I want to thank the guests that have reviewed so far. You also make my day, and I can't reach you to properly thank you. So… Thank you.

I was most moved by the last guest that gave his testimony in Oct 11. The similarities with this story are not apparent, but if I managed to touch an inner chord, then I'll take it as a compliment. Because it made you react, and that's the opposite of indifference. There's only one author that has managed to do the same for me and to me, and it's not fanfiction. I can barely open a book written by Tana French (I've read two of them and begun two others). Therefore, I admire her enormously.

Thanks to all of you, my muse has deigned pay me a visit, so I have the next chapter complete and I know exactly what to publish two weeks from now. The rest is up to you –your reviews are my fuel.

Love is

"Dobby knows Harry Potter is bedding Hermione Granger, sir!" the elf said in his characteristic high-pitched voice.

Harry wanted to disappear, but since he didn't have a license to apparate and he was in Hogwarts –wards up- anyway, he had to settle for saying "Shh!" as he blushed intensely, which belied his carefully built nonchalance.

"Dobby knows Harry Potter is a gentleman, sir! Dobby hopes miss will join the great Potter family soon, sir!"

Was it morals? Did elfs have ethics? For humans? Harry was baffled and upset and amused at the same time. If someone in the kitchen was paying a minimum of attention, he'd be mainly worried; but whatever elfs thought of premarital sex –between humans-, it wasn't nearly as important as dinner was, judging by the constant flow of little creatures in one direction or another. That didn't mean he didn't have to hush Dobby right about now, and he did so by unceremoniously carrying the elf to the nearest closet.

"That information would get her killed, Dobby!" he whispered in no uncertain terms; then he noticed the way the elf was eyeing the wall. "But I forbid you to hurt yourself! Just… just… Who told you?"

"Elves know everything in Hogwarts, Harry Potter, sir!" the elf said, finally whispering –or its equivalent for elf-kind, anyway.

Harry pinched the bridge of his nose under his glasses, wondering when his life had become such a soap opera. And what to do about it.

"Does every elf know?"

"No, Harry Potter, sir. Just Winky and Dobby, sir. She was in charge of cleaning Gryffindor Tower…"

Apparently, Harry could still blush redder. He didn't need any more information, he just hoped Winky hadn't seen too much –or wasn't sober enough to remember- but he was not about to bring the subject.

"Do you think elves back there took note?"

The elf eyed the wall again.

"Punishment keeps being forbidden" Harry reminded him. "Do you think they'll tell the professors?"

"Elves keep elves' knowledge to elves' quarters, sir."

Sitting on the bottom of a bucket beside the still standing elf, Harry tried to put his thoughts in order. While he was at that, he still found it in himself to turn around the nearest bucket and pat it so Dobby would sit down. Let's think elves weren't paying attention and even those who heard, won't tell the professors unless specifically asked. But just to be sure, Harry opened the door and shouted that commenting on his private life was forbidden.

"Will that suffice?"

Dobby nodded, still teary-eyed. Harry wasn't all that reassured, anyway; ways for them to be found out, for her to get hurt, kept popping out. That heirloom Sirius had given him came to mind more often than not; it would at least warn him if she was hurt, but he wasn't sure he'd be of much use, he was still a student and not the brightest one at that.

Meanwhile, the elf was awfully silent, and then, out of the blue, he shouted:

"Dobby is very, very sorry, Harry Potter, sir. Dobby would throw himself into the fire if it wasn't forbidden. Would Harry Potter reconsider…?" Harry wouldn't, and Hermione would kill him in the off chance that he would. "Dobby just wants Hermione Granger to be all right, Harry Potter, sir" (1)

Harry could certainly relate to that.

"I do know that, Dobby. I know" Harry sighed. "That's actually why I came. I need you to help me arrange something for her"

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"Inferi" Hermione whispered, closing her eyes and raising her fingers so she could start enumerating their characteristics.

But then Lavender squeaked:

"I'll wear my mom's dress."

After prefect duties and before her 'date', the erudite had found more practical to simply study at the dorm instead of making her way to the library. So there she was: face down on her bed, curtains closed for maximum concentration, the DADA textbook open before her despite the scarcity of light. Studying. Or trying, anyway. This was comfortable but in no way isolated. And she needed silence, badly.

"It has been under preservation spells for generations" Lavender added before starting the detailed description of the oh-so-wonderful creation, with spells intermingled –drawing the illusion around her so they all could "aww" and "oww" at the phantom copy of the dress-, and Hermione was tempted to take a peek through the curtains, if only to laugh at the excess of decorations.

"Inferi" she insisted, instead, in a tone that reminded herself that there was to be punishment if she didn't manage to refocus. Now. She stared at her notebook, where she had drawn two neat columns for the similitudes and differences between ghosts and inferi.

But she could still hear Ginny's squeaks as she suggested hair styles and recited the spells for crowns of roses.

"My dad already picked a boyfriend for each of us" Parvati mentioned from beyond the curtains, before inserting pair of phrases in a foreign language, as she did only at the dorm, among friends, and being in distress. Besides, she sounded doubtful.

Hermione's heart bled for her just before remembering whose boy Parvati wanted to choose some nights before. She did not want to explain the burning in her stomach, though it felt much like jealousy, or revenge.

She was just picking up her muggle pen when she heard the twin's bed bend under someone's weight and Ginny's voice was heard:

"But he won't make you marry this young, right?"

A grown escaped Hermione's throat as her fingers treaded through her hair, massaging her scalp. As her luck went, of all the topics in the world, tonight the girls had chosen to speak about…

"Marriage is too serious a compromise" it was Parvati's voice again. "We join for seven reincarnations, you know?"

"What's the hurry, right?" Lavender whispered, sympathetic, as the bed croaked again. "It's not as if marriage was the only way to happiness"

"Well, it's pretty important where we come from" Parvati explained.

"Here, it isn't." All girls turned to Hermione as she opened her curtains. "And the good thing about interculturality is: you can choose the best things from each culture. No girl should be forced into marriage. Ever"

Lavender looked from her to her best friend, apparently not sure of whom to support. Hermione's comments were always rational, but she kind of hated her, especially given Ron's penchant for her.

"She's right" Ginny said, crossing her arms. "All of my respect to your culture, Parv, but marriage is meaningful only if it actually has a meaning. It's nothing without love"

Nodding and murmured agreements were heard from everywhere, except from Lavender, who took a look at Parvati's face and seemed to find in herself the courage and loyalty that had set her in this particular house to begin with.

"Hey, cut the girl loose! How sure are you that your particular marriage will be successful and fulfilling? Arranged or not." She had a point. "Even if you marry someone you like, how do you know that what you feel will last forever?"

"Well" Ginny laughed, "that's easy. It won't"

Every girl in the room was suddenly frozen. To everyone's surprise, it was Hermione who intervened:

"You're such a romantic…"

Her tone left very clear that she was not making a compliment.

"Hermione" the redhead replied, blue eyes flashing, "I never thought I'd have more sense than you do in any given subject. Don't you know feelings change? It's a given! No one can promise they'll feel the same way, no one controls feelings!"

Hermione was starting to get seriously pissed off, on the outside. And that was because her inner girl was even more scared than before, but also because she felt affronted. Because she was sure of herself, she knew she loved Harry. She simply knew she'd care for him for the entirety of her life… given the chance. The witch couldn't really imagine a situation in which she wouldn't be ready to take an Avada for him.

"I never thought you'd be this cynic" she managed to say at least, eyes narrow, all body tense. To think that she had pondered leaving Harry to her.

"What do you mean?" Ginny answered, frowning now.

"So 'love's eternal while it lasts' (2)? And that's it? Don't you have a shred of faith in love?"

"Hold on... What does love have to do with anything?"

The rest of the girls were now looking from one to the other as if watching a ping-pong match.

"If love goes away, then how can anyone swear they'd love one another forever? Marriage would be stupid, then"

"She has a point" Parvati murmured, as Lavender squeaked, positively horrified.

"But love is not a mere feeling. It doesn't go away"

And that confused everyone even further. As if Hermione needed more confusion in her life.

"We're really not getting you" Lavender intervened.

That made Ginny look around, which gave the brunette time to ponder the rarity of her taking Ron's little sister, of all people, that seriously.

"I'm not that good with words" Ginny said at last. "And really, I never thought you'd not know, it's so simple…!"

"Oh, is it?" Hermione asked, crossing her arms as she refused to seek sympathy in the other girls.

"Of course it is. It's the very reason why you're so wired up. But in case you need an example… See Lavender…"

"Hey!"

"Sorry, Lav" Ginny said, eyeing her friend swiftly. "Hope you don't mind… She wears make-up and smells like lavender all the time, that's nice and girly and Ron likes it. They can go snog each other senseless and he likes that too. But when she's sick, or old, she won't smell nice, nor will she be able to go with him wherever he wants and snogging might be out of question. He won't like that. Will he love her, then?"

"I won't be old!" Lavender was protesting, as in I refuse to be. Parvati tried to get her to relax (that's all right, Lav, you smell nice now, she said so herself) but Ginny kept going:

"People think of love as being 'irresistibly drawn' to the other. That's liking sublimated. Love is more. Liking wouldn't work as base for anything. Specially marriage, which is supposed to be a rock on which to build a home, a nest. 'Like' is sand. You can build castles with it, but they won't last"

Hermione was positively openmouthed. This was either stupid or brilliant. And it hadn't come from her. The best commentary that came to mind –many seconds after- was:

"You know, Plato's thoughts about love were similar to yours"

"Who's that?"

"Nevermind"

Some things about Ginny ought to be the same.

"So you think, as he did, that love is deprived of passion"

"Hell no" the redhead laughed. "It just lasts from a sprout of passion to the other."

"But how can you say love is not a feeling?" Parvati insisted, as she patted Lavender in the shoulder distractedly. "How can you oppose it to "like"? You love who you like!".

Hermione nodded mentally, her mind drawing two neat columns for the similitudes and differences between like and love.

Ginny seemed thoughtful.

"I guess liking might be considered a kind of love"

"Eros love" Hermione whispered, trying to integrate Ginny's theory with what she knew.

"I have no idea what you're speaking about" the redhead confessed wholeheartedly. "But love is supposed to graduate from that. That's like… pre-Hogwarts phase. Love is fire, and then it's hearth"

"Hearth sounds good" Parvati whispered, and surprisingly enough, Lavender nodded.

"Love… love is when you stand beside someone whether you like him at the moment, or not. It's when you spend the whole afternoon at the library despite you not liking to read and spring being beautiful outside. Love is also fighting the other for what you know is best for him or her, without forcing anyone to oblige. Love is when you have seen the other petrified and half-kitty and sweating and fainting and you still recognize her as a part of you and care about her. Love is a decision. A decision to care, taken every day"

Hermione blinked, suddenly aware that Ginny was keying her specifically. The chat with Ron this afternoon came to mind. Was she putting a word for her brother? Oh, Ron… Even as she admired the loyalty that ran in Gryffindor and in Weasleys alike, Hermione hoped she wasn't right, or at least that she was no longer right. For her friend's sake.

"That sounds like friendship" was all she managed, at first.

Ginny shrugged.

"Friendship is a kind of love, and love implies friendship. Perfect companions for life aren't bought ready-made, you know? You have to work on them. Friendship is a good start. Then you have to add the occasional wanting to jump the other, and there you have romance"

Lavender laughed, and just then Hermione noticed she was long recovered from her emotional trauma. She probably hadn't fully understood the implications for her own romantic life, though Ginny's words put rationally what Lavender felt anyway: the difference between what she had with her boyfriend, and what this one might have with someone else; a difference that had rarified the dynamics in the dorm for weeks to months now.

"Well, that sounds reasonable" Parvati was saying as her best friend knelt on the bed behind her to do her hair; they had apparently graduated from illusions to the real 'looking like a bride' thing.

"How can you be so sure?" Hermione asked.

Ginny, wand pointing to her friend's hair, where she was already spellcasting flowers, glanced at the brunette briefly.

"Experimental proof" she smiled. "My mom gave birth to the proverbial football team by my dad and he still calls her Mollywobbles" she was bright red, yet she kept going defiantly "when they're alone together. Not that I want to know such things, it just gets to you, somehow"

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Levitating fabrics and furniture were now scarce enough that Harry could actually see Dobby through it. For the first time in what felt like hours, the wizard lowered his wand, rotated his shoulders relieving the muscles with a hiss, and looked around, in awe.

True, the place was still far from habitable, bathroom pipes still rusty and failing. But when he had first seen the shack after all those years, he had almost given up. The only thing preventing it had been sheer inertia and the fact that he had already recruited the elf. Then Dobby and himself had went through the house retrieving what looked useful and relatively functional, unbroken, and fit to their purposes, and gathering it in the most private area of the house, before spending hours cleaning and redecorating said area.

And what a change it had made.

So far, they had fully arranged two rooms. One of them was obviously a bedroom; ample and now painted blue, it included little more than a bed, two night-tables and a battered dresser they had managed to repair. Dobby had been adamant that bookcases didn't belong where people, not to say babies, slept, and Harry had been inflexible that books must have a place –because Hermione wouldn't like the place without books-, so then they had had to leave the bedroom so they could turn the nearest room into a small study with floor-to-ceiling bookcases whose crystal doors showed every book Harry had found in the house by the life-threatening process of using accio, that resulted in him virtually lapidated and then drown in old leather and paper –he had quite obviously forgotten that Lupin was almost as much of a reader as Hermione was.

She was going to adore it.

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Shoeless, feet gathered under her body over a comfortable chair, a book in hand, Hermione was always perfectly happy. But usually she was also reading. Today her eyes were lost in the hypnotizing fire, pondering what she had learned.

It wasn't as if there were many modern books on the subject. Her generation loved love like firelights, and knew little to nothing of hearth. Her generation had a penchant for the Carpe Diem, which to her seemed increasingly like a drug addiction, emotion being the drug of choice, reason seemingly lost. Sometimes, even being so young, she felt left behind just because she thought of meaning and purpose when people never saw beyond their noses. Just like with the food apparating on the four tables, whose origin people didn't want to know, even when they knew there were slaves working under.

And sometimes, because she was part of this generation, she herself lacked the data for reasoning. She was suddenly aware that she herself had known little about love. Everything she knew, had been taught by her friends. Ron, who had an actual family, not just a pair of well-meaning but mostly distracted parents. Harry, who had missed and sublimated his during his entire life.

The chime to midnight resounded once, twice. She stood as it rang the third time, wearing her shoes as it sounded a fourth time still. By the time she opened the portrait, the last echo was faint. Harry came unannounced and draped her in the cloak, making her tense, but she relaxed against him almost at once. The cloak fit the both of them, though they were too grown-ups for it to accommodate anyone else.

"What?" she asked.

He was looking at her in a sort of awe.

"First time I see you wearing a handkerchief"

She blushed then, remembering why she had thought of covering her hair in the first place:

"Let's go" she said.

But he wasn't moving.

Just then, she saw Dobby nearby. She looked at Harry suspiciously, then at the creature she had the feeling was here for them. I really hope you haven't used Dobby for yet another mission, she was to scold him, but if the elf was here for his own reasons, then she shouldn't warn him of their presence.

Then the elf took her out of her misery:

"Dobby has a surprise for the miss!" he said elatedly.

Now her eyes on Harry were dismayed. She didn't really expect Dobby to put it like that. Besides, the green-eyed boy was also smiling at her, which had on her about the same effect that a jelly-legs curse.

"The miss gave socks to Dobby and elves friends, now Dobby got something ready for her. Does the miss want to see?"

The elf went under the cloak and, giant eyes looking up at her adoringly, he grabbed both of their hands and apparated them away.

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Ten minutes after that, they were still standing in the study. Harry was fidgeting. She hadn't said a single word, nor had she taken her gaze off the books –and there wasn't that much light, really, just silvery moonlight bathing everything, so she couldn't be reading all of their titles, could she?-. He knew it'd be a good idea to take her here first, soften her a bit after Dobby's intervention –which was sort of inevitable if he wanted to surprise her-, but apparently she hadn't gotten past the elf's recruitment.

"If there is ever a need for a place… say, where a crying baby wouldn't wake up the entire dorm and professor McGonagall" he gulped, not wanting that to come true, at all, "then I figured the Shrieking Shack's cut for that. We already thought of it when planning the DA meetings, remember? Now that we aren't twenty-eight, and we actually fit together under a cloak, maybe it's not such a bad place to start."

Had she moved? Yes, she had. She was approaching the nearest bookshelf. Harry watched her hand shake over the crystal covering the books, and he really hoped it wasn't such a bad sign.

"It's still Hogwarts property, I checked with Tonks and double-checked with the elves. Dobby and I set wards all around this wing, but it's only a section, so it won't be apparent that it's inhabited as long as we're careful."

She had extracted a book and had just sat on the floor heavily. He didn't really know if he was expected to stand here and be silent and let her read. He eyed the elf, but Dobby just vanished. Harry thought he should have expected something like this, given the way they had met. Hesitantly, he stepped forth until he could –very slowly- sit beside her. She was reading the back cover of something called "Tales of Beedle the Bard", the wand casting a soft lumus, and as he watched, she opened it in a random page, browsed until she found the beginning of a unit –one of the tales, for sure- and stayed there. He stared at the symbol on the top of the page –he wasn't close enough to actually read- until she turned the page.

Then he turned his own gaze to her, gold and silver light shadowing more than exposing her profile. Her hand put a lock of hair behind her ear. She was so very pretty… Specially as she read. He didn't mind that small crease in her forehead, and her biting of her lower lip just made him think of said lip and how soft it was and how it tasted. Beyond her, he still could see the bookcases. In an inspired moment, he dared say:

"It's all yours. I truly believe no one has claimed any of these in ages, and I cleaned and repaired them, so I guess… if they are mine to give… they are all yours"

Sharp intake of breath, on her part.

"What hour is it?" she said as she set the book carefully apart, caressing the cover.

"Ermm… Minutes past midnight?"

"Close enough"

Then he found himself falling back with a curtain of brown hair before his eyes. But he didn't mind in the least, because she smelled like treacle tart and then she was kissing him as if he was oxygen and she was drowning. His feelings, initially all-innocent, spiraled fast and he was soon trying to think past the sensuous contact of her lips and tongue on his neck. His fingers found her back and caressed it lightly, and she shivered in a most unnerving way. He hadn't even noticed that she was by now opening the buttons of his shirt… well, he noticed when she started covering the exposed skin with her own lips. It was all overpowering and he hadn't really planned to lose contact with reality just yet, though as he felt her smart yet shy tongue between his pectorals, he couldn't really say that he didn't want to.

And then, as suddenly as it had begun, it stopped. It still took time for his mind to stop reeling, by then she was fingering his neck and what he was wearing on it today: a chain. He knew why it had distracted her (besides being in her way): it was pretty and distinctly feminine, the colors changing with the light. Her gaze was too fixed on the pretty thing, which meant she was probably avoiding his. It still took a moment for him to pinpoint a reason for her to do so, until he remembered Hermione's offer some days ago… of Parvati. Was she thinking about that?

"Sirius gave it to me before… you know"

She was still not looking at him, but at the chain. He knew then that she didn't know how to act regarding him. It wasn't as if she was used to lose faith in him, but this –wearing a female ornament she herself hadn't given him- was admittedly a good reason to start. She hadn't precisely opposed his pursuing other girls, quite the opposite, which gave him absolutely no reason to do so behind her back. And his excuse was that he had received it from another male. Knowing her, she was also belittling herself for being petty and jealous.

"It's Goblin silver, and it has several very interesting properties" he explained slowly. "For one, it'd warn me if you were at risk"

At the mention of herself, the witch eyed him. His gaze never left hers as he raised his head to detach the accessory from his neck. The metal shone in white, gold and red, depending upon the light it was exposed to. She sat beside him, so he could sit too, and he wondered if that meant something was very right, or very wrong.

"It can be worn however you want" the necklace on his open hand changed to bangle, to wristband; but between a shape and the other, it always became a ring.

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(1) When writing this part, I remembered the criticism to Hermione for not being too shaken by Dobby's death –the 'tea' line of the movie-, with which she'd be kind of undeserving of the elf's unwavering loyalty. Know that in the books there's no such line, she's in shock because of her own torture and not near Dobby's corpse. While I like movies –specially the harmione scenes- I'd very much like to stick to books in this case –as in McGonagall's order to Slytherins just before the Final Battle.

(2) quote by Vinicius de Moraes

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Preview:

"This is your mom's wedding ring, right?"

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I love what Harry did with the shack, don't you? Even if they move –which is entirely up to you. That's the topic of the following poll: where are they to live?

I'll also ask a… let's say… statistical question. My Revelio is getting me attention enough in its Spanish version, and I can't fathom why the English version –which is pretty much the same- has been nearly ignored. Have any of you experienced something similar? I'd appreciate if you'd let me know, not here (let's keep these reviews for this story), but in Revelio's reviews or through PM.

Anyway, back to this chapter… What did you think of Ginny's teachings? Are you liking the length of the chapters, or are they too long, or too short? Whether you go to the other story, or not, please don't forget to let me know how you felt about this chapter in the white square below.