to face me, "Your snoring isn't that loud." Then she blushes, which is cute. I move my hand from her hair to her face, gently brushing it over her cheek. She looks down. "Do you like me?"

"Let's get to sleep, Golden." I reply, half a smile on my face. She looks down sadly. Just hold out a little longer. I'm sorry to make you wait. "Hey, don't make that sad face, I'm with you now aren't I?"

"I wish it was in a different way."

"I know." I sigh. "Come here." She comes towards me and lays her head down on my shoulder, stretching one arm over my chest as I pull the cover over us. I hum Your Song as we drift off to sleep.

I wake up first, feeling well rested underneath a tangle of limbs. Hermione breathes softly into my chest. She's so adorable when she's asleep. It's a shame I can't do much more than look at her, I really want to kiss her right now, but I can't. I listen to her small breaths for a little under half an hour before she stirs, looking up at me with her frizzled hair, weary eyes and a drowsy smile. I fall in love with her that much more. "Amos, you're beautiful." I murmur, before blushing. Fuck.

"What?" she asks. Good, she didn't hear me.

"Nothing. Let's get up." She groans before pulling away from me and stretching. I go to my bag and pull out some clothes as she grabs her necklace from the night table and puts it on, "Shit it's cold."

"That's why we huddled up last night?"

"Yeah. That's why…" I look at the brunette over my shoulder as I pull on a shirt. We share a look knowing that that isn't the real reason. I take a look at our cats laying down together at the foot of the bed. Crookshanks shoots awake and trots out of the room as Shakespeare's paw twitches a bit. Me and Hermione look at each other once more and I give her a smile before heading into the bathroom to put on my pants and brush my teeth, she joins me when I start the latter, wearing the school top, but otherwise still in her pajamas, her long legs bringing her body to be about shoulder height.

Still brushing my teeth, I decide to tease her a bit, looking down at her, mocking her height lightly. She elbows me in the stomach playfully and I barely hold back a laughing fit that would've shot toothpaste all over her before I finish brushing, gargle some water, spit it out and leave to put on my shoes and coat. Soon Hermione comes out with her hair brushed, shimmering perfectly over her shoulders. I give her a long stare before clearing my throat, now flustered.

"Let's go." I say after a moment. She nods and we head downstairs for breakfast, Ron sits at the table and looks at us.

"You two look refreshed." He says, "Slept well?"

"I slept pretty good." I admit, taking a seat across from him, scratching my beard. Hermione sits next to me and we eat some cereal. Soon, Scabbers runs towards us and into Ron's arms, followed closely by Crookshanks who Hermione grabs and scolds while Ron gives her an outraged look.

"I'm warning you, Hermione! Keep that bloody beast of yours away from Scabbers or I'll turn it into a tea cozy!"

"You ain't touching her cat." I snap and Ron rolls his eyes.

"What do you expect Ron, he's a cat, it's in his nature!"

"It isn't in Shakespeare's."

"Shakespeare's lazy, dude. What does she care about a rat when she needs a nap?"

"You are both unreasonable!"

"And you aren't?" Hermione growls, "It's okay, Crookshanks, ignore the mean little boy."

"Don't look now guys, but I think we have company." They follow my gaze up to the staircase where they see the boy watching us.

"Harry!" They exclaim. Soon, Ron's showing Harry the picture of his family and me in Egypt. Hermione ignores them as she focuses on her cat, petting him gently, watch this with a smile

"Egypt! What's it like?" Harry asks.

"Brilliant. It's got loads of old stuff. Mummies. Death masks. Even Scabbers enjoyed himself."

"You know that ancient Egyptians used to worship cats?" Hermione says, defensively.

"Yeah, also dung beetles."

"Well dung beetles are actually very fascinating insects." I argue, "Did you know-"

"Not flashing that clipping about again, are you, Ron?" George (?) asks, cutting me off from another tangent about dung beetles.

"I haven't shown anyone!" Ron retorts.

"No, not a soul. Unless you count Tom. The day maid. The night maid. The cook. The bloke that came to fix the toilet. That wizard from Belgium…" Fred (?) says, taking the paper from Ron as Hermione and I go off to see Ginny.

"Hey Ginny, did you enjoy your trip?" Hermione asks.

"Yeah, it was really good. Sam knows a lot about pharaohs and - well - just about everything in Egypt. He even led the tour guide down a secret path into a place where a number of treasures were held that had not been discovered, all off of a hunch." She says, "Who's this?"

"This is Crookshanks. He's a ginger Himalayan." Hermione introduces.

"Can I pet him?"

"Go ahead."

Ginny does, "Wow. He's soft." She smiles at me, "He's more social than Shakespeare."

"Well yeah, Shakespeare's very antisocial."

"Hey Hermione." Mr. Weasley says, walking past us with Harry.

"Hey, Mr. Weasley." She says.

"Where's your sword?" Ginny asks, looking at me. I shrug and take the jacket Hermione got me off, revealing the sheathed blade. "Cool. Have you had to use it?"

"Thankfully not yet. Not since Old V tried to kill you."

"Can I try to hold it?" Ginny asks.

"Sure." I draw the sword and hand it to her. She immediately drops it. "What's wrong?"

"It's really heavy." she says, before trying to pick it up to no avail. Hermione sets down Crookshanks and picks it up with ease and I look at her. The sword deemed you worthy, eh? She gives me the sword and I sheathe it.

I could tell from the moment you stood up to me for her that you two were destined to be together.

It can't be a coincidence that we both are worthy. This many coincidences isn't possible. Snape was right.

My instinct is never wrong, Mr. Hedrich.

Hermione gives me a quick smile before grabbing Crookshanks once more and sitting down. Ginny sits next to her and I put on my coat before pulling up a chair to sit between them. We chat about Hermione's time while we were on vacation. It turns out she played a lot of Clue with my Dad, who eagerly taught her the ins and outs, insisting we would all play with three players next year, if his schedule clears up more. He spent almost the entire summer stressing over memory rejuvenation for the victims of Lockhart, using Lockhart himself as a test subject. He came up with one just two months ago and ever since, he's been monitoring Gilderoy and his reactions as his memory slowly comes back up to what was allowed by Dad. Now he remembers enough to be let go tomorrow. He even took Hermione to see him. Gilderoy will live as a muggle in an extraordinary world just beyond his reach forever. Dad is now ushering in people who've been wiped by Gilderoy, that's why he can't see me off. He's swamped. And for every one of them, he has to leave out chunks of memory including the stories Lockhart stole and ever meeting the author.

At least somebody's doing something.

Dad is actually front page news again, for helping those impacted by the effects of a horrible memory thief that he eradicated, whose victims include Gilderoy Lockhart among others. Hermione explained this being extra careful not to explicitly state that Lockhart is the "memory thief" and I can tell she struggled, so I take her hand and squeeze it as a showing of my thanks.

"You two are so cute."

We pull away quickly, "Cute? No. We're just - we're just friends." I say, Hermione frantically nods.

"Mhmm. That's why you slept together tangled up like a pretzel."

Our faces are practically glowing, "How did you-" Hermione starts.

"I didn't." Ginny beams, "Now I do."

"You're worse than Ron." I mutter. "That doesn't change the fact we still aren't dating. It was cold last night, so we huddled up, that's all."

"Right." Hermione states.

"Whatever you two say, but if you're not together, you two should get together. Soon." I Feel Hermione look at me. "Anyway, you two need to grab your stuff, we'll be leaving soon."

We get on the train as Harry tells us how he got in trouble with the law. "I didn't mean to blow her up. I just…" He stumbles over himself a bit, "…lost control."

"Brilliant!" Ron exclaims.

"Honestly, Ron, it's not funny. Harry's lucky he wasn't expelled." Hermione says.

"I still think it was brilliant."

"She did have it coming to her." I shrug, giving Ron five.

"Boys." She huffs, then one of the monster books scurry past us, Neville in hot pursuit.

"Hi guys!" He calls.

I point at the book, "Liber Veternum Locus!" The book freezes, passed out. Neville picks it up.

"You didn't need your wand? Sweet! Also, Thanks, you're a lifesaver." he heaves, catching his breath.

"Hey, what are friends for?" I clap him on the shoulder before running a bit to catch up with the others who are stopped outside a boothe occupied by a single sleeping dude. He looks grown, so he's most likely part of the staff. .

"In here." Hermione says, "It's the only one that's open." We slide in, Hermione with Crookshanks, set in the window seat, I sit to her, holding Shakespeare in my lap and Harry and Ron sit next to the teacher.

"So who's Sleepy over here?" I ask.

"Professor R.J. Lupin." She says smugly, I look at the name in big letters on his case then back to her as I smile and shake my head.

"You know everything. How is it she knows everything?"

"She can read, Ronald." I sigh.

"Yeah, it's on his case." She nods.

"Is he really asleep?"

"Seems to be. Why? What is it, Harry?" Hermione asks.

"Close the door." Harry commands. Then he goes off on a tangent about how Sirius Black is out to kill him.

"Let me get this straight. Sirius Black escaped from Azkaban to come after you?" Ron asks, almost in disbelief. But then again, This is Harry Potter.

"Yes." Harry states, solemnly.

"But they'll catch Black, won't they? I mean... eventually?" Hermione asks.

"Sure - Of course, no one's ever broken out of Azkaban before and he's a raving, murderous lunatic…" Ron trails off as the lights flicker and the train shakes and starts to brake.

"Why are we stopping? We can't be there yet." Hermione questions. Harry gets up and looks out of the door before the train shudders unexpectedly, pushing him back into the seat as the door closes.

"What's going on?" Ron asks, shifting around in his seat.

"Maybe we've broken down?" Harry suggests.

I shake my head, "On this train? This isn't even run on coal, with the income of the school and the cost to fix this, it should be fine." The lights shut off and everyone's unease heightens. I instinctively grab Hermione's hand. Then it starts getting cold, Hermione shivers and I give her my coat, and grip Snape's pocket watch Maybe I shouldn't have put my sword with my luggage. Shakespeare mews mockingly. Wait, you can read my mind? She mews again. Well shit. Glad you can't talk. I'd be mince meat. She mews approvingly of that thought and I see movement outside. "There's something out there." I whisper.

"Bloody hell." Ron whispers, "What's happening?" Suddenly the car starts to sway violently and I clutch Hermione's hand tighter, she matches this. Suddenly, the car stops swaying and starts to vibrate, the windows develop a coat of frost. We see a dark figure in a large cloak loom outside of the door.

"What the fuck?" I whisper. Lupin is still asleep. The creature enters the room slowly and I extend my hand, standing defensively in front of Hermione, setting Shakespeare down in my place. It's sucking joy and passion out of me - trying to. I won't let it. The animals are freaking out, even Shakespeare's hissing. It's glaring at Harry. Harry looks like he's… suffocating. "Let him go, you motherfucker!" I pull the watch out as a dagger and stab him and then he starts doing the same to me, he's stealing my soul. Harry's passed out. I'm barely alive. Suddenly, Lupin stands and casts a spell that makes the monster go away.

"Sammy!" Hermione cries, grabbing me from falling. "Are you okay?!"

Can't speak… too tired…

"He'll be fine. It's him I'd worry about." He points at Harry, then comes down to face me. "Remarkable, this one. This girl here is gonna feed you this chocolate." He pulls it out of his pocket and hands it to Hermione. "It will help." Then he moves

I weakly nod and Hermione feeds me the chocolate, slowly strength starts coming back to me. "That was really stupid, Sammy."

"Isn't the first time I almost died." I groan.

"What… was that thing?" Harry groans.

"It was a dementor, one of the guards of Azkaban. It's gone now."

"It must've been searching the train." I groan, getting up as Hermione grabs Shakespeare and I fall into the seat, Hermione plots the cat back on my lap and I sigh, "Probably for Sirius Black."

"Anyway, rest up. I've got to speak with the driver, see if we can't get this thing moving again." He leaves.

"What happened to me?" Harry asks.

"Well, you sort of went... rigid. We thought maybe you were having a fit or something. Then Sam tried to help and the same thing happened."

He looks at me. "Did you… pass out?"

"No, but I almost did. I feel like shit."

"What about the rest of you?"

Hermione shakes her head and Ron says, "No. I felt… weird. Like I'd never be cheerful again. But… no."

"But someone was screaming - a woman."

We all look at each other in unease, "No one was screaming, Harry." Hermione says.