Hermione didn't know what to do. Harry had just disappeared with professor Moody, after screaming bloody murder with his hand attached to the very fresh corpse of Cedric Diggory.

Everyone, including her, had their senses in high alert.

She had been like that a bit earlier than the rest of the crowd though. A couple of minutes before Harry came back, Ginny had hunched like someone punched her in the guts. When she raised her eyes at Hermione, her eyes were entirely black. Her voice had a metallic undertone when she told Hermione "He's back." before quickly fleeing the scene. Hermione decided to stay for Harry and give Ginny some privacy.

Now she was there, still in the stadium with a bunch of panicked students, some crying, some having difficulties breathing, without either of her friends. Her plans had already failed dramatically. She cursed and forced herself to stand still.

"Think." She had lost time, and now both Ginny and Harry were out of reach…"Think." Harry would be safe, Dumbledore would ensure it. Ginny had no one but Hermione."Think."

She had to find Ginny.

Mme Pomfrey was busy preparing the body of Cedric Diggory for diagnostics. In her grief for the young man, she didn't hear Hermione Granger sneaking in the infirmary.

The mediwitch raised her wand when Hermione startled her, but sheathed it back in her belt once she recognized her student.

"Miss Granger, you shouldn't be here and I will ask you-"

Hermione cut the matron's lecture,

"Lord Voldemort is back. I'm afraid Ginny might just kill herself to at least weaken him a bit. Or in shame."

Pomfrey sighed, seeing the truth in Hermione's word. She wasn't called the brightest witch of her generation for nothing.

She looked sadly at the young Diggory." I can set my exams to run mostly autonomously. That should give us a couple of hours to find miss Weasley. But I will come back here to finish and release the boy to his father after that." She cast a decided look at Hermione.

"It's important."

And Hermione agreed happily for she needed all the help she could get.

They split up quickly, deciding to have Pomfrey starting from the dungeon and Hermione starting from the clock tower. They would find each other in the middle.

When they met in the middle, one hour had passed and they had no better idea of Ginny's location. They decided to cover the rest of Hogwarts: Pomfrey would go to Hagrid's, Hermione to the owlery. They would meet in 30 min to the entrance of the Forbidden forest if need be. Hermione hoped her friend was not so far gone.

But the owlery was empty. On her way to the Forbidden forest, swearing on her bad luck, Hermione thought of the boatshed. Ginny had mentioned taking her broom to fly over the water, and how soothing it was to her.

Hermione thanked Merlin about ten times when she saw Ginny's red hair in the corner of her eye.

The young witch was sitting on the cold stone floor, her legs in the water. She was staring at the water, dark with the moon's reflection dancing a few meters away from them. Her cheeks still had trails from her tears, but they were dry now.

Hermione sat calmly near her friend. "Found you."

Ginny took a couple of minutes. She looked like she was about to talk a couple of times, but stopped before really saying one word, blinking fast to avoid new tears.

She finally spoke. "If I die...No one knows him better than I do."

She looked at Hermione and said, "I'm going to survive this until we kill him." She took Hermione's hand "And then I'm going to survive some more."

Hermione squeezed her friend's hands, and started looking at the lake too. "Hear, hear."

After ten minutes, Hermione broke the contact to inform Ginny that Pomfrey was looking for her too. Ginny sent her Patronus with the promise to talk to the mediwitch in the morning.

The pair then stayed in a comfortable silence, contemplating the lake once again. Creating memories of calm before the storm hit, because they both knew something bigger than them was coming their way.

Hermione stirred.

"We should tell Harry immediately."

"I don't think Tom is going to attack him. He's a melodramatic bitch, and he will want the magical community to witness that a child could not best him. He needs to gather more strength before he attacks Harry."

Ginny squeezed Hermione's hand, imploring for her friend's logical mind to kick in. "I also would prefer to tell him in a safe environment when we can support him, and that's exactly what Hogwarts is. So I suggest we take a break this summer.

There's going to be a lot more people willing to help save the world soon. And I'm grateful for it.

But if we're going to risk our lives for the next little while, there are a few things I want to cross in my bucket list. And I'm pretty sure I can cover quite some ground in eight weeks."

Ginny looked at Hermione, her eyes full of hope.

Hermione took a minute, but smiled at the end.

"I could use some time with my parents. They were planning to visit Greece and I started researching the magic coming from the mediteranean islands. I could definitely pick up some interesting spells. After that, I plan to send them away to avoid them becoming a target."

"You don't think they will let you stay, don't you?"

"I never said I would ask for their opinions," Hermione trailed.

A pregnant pause, then Ginny emitted a dark chuckle.

"It's settled then. I'm planning to visit Japan, then Bill in Egypt."

"How did you manage to convince your mom?" asked Hermione, suspicious.

"I might have thrown a light Confundus on her when I handed her some of the money from the basilisk sales. Did you really think you'd be the only one deciding that hexing their parents was better than them knowing the truth?

She thinks I want to visit the pyramids again, but I'm planning on convincing Bill to let me apparate to the library of Alexandria."

Hermione snorted, "Bill is going to be much more complicated to hex… Are you leaving your golem here then?"

"Letting it go on a couple of 'follow-up' items. You?"

Hermione thought about her Golem. She could use it to learn, but she had found after visiting Hogwarts only on the weekends that the Golem wasn't really good to transmit knowledge.

Memories were ok, but the way they imprinted knowledge in their mud brain didn't translate properly to wizards. She couldn't use what the Golem had learnt. It was a weird feeling really: she could remember learning things, but she couldn't remember the things she had learnt.

A little smile appeared on Hermione's face, so unusual that Ginny paused, observing her friend with fascination.

"Mine can spend some time with Rita. Teach her a lesson."

Hermione filled Ginny on her deductions. The conversation soon evolved to the magics they hoped to discover during their summer trips. They also talked about what they wanted to do if they survived the war.

They knew. They knew that tomorrow, war would be here. And so they enjoyed their last moment of peace, promising to each other they would survive and have peace again.