Thank you, Aani, for helping plan this chapter and alpha-reading it, and thank you ATP Synthase for helping with my grammar.
Harry awoke with a start, panting heavily. He rubbed his eyes and was surprised when he felt slight dampness on his face that made him exhale in exasperation. He had been crying. After wiping the rest of his face he just sat there in silence, regaining his wits as he tried to calm himself down.
It's just a dream, it's just a stupid dream
He kept repeating that in his head and it became the soothing mantra that kept him from spiraling. Because that was the truth. It was just a stupid nightmare. It was just his subconscious trying to torture him… right?
It had to be. The song clearly said they'd take what he sorely missed, not who he'd sorely miss. There was no way they would take Hermione.
But as much as he tried to rationalize it or convince himself that it couldn't be true, it sounded hollow. It sounded fake. It sounded forced. Because deep down, he knew that it was a lie. He'd known there was something off about the task ever since that night when they had opened the egg.
It had all seemed too easy.
It didn't make sense that after having to face a dragon blindly, the second task would be figuring out a way to breathe underwater for an hour and going on a scavenger hunt for his most prized possession in a lake with barely any harmful magical creatures.
With how dangerous the tournament was and how many contestants had died throughout the years, it was impossible for the second task to be so innocuous and straightforward. And that's because it wasn't.
"We've taken what you'll sorely miss,"
The words repeated themselves inside his head, mocking him. It should have been so obvious since the start. It was no competition really. Hermione was the one person who's always been by his side, he couldn't imagine his life without her.
"But past an hour, the prospect's black, too late, it's-"
No! He wouldn't think like that. He couldn't think like that.
Harry immediately sprang from his bed, grabbed the robes that he had left on the floor last night, and made his way towards the bathroom as quietly as he could. Thirty minutes later, he was stepping out of the common room and making his way towards Dumbledore's office as his desperate mind made it impossible to control his emotions.
He purposely strode up the stairs and without even bothering to knock he loudly opened the door, ignoring the way it crashed against the wall. The room was completely empty except for Dumbledore, who was sitting behind his desk with a mask of calmness that Harry knew hid his shock.
As soon as Harry looked at Dumbledore he knew it was true, there was no lying to himself anymore. Hermione would be taken as his hostage for the second task. It wasn't anything about Dumbledore that made him come to this realization, he still looked the same as always, but for some reason, he couldn't deny it anymore. There, right in front of him, was the man who would take Hermione away from him and put her in danger. And so, Harry stopped trying to control his emotions, he stopped trying to actually think. He did what he had always done, he sprung into action.
"You're not taking her from me," Harry said in a deadly low voice that even surprised him, not that he bothered to show it.
Dumbledore's mask broke into confusion. "Pardon?"
"Hermione. You're not taking her from me."
"Harry, I'm afraid that I don't underst-"
"You understand damn well, Dumbledore!" Harry snarled at him before marching to his desk and towering over him. "You can take my map, you can take my cloak - hell, you can take my wand for all I care! But you're not using Hermione as my hostage for the second task!"
"Harry," Dumbledore started in a placating tone that sounded way too patronizing for Harry's taste. "You know that we can't talk about the tournament, it would go against the Goblet's rules. All I will say on this topic is that the organizers and I will make sure that the tournament goes without incident."
"Without incident!?" Harry exclaimed incredulously before laughing bitterly. "I must say, you've done a marvelous job at that! It's not as if there was an incident before the tournament even started when my name came out of the Goblet! No, not at all! Everything has been going splendidly so far! It's not like the chains of the Hungarian Horntail broke and it killed two dragon handlers! No, sir! Everything has just been going fucking perfectly, hasn't it!?"
"Harry, please don't use that language with me." Dumbledore chastised mildly before sighing deeply. "We know all of the incidents that have happened ever since and we've been working extensively to make sure that these accidents don't happen in the second task. I assure you that we're doing everything we can to make them as safe as possible for anyone involved."
"I'm sorry, Headmaster," Harry emphasized the word with as much distaste as possible. "But you can't possibly expect me to believe this, can you? Hogwarts has never been safe! A troll got into the school and almost killed Hermione, a mass murderer infiltrated Hogwarts while posing as the Defence teacher, we got a detention at the forbidden forest where Voldemort nearly killed me, and we had to stop him from stealing the philosopher's stone where he nearly killed me - again! And that was just the first year!" Dumbledore opened his mouth to speak but Harry didn't let him. "Second year we had a sixty-foot basilisk roaming the school as if it was taking a walk in the park while petrifying, and nearly killing, any student in its path, including my best friend. And it turned out that a memory of Voldemort was the one controlling this, not to mention that he nearly came back to life and almost killed Ginny Weasley to do this! Then in third year, there were dementors all around the school that decided I was as tasty as a massive feast is to a hungry man - oh, and let's not forget how another mass murderer had been sleeping in my room for my first three years at Hogwarts and it's honestly a miracle that he didn't kill me during that time. So don't lecture me about safety because I know what your definition of it is, and I'm not really eager to subject Hermione to that." Harry finished coldly to a slack-jawed Dumbledore.
"Look," The Headmaster continued a moment later. "Harry, I'm asking you to trust me on this. I am doing everything in my power to make sure that there are no more incidents in this tournament.
"I do trust you, sir," Harry said genuinely. "I trust you with my life. But not with Hermione's. I won't ever gamble her life on anyone's word! I'm the one that was forced into the tournament! I'm the one who has to face all the tasks that you and the others come up with! I'm the one who has to risk his life in this bloody tournament! NOT HER!"
"Harry -"
"Save it, Headmaster," Harry growled as he turned around and walked to the door. "You're not putting Hermione down there, I won't let you. And if you even so much as try to do so, I will never forgive you!"
Without even waiting for Dumbledore to answer, Harry left the Headmaster's office slamming the door as hard as he could. He descended the stairs, fuming with unrestrainable anger as he did before he stopped when he reached the bottom. In less than two hours he would have his first class of the day and he needed to have breakfast before finishing the potions essay he had left for today.
Classes! Are you mental!? A voice in his head shouted. After learning the true meaning of the second task you're just going to go to class and act as if nothing's happening!? As if Hermione couldn't be kidnapped at any moment!? Are you going to risk her life so that you can retain the last aspect of normality on your own!?
"No," Harry whispered to himself before walking the opposite way to the Great Hall and towards the room.
He had wasted enough time already during the Christmas break. It was time to stop playing games.
The next two weeks went by fast, much much faster than Harry would have wanted them to. After his meeting with Dumbledore, he had decided to skip every class until the second task was done, much to the displeasure of Dumbledore, the other teachers (except Snape), and especially Hermione. She had given him a good talking to for his decision and had been very cross with him for the first week because of it to the point where she stopped talking to him. In Harry's book that was fine, it allowed him to concentrate more on making sure she's alive so that he can fix the situation with her.
And that's exactly what he had done. He holed himself inside the room of requirement and did nothing but train. He extended his swimming hours to forty per week to make sure he had all the necessary stamina for the task, he continued practicing all the spells he had trained with ever since last summer and started reading ahead to the ones he would see in the second term of his fifth year. His days were completely filled, with all the swimming, dueling, reading, and practicing he did, he often forgot to do the simple things like eating, showering, or sleeping. After his fourth day there he decided to just stop leaving the room and staying there, he had everything he needed and didn't want to waste time walking around the castle. The room could easily make a bed for him and after discovering that Dobby worked in the Kitchens early in January, he had someone there to bring him food.
His friends had quickly grown concerned about him and had even started visiting him for the first few days. Neville usually stayed the longest with the excuse that he wanted a quiet place to do his homework, but Harry knew he was just there to keep an eye on him. After a while, Harry couldn't handle the pitying looks, the questions about what brought this on, if he was really alright, and the offers for help. So it didn't take long before Harry blocked anyone from being able to enter the room.
A few days after he did he started getting calls to his mirror from everyone; Hermione, Sirius, Remus. It was getting ridiculous! No one could help him and the last thing he wanted was for them to distract him from his training with stupid things like his health or his hygiene or whatever! They didn't understand and Harry didn't expect them to, there was a reason why he hadn't told them about what he had learned. He just needed space, he needed to train, and he needed quiet.
He needed to save Hermione.
Harry stepped out of the pool and shivered as his body adjusted to the cold of the room. He'd spent the last two hours doing nothing but swimming laps around the pool and the worst thing is that he would have to repeat that he had to repeat that one more time today. He had barely slept four hours, hadn't eaten a thing since his breakfast from yesterday, and his whole body felt sore from all the training he'd been doing for the past two weeks. But he couldn't stop, not until the second task was over and Hermione was completely safe. So his body would just have to cooperate with his brain.
He walked to the changing room nearby where he dried himself and changed out of his swimming trunks before changing into more comfortable clothes. He tiredly moved towards the library area to continue his research on the revulsion jinx before he suddenly stopped in his tracks and oddly felt the need to pinch himself.
For a very angry and most likely very real Hermione Granger was standing right in front of him.
The two just stared at each other, Harry with a blank face that portrayed nothing while Hermione's glare could rival the basilisk's gaze. It wasn't until a couple of moments later that Harry truly understood that Hermione really was here before he sighed in resignation and mentally cursed the month he'd been having before he continued walking towards his desk.
"Sit down, make yourself at home. If you want there are some snacks left from a couple of days ago." Harry said offhandedly as he sat on the chair and started rifling through the book.
He finally found the page and started reading while taking notes on the subject.
"Excuse me?" Hermione said in a voice so quiet, so controlled, and so cold that it would have scared Harry had he not been completely sleep-deprived, hungry, and sore.
"If you want you can call on Dobby to bring you some food from the kitchen," Harry replied without stopping his writing. "I'm sure he wouldn't mind."
Harry continued reading until he noticed that the silence had gone for too long before he looked at Hermione. She was still standing in the same spot she had been, looking at him in a way that conveyed anger, confusion, hurt, incredulity, sadness, and more things Harry couldn't really identify. Hermione opened her mouth and closed it about seven times before she could finally get something out.
"You - I - we- " She paused and gave a deep sigh before she glared directly at him. "You've been holed up in here for the past week, doing Merlin knows what, barely sleeping, eating nothing but those… snacks!" She said as she motioned to the bunch of uneaten snacks on the other side of the table. "If I didn't know any better I would say you haven't even showered! And I come here, managing to find a way to get past your stupid restriction on the bloody door! And the first thing you say to me… is to just make myself at home and eat your leftovers!?"
"Yeah, pretty much," Harry shrugged numbly. A part of him wanted to get back to his research but he knew that he probably shouldn't ignore his girlfriend. He dropped his quill and closed his book before fully turning to her. "What do you want me to say, Hermione?" Harry asked helplessly.
"What do I want you to say?" Hermione repeated the question to herself as if trying to understand it. "What do I want you to say!? How about apologizing for suddenly locking yourself up in here and not letting me here!? How about apologizing for not answering any of my calls!? How about telling me why you did all of this in the first place!?"
"I needed to focus on the tournament," Harry answered as if he was saying the grass was green. "You were mad at me for not going to classes and the others were becoming a distraction. I haven't had any time to answer your calls and by the time I'm free you're all already asleep."
Hermione stared at him incredulously as she spluttered things Harry couldn't make out before she stared at him with an unstoppable fire in her eyes. "No, this - all of this, it stops now! You're going to go take a shower, you're going to come with me to the Great Hall and actually eat something that isn't just junk food, you're going to go to the boys' dorm room where you're going to sleep until tomorrow morning, and then we're going to talk about this!"
"Hermione, I -"
"Don't you dare Hermione me, Harry James Potter!" Hermione growled as she stomped towards him. "You're in here killing yourself about the stupid tournament for no apparent reason! You're either going to burn yourself out and be unable to do anything in the task or you're going to end up killing yourself trying! Is this what you want!? To kill yourself because of the freaking tournament!?"
"I'm not doing this because I want to, I'm doing this because I have to!" Harry shouted as he stood up and stared down straight into Hermione's eyes.
"Why!? Why do you have to!? So you can win this bloody competition!? Is that really worth your life!?"
"I'm not doing this because I want to win the tournament!"
"Then why!? Why the hell are you doing this!?"
"TO SAVE YOU!" Harry bellowed at her before he slumped into his chair as he felt a heavy weight leave his shoulders. "The second task, they're not going to take away my map or my cloak, or anything like that." Harry didn't know why he continued talking, but once he started he couldn't stop. "They're going to use human hostages, Hermione. They - they're going to take you." He finished in a whisper.
There was a moment of silence before Hermione broke it. "Idiot," She whispered. "You stupid, dense, thick, bloody prat! Is this why you suddenly went insane!?" She began pacing around the room. "Idiot! You should have told me about this as soon as you knew! If someone is going to dump me at the bottom of the lake and use me as your hostage then I deserved to know! We could've prepared! We could have planned! We could have talked about this rationally instead of wasting all this time! There are only ten days before the second task now and you've burnt yourself out to the point where you're going to have to rest for the next two days before you continue practicing!"
"No! Hermione -"
"Harry, stop!" Hermione shouted at him before she rubbed her temples in frustration. "Shower, eat, sleep, and then we talk about it."
Harry was about to decline before he took a good look at her face. She seemed as if she was about to break at any second, so he just nodded.
Hermione was sitting on the edge of Harry's bed, gently stroking his hair as he slept. After their argument in the room, she had left and instructed the other three to make sure that he followed her orders before she left to be in her own company. She didn't want to stay with Harry knowing that she would end up saying something she would regret if she did, she needed to review the new information and think things over.
It was almost three hours later that she had returned to the Gryffindor Tower and was relieved when Neville told her that Harry had done everything she asked of him and was sleeping. She stared at his prone body and couldn't help the small smile that crossed her face. He looked so peaceful in his sleep and so much better than the walking corpse she had found in the room.
Hermione sighed and shook her head before she heard the door slowly open and Lavender peeked inside and looked at her expectantly. Hermione gave her a reluctant nod, knowing she wouldn't be able to put off this conversation any longer. She leaned down and pressed a lingering kiss to Harry's temple before she stood up and walked towards Lavender.
When they were outside, the blonde studied her carefully before she grasped her hand. "How are you?" She asked softly. "You seem tired."
Hermione chuckled despite herself. "Understatement of the century." She said ruefully before looking at Lavender's eyes. "I'm fine, it's just - Harry and I are going to have a long conversation, that's all."
"I would be a bit concerned if you didn't," Lavender said with a slight grin. "Anything you can share with me?"
"Not right now," She shot Lavender a half-hearted smile. "I need to get on the same page with Harry before we tell you about this."
"Harry and Hermione, Gryffindor's inseparable power couple." Lavender teased lightly.
Hermione laughed gently. "Yeah... I wish," She finished in a whisper.
"Look," Lavender said seriously. "Harry may have been a complete jerk for the past two weeks, but he's obviously not alright. When he came down with us during lunch at the Great Hall he looked… lifeless, it was almost as if a dementor had sucked his soul. I'm not trying to excuse his behaviour, but from what I've come to know about Harry is that he isn't the person everybody thinks he is. He's a stubborn, moody, intense arse that can be a bit dim at times. I know I don't need to tell you that, you're his girlfriend! You know him better than I do, better than he knows himself! Just don't forget that everything he does, he does it because he loves you and not because he's actively trying to be the world's biggest prat."
Hermione snorted. "He does have a knack to seem that way doesn't he?"
"Of course he does." Lavender rolled her eyes at her. "Love is the most powerful emotion, Hermione, and only love can drive someone into madness as it did to Harry. And that's without taking into account how passionate the idiot already is!"
Hermione exhaled something that was in the middle of a laugh and a sigh. "What am I going to do with that idiot?"
"You'll ravish him like you always do," Lavender said suggestively, making Hermione shake her head in amusement and disappointment. "Honestly, I don't know. But whatever happens, I'm sure you two will end up stronger than before. You always do."
Hermione sat in front of Harry as he fidgeted nervously.
It had been two days since she had confronted him inside this very room and they had been avoiding each other ever since. Harry had slept for twenty hours straight and had eaten more food in a day than Hermione had thought was humanly possible. Neville had also forced Harry (under Hermione's insistence) that he should go to Madam Pomfrey who gave him some potions to undo the damage the idiot had done to himself in the last two weeks. In Hermione's opinion, it was a miracle that Harry hadn't done any permanent damage to himself that would have jeopardized his performance in the tournament. So now, with only slightly over a week until the second task, Hermione had told him to meet her in the room so that the two of them could talk about this in private.
They had been sitting in front of each other in an awkward silence that Hermione broke after three minutes.
"Why?" She asked in a small voice. "Why didn't you tell me, Harry? Ignoring the fact that I should have known about it since it is me who's going to be taken as a hostage and ignoring the fact that Lavender, Parvati, Neville, and I promised we would help you every step of the way of the second task, we are still a couple, Harry! We're supposed to be a team! We're supposed to support each other, lean on each other, talk to each other! So why didn't you tell me?"
"It's… I didn't mean it like that, Hermione." Harry said immediately before pausing to order his thoughts. "I… I had a nightmare. I was on the bottom of the lake during the second task looking for my hostage. And then I found… you. You were my hostage, Hermione. I swam to you as fast as I could to get you out of there but there was this… this invisible barrier that kept me from you." Hermione saw how Harry started to silently cry but he continued nonetheless. "I kept trying to get past that barrier as the creepy song from the egg kept playing but it didn't matter what I did, I couldn't. And then… then you woke up." Harry sobbed and violently wiped the tears off his face before continuing in a shaky voice. "But you couldn't breathe underwater like I could, you were slowly drowning. I tried, Hermione, I swear to Merlin I tried everything I could to get past the barrier, to try to save you. I launched every spell I could but none couldn't even damage the barrier, I hit it until I physically couldn't anymore, and it still didn't do anything. And all the while, I had to watch how your face slowly turned blue, I had to watch how you passed out and started twitching I had to… I had to watch as you died right in front of my eyes." He paused as his breath hitched in his throat. "When I woke up, I realized that that wasn't you, that none of what I saw was real. But… but watching that happen in front of me, living that! I-it didn't feel any different from any of my nightmares about Voldemort. It felt just as real as them!"
Harry tried to choke back a sob as Hermione watched him, her heart was breaking in half as she imagined what he had lived through. The mere thought of watching Harry slowly die right in front of her eyes while she was powerless to save him was paralyzing. She couldn't even imagine even dreaming it, much less feeling it like Harry clearly did.
"As soon as I woke up, I went to Dumbledore. I demanded him that he not use you as my hostage! I even threatened him about it! But he never actually told me that he wouldn't. He never even denied that he would use human hostages! After that, I couldn't just go back to school and pretend everything was normal. Pretend that I wasn't going to have to face the possibility that you were going to be put under that lake because of me. I had wasted enough time during the winter break and I couldn't afford to lose any more of it." Harry dropped his head in shame. "I'm sorry I didn't tell you. I didn't know how it would affect you and I didn't want you to worry. This is supposed to be my fight, you shouldn't be forced into this position. I'm sorry for locking you and the others out, I couldn't continue lying to your faces and didn't want to lose focus from the tournament. I… I'm just sorry. For everything."
Harry's sobs that followed his apology were the only sound in the room as Hermione looked at him. She wanted to yell at him for being a stupid noble prat and keeping all of this inside. She wanted to shout at him for keeping her out of the loop and treating her as a damsel in distress instead of as his partner. But as she looked at him, she realized she couldn't do that. She couldn't stand the sight of Harry, her Harry, looking as broken as he had been the days after the Quidditch World Cup. Her own chest was in agony just at seeing him like that.
Hermione slowly stood up from her chair and walked him before hugging him to her. As soon as she did, Harry latched on to her as if she were his anchor keeping him there. He sobbed into her chest and mumbled incoherently.
"It's okay, Harry. You're okay. We're going to be okay, I promise."
At her words, Harry only seemed to bury himself further into her and hold her tighter, as if gathering his strength from her being. She kept saying words of reassurance until Harry stopped crying, after that she was just content with hugging him and basking on the warm feeling he always gave her and that she had missed for the past two weeks.
They were going to be okay.
An hour later, Harry and Hermione had left the room and gone to Gryffindor tower where they met their other three friends. Since Ron and Seamus occupied the boys' dorm, the five Gryffindors had to leave the tower and go to the nearest empty classroom. Harry told them about what he had learned about the hostages.
"The first thing we need to do," Harry continued after a moment of silence. "Is to make sure that Hermione doesn't get taken as a hostage."
"Harry, we could use this to our advantage -"
"No, Hermione!" Harry interrupted her. "Having you down there doesn't give us any advantage! We already decided to forgo tracking charms because the organizers will probably remove them so knowing you will be my hostage doesn't help! All it does is put you in unnecessary danger when the tournament is my problem!"
"Harry, I'm not some useless princess for you to save," Hermione said matter-of-factly while she glowered at him. "If I'm down there with you I can help you! It wouldn't just be you alone fighting whatever's in the lake!"
"This isn't because I think you're a useless witch, Hermione. I've known you for far too long to even think that! But do you really think that the tournament organizers will allow you to help me!? They wouldn't want anyone to disturb their bloody competition! And for that matter, how do you know something won't go wrong and you won't drown! We already had the Horntail break free from its chains in the first task, there is no guarantee that there won't be another accident in this task that will end up costing you your life! I'm not risking that, Hermione!"
"He's right, Hermione," Lavender said before Hermione could make a rebuke. "There's no way the tournament organizers will let the hostages do anything to help the champions. The Triwizard Tournament is probably the most popular event happening in Britain right now, especially with Harry competing, I would be surprised if there weren't massive bets on which one of the champions would win." Harry huffed but Lavender ignored him. "Which means that they'll do everything in their power to make sure that the hostages don't interfere with the task."
"Is there nothing we can do to stop Hermione from being taken as a hostage?" Parvati asked.
"When it comes to this tournament, I doubt there is. After all, I was entered without my consent and I was unable to quit. Why would this be any different?"
"What if we leak it to the press?" Neville asked. "Surely if people knew that the tournament was using human hostages they would do something to try and stop it, right?"
"You are talking about the same people who just got more excited when Harry was entered illegally? The same people who didn't say anything when the Horntail killed two people and almost killed Harry." Hermione fumed.
"No one will care, Neville," Lavender continued for Hermione. "This tournament is nothing more than a bit of entertainment for everyone. To them, it's no different than watching any other Quidditch match. Besides, it's like you said the other day, Hermione is a muggle-born. Unless someone like Malfoy ends up being the hostage people won't even blink at it."
"What about her parents? Can't they just not give Hermione permission to participate in the tournament and have that be it?" Parvati offered. "I mean, our parents had to give permission for us to go to Hogsmeade, surely the same thing applies to participating in the tournament."
"Not really," Hermione shrugged helplessly. "Harry wasn't seventeen and yet he was forced into the tournament and they didn't even tell his guardians about it. Where the Triwizard Tournament is concerned, we can't make any assumptions that the parents will have any say about it. Especially the muggle parents of a filthy mudblood." Hermione spat distastefully causing Neville, Parvati, and Lavender to gape at her.
"Don't call yourself that! You're not that, Hermione!" Harry snapped at her.
"I am, Harry!" Hermione retorted fiercely. "It's time I admit that to myself. I'm a filthy little mudblood whose blood is tainted with muggle genes. It seems that everyone will constantly remind me of that, so I'm owning it. I'm a filthy mudblood and I'm proud of it!"
"Hermione, I -"
"I know, Lavender." Hermione interrupted softly. "You didn't mean it like that but you're right. That's how the wizarding world will always see me and it's way past time I embrace that." She said determinately. "I'm not telling my parents about this, it wouldn't do any good and I know them. If they even think that things are dangerous here at Hogwarts they'll get me out of here before the second task even happens." Harry opened his mouth and she turned to him harshly. "Don't you dare even finish that thought, Harry James! I'm not leaving you, not even so that I won't be taken as a hostage, so don't even bother! And don't even try to contact my parents through your mirror or you will regret it! I'm staying here with you!"
Harry looked like he still wanted to say something and Hermione raised an eyebrow at him as if daring him to do it. Harry shut his mouth and sighed in exasperation. "Fine, but then we need to find a place to hide you because I'm not risking you being my hostage!" Hermione still looked reluctantly at Harry before she finally nodded.
"Fine," She grumbled.
"Where can she hide so that Dumbledore won't find her?" Neville asked.
"The Chamber of Secrets," Harry said simply and everyone stared at him slack-jawed. "I'm the only person in the whole school that can enter. No one will be able to find her there."
"Are you serious!?" Hermione snapped. "I'm not going to spend Merlin knows how much time in the Chamber of Secrets! It's not only located basically in the sewer of the school but there's also a rotting corpse of a basilisk that has been there for the past two years! You'll have to find another place."
"What about the room? I managed to hide there for two weeks without any of you managing to get inside." Harry added sheepishly.
"The house-elves know about the room, Harry. They actually call it the come and go room or the room of requirement." Hermione said gently. "I kind of… made Dobby apparate me to the room the other day. That's how I managed to get inside the other day. So if Dumbledore asks the house-elves, they would surely be able to find me there."
"Fuck!" Harry exclaimed as he stood up and started pacing around. "So we need to find a place that the house-elves don't know about and where no one can find you…" Harry continued pacing around the room for a minute or so before he paused and beamed at her.
"I know where we can hide you!"
The week that followed was much more relaxed than the first two weeks of February.
On Hermione's insistence, Harry had limited his training back to his original schedule from January and he returned back to attending classes (something that pleased all his teachers except for Snape). To make sure that he didn't take things too far again, Hermione began to spend all the time with him and limiting the training he did whenever he went overboard. Neville, Lavender, and Parvati kept her company while she did so, but the three often rotated times and they didn't spend all their time with them, which was fine by Hermione.
After all, Harry had two weeks of snogs to make up for.
As the day of the second task started to get closer and closer, Hermione could see how Harry was slowly winding back up to the state he was in during the first couple of weeks of February. She tried her best to calm him down and to… distract him from his thoughts, however, she knew that Harry wouldn't be calm until the task was over. They kept going over their plan for what seemed like thirty times per day and it was usually when Harry started to deteriorate like that that Hermione shut him up in the best possible way.
However, by the day before the second task that Hermione herself started getting nervous. She had compartmentalized all her anxiety so that she could make sure that Harry was ready for the task but now with less than twenty-four aways away from the task, she couldn't ignore those feelings anymore. Hermione was terrified that something might go wrong in the task and she could end up hurt or worse, she was even more terrified by the uncertainty of whether or not their plan would really work. Not knowing if she would end up being the hostage or not was killing her, she hated not being in control and with something as big as the situation she was in, it was hard not to spiral.
She just hoped their plan would actually work.
As soon as Harry and Hermione had finished their dinner they said goodbye to their friends before quickly making their way to the room of requirement. Harry paced in front of the empty wall three times before the door suddenly appeared. They stepped inside the small, empty room and immediately headed for the door that was on the right. They made their way up the path until they finally reached their destination.
Marauder Tower.
Harry had been hanging around here more on his alone time but the place was still mostly the same. The bunch of pillows and blankets was still there, the couple of tables that had been filled with food the night of Hermione's birthday were still there even if the food wasn't. The only different thing was that the spot where he had put the mirror that September night was now empty.
"Alright," Harry said as he walked around the room and began to ramble the plan he'd burned into his mind at this point. "Sirius' reassured me that no one ever learned about this place and therefore it's very unlikely for anyone to find us here. Since the teachers may take the hostages in the night, we'll spend the night here, and we'll stay here until the last possible moment to make sure that you are not used as my hostage. When we can't put it off anymore, we'll meet the others at Gryffindor tower before we all go down to the second task. Unfortunately, since we don't want to alert anyone of the existence of the tower or of our presence here, we can't call Dobby to bring us any food. So I hope you had a big dinner."
Hermione nodded before gently dropping her book bag and moving to the bed. When she realized that he hadn't made a move to join her, she looked at him expectantly.
"You can sleep in the blankets, I'll take the floor," Harry said offhandedly.
"Don't," She said softly. "Stay with me."
"Hermione, I don't think it would be for the best if we slept together. We already talked about this -"
"We won't do anything, I just… I really need for you to just be with me tonight." She finished in a small voice before looking away.
Harry felt a tinge of guilt at how Hermione was feeling because of him. He had seen how she was trying to hide her apprehension from him, wanting to be strong and not worry him. But the fact that she was if only a little scared about tomorrow was plain for him to see. Without saying anything, he slowly sank down to the makeshift bed and lay beside her looking up at the charmed roof that looked like the night sky.
Harry magically turned the lights off and removed his glasses before he tried to drift to sleep. But as hard as he tried, he couldn't. The second task would be tomorrow, there was no stopping it anymore and no delaying it. And the worst part was that he didn't even know if their plan would work. He didn't know if Sirius would pull through and get the gillyweed, he had no idea if Lavender's information was actually accurate, and as much as he tried to convince himself, he still didn't believe that Hermione would be safe. She was right there with him and yet, Harry knew he wouldn't be truly at peace until the task was over. Until the threat against Hermione was done.
Suddenly, Harry felt Hermione shift in the bed so that she was facing him. He could see her chocolate eyes staring at him intently, and he couldn't help but feel as if she was staring directly at his soul. Harry opened his mouth to try and say something but before he could, Hermione put her finger on his lips in a silent plea that he don't say anything.
Harry nodded reluctantly and Hermione gave him a tender smile. She leaned forward and started peppering his neck with soft kisses.
"H-Hermione?"
"Shhh," She whispered without stopping her ministrations.
Harry sighed in relaxation before raising his head, giving her better access to his neck. She continued kissing him, making a trail up his neck to his jaw, his earlobes, his cheeks, his forehead, and his eyelids. As Hermione kissed every single inch of his face, he felt a month's worth of tension slowly leave him and be replaced by the utter bliss Hermione gave him. She made her way down his face again and began to kiss the corner of his mouth before she finally locked her lips with his.
The kisses that followed were slow and languorous, nothing alike to the passionate snogs that had kept them distracted the past week and yet so much better. These kisses weren't to distract themselves from the reality of the second task, at this point that was inevitable. These kisses were ones of reassurance, unspoken promises to each other that they would pull through.
Hermione pulled away and stared at him for a few moments, her face filled with so many emotions that, in his relaxed state, he was unable to figure out what they were. And then… she smiled at him - and Merlin, Harry was sure that he would never see such a caring, concerned, thoughtful, and just purely affectionate smile like the one Hermione was giving him right now.
Harry had never felt so loved ever in his life than he felt at this moment, and it was this that calmed him more than anything else.
"Better?" She asked with a glimmer of hope in her eyes.
Even though Harry was nearly half-blind without his glasses, with how close Hermione was to him, he didn't need them to look at her face and read all the emotions swirling in the eyes that he had lost his heart to.
He put his arms around her shoulders, drawing her closer, as her head rested above his shoulder, and with a sigh, he hugged her to himself, softly uttering with a kiss to the crown of her head. "Always."
As they lay there, each gathering their strength from each other's presence. Hermione was here, she was fine, they were going to be fine. And for the first time since he had his nightmare, he truly believed that.
"Good night, Harry," She murmured into his chest with a kiss above his heart.
"Good night," Harry whispered just a moment before sleep easily overtook him.
Harry groaned as he woke up the next morning, feeling incredibly tired while at the same time feeling like he had overslept. He groaned and covered himself up deeper under the sheets, wanting to shake the cold feeling the bed had. A couple of minutes later everything came back to him as a smile crossed his face, last night he was in heaven while sleeping with Hermione. He didn't know how he could ever fall asleep again without her presence beside him. It was unthinkable.
Harry realized that the bed was so cold because Hermione had woken up before him. He opened his eyes and put on his glasses, expecting to find her somewhere around the tower reading.
Except he didn't.
The tower was exactly like they had left it last night except for one thing. Hermione Granger was nowhere in sight. Her book bag was still in the corner of the room where she had left it and her wand was still on the table beside their makeshift bed.
Harry immediately shot up from the bed as he ignored the way his heart dropped all the way to the Great Hall as he rushed towards his own book bag and fumbled for his mirror.
"Hermione Granger!" He exclaimed as soon as he had his hands on the object and then waited in silence.
And waited…
And waited…
And waited…
And then he heard it, the sound that made all the blood rush out of his face.
For Hermione's mirror had just vibrated inside her book bag.
Harry immediately shot upward and checked his watch. The same watch that Hermione had given him at Christmas.
It was almost ten in the morning.
Too late...
Hermione was nowhere in sight.
She's gone...
And the second task started in less than an hour.
She won't come back.
Alright, I'm back to ALAYWM after like a month and a half and I have a few announcements.
First, no, I have not abandoned this fic (which might be obvious by this chapter) and I've decided to focus on this fic and finish it before I move on to my other projects. Just thought I should make that clear here.
Secondly (this goes for the ao3 users), I'm going to split this fic into books under the same 'series'. I've decided to do this because the other installments will be incredibly different in tone (it will be more plot-driven rather than relationship-driven) and style (the POVs won't be exclusively from Harry and Hermione anymore). I'll remind you of this when I post the final chapter of Book 1 so that you know the saga is continuing on another work.
And finally, in my month-long break, I decided to edit something out. In chapters 23, 24, and 25 I had started the House-Elf arc with Hermione and the others but I realized that I made the same mistake as JK did and started the house-elf plotline without actually having a plan for it. So instead of continuing that I edited chapters 24 and 25 so that the arc was closed out neatly for the future.
I'd also like to thank Dragonfly117 for helping me out a bit. If you haven't read her fic (The Boy Who Lived, The Brightest Witch, and The Boy Who Wasn't) do yourself a favour, stop what you're doing (unless you're planning to keep reading my fic, then continue reading) and check it out. It's an amazing fic that also happens to be a 4th-year re-write (funny coincidence), so I'm sure that if you've enjoyed this fic so far, you'll love that one.
Alright, that's all from me now. Next chapter is The Second Task (as you might have deduced from the ending)