September 5th, 1994

Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry

5:19 A.M.

The week and half that followed the Quidditch World Cup was abnormally hectic. On top of the chaos that always came to the Weasley house in the last week before school started, the added issues of what had occurred at the World Cup had compounded to create a truly stressful household. Mrs. Weasley spent all day and night tittering about the kitchen while she waited for Mr. Weasley and Percy to return from the gruelingly long days at work, at which point the both of them would practically collapse. They would be awake just long enough to shovel down the hot food Mrs. Weasley would place in front of them before wandering in the vague directions of their beds and passing out. They would be gone well before anyone else in the house was awake the next morning.

The rest of the Weasley family was much the same as their mother. Bill and Charlie led impromptu Quidditch games almost daily to keep everyone's mind off of it despite the fact that Hermione vehemently denied ever wanting to play. If it wasn't Quidditch than it was studying with Bill's help as Hermione – of course – wanted to get a jump start on the fourth year curriculum and often drug Harry and Ron along with her. The Twins had toned down their antics since the Cup, but no one was sure whether or not that was in response to the newly added stress their parents were under or their complete and total fear of being told off so smartly again. Ginny kept mostly to herself, content as always to be the one Weasley that was well prepared ahead of time for the departure to Hogwarts. She had, had her stuff packed since the day after the Cup, and she was taking a lot of joy in watching the days tick by without any of her brothers doing likewise.

As for the Golden Trio themselves, things had settled into a new sort of routine. It skewed one way or the other depending on the day. Either it was Harry and Hermione dealing with a surly Ron who was quite miffed at himself and at Malfoy for having damaged his leaf, or it was Ron and Harry being eternally grateful that the Mandrake leaf in her mouth was limiting Hermione's ranting abilities. It had looked as if she was going to take up some kind of revolutionary arms over Mr. Crouch's mistreatment of his elf before Harry had aggressively pointed at his own mouth in reminder. The following days of quiet had been met with much thanks from both Harry and Ron.

Then had come September 1st and the Hogwarts Express and Hogwarts itself where they had heard the announcement of the Triwizard Tournament, something they were all excited about. That two sister schools would be boarding at Hogwarts in just under two months had sent Hermione into an ecstatic frenzy to the point that she had even got over her surliness at the horrible thunderstorm that was plaguing the school that night. "You'll understand later," she had groused. Classes had hit the ground running – particularly Potions and Transfiguration, both of which were trying to get them prepared for the grueling O.W.L.s they would take next year. Of course, the most interesting by far was Professor Moody's Defense class whatever Hermione might have to say to the contrary. Granted, Neville might also have something to say about the quality of the class, but Harry and Ron thought it was right cool.

Still, the prevailing issue in the Trio's minds – even in Ron's unfortunately stalled case – were the Mandrake leaves affixed to the roof of two of their mouth's. The next full moon was still three weeks away, but the work was far from done. Hermione had submitted an owl order two days ago with Hedwig for the chrysalises of some kind of moth – evidently a necessary part of the potion – but there were still two major components that would require some legwork on all three of their parts. Ron had tried to skive off of it, citing his inability to complete the process with them upon the next full moon, but Hermione had cut him off at the knees by assuring him she would offer him no assistance when it was his turn if he dared to attempt that.

Today, Hermione would be sneaking into Snape's office with the Invisibility Cloak and the Marauder's Map to swipe three crystal phials from his personal store. Assuming she wasn't caught and expelled, that would be the end of her task. Harry and Ron had the less enviable – but arguably easier – task of trouncing into the Forbidden Forest in search of a particular ingredient that would likely take them hours to find. The final missing ingredient of their potion was fresh dew from grass that had 'not been touched by sunlight or human feet for a period of seven days'. The lack of sunlight meant they would have to find a patch of grass obscured by foliage, but the lack of human feet would be harder. Even in Hogwarts' supposedly 'forbidden' Forest, both Harry and Ron knew that there were plenty of students who ventured into the woods for this reason or that. Thus, they had quite a walk ahead of them.

Ron's held titled backwards, his eyes tracking the swirling clouds overhead as he walked backwards towards the Forbidden Forest alongside Harry. They maintained a steady pace despite Ron's distraction, but Harry was still eager for them to enter the Forest and get out of sight. His historically blatant disregard for the Forest's rules aside, it was still forbidden, and he was fairly certain Hermione would do something unpleasant if he and Ron weren't able to gather the necessary ingredients because they got caught.

Which was fair. Given what her side of things was today, Harry could understand her desire for everything to go just right.

"I don't know, mate," Ron was saying, his head still loaded back like a pez dispenser as he gazed up at the sky. "Not sure it's gonna work out for you two."

Harry followed Ron's eyes, looking up himself to stare at the miasma of gray and rolled his eyes. It wasn't that he didn't understand Ron's position – losing his leaf had been a great blow to the ginger's morale – but his blatant attempts to discourage Harry and Hermione from continuing the experiment just so they could all be on the same track again were getting old. Harry grabbed a firm hold on the shoulder of his robes and shoved him unceremoniously in the direction of the Forest.

"The full moon's three weeks away."

"Yeah, but this is England, innit?"

"Something that didn't bother you when we started."

Ron squared his shoulders and stuffed his hands into the pockets of his robes. "It did," he complained churlishly. He muttered, "Just didn't want to be the odd one out, 's all."

Harry stopped to raise an eyebrow at him. "You mean like you are now?"

Ron met his gaze. "That's a bit rude," he said blankly.

Harry rolled his eyes. They had come to the edge of the Forest now. Peeking in, Harry fought back a rolling wave of nerves. The Forest was always somewhat eerie and almost always unnerving, but it was especially so with gray clouds overhead and an all-important mission that would carry them miles into the trees at their backs. "Come on," Harry fished his wand out. Harry remembered all too well the types of things that wandered in between the roots of the trees of this forest.

Ron sighed mightily, pulling out his own wand as he did. "If we see another bloody Acromantula, I'm gonna kill you, Harry."

"If we see another bloody Acromantula, Ron," Harry replied glibly, "I hope you do."

The two stepped into the Forest.

September 5th, 1994

Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry

6:03 A.M.

Hermione pulled Harry's invisibility cloak tighter around herself and checked the Marauder's Map for what must have been the eighth time since she'd entered the hall. Her wand hand shook lightly as she leveled the lowest powered Lumos she could manage at the old parchment. She didn't know how the cloak handled light being cast underneath it, but she didn't want to risk it. All the sneaking around with Harry and Ron had never gotten her completely used to such blatant rule breaking, particularly not when it put her entire academic career at risk.

Shivering lightly in the cool dungeon air, Hermione trained her eyes on the Great Hall. It was one of the only remotely legible areas on the Map at the moment. At this time of day – particularly on a Saturday – the Map was barely readable. The entire student body was bunched into four locations, making for an unreadable mishash of names that couldn't hope to be comprehended. The Great Hall, however, was currently housing most of the staff and a grand total of nine students, all of them Ravenclaws. Hermione disregarded all of those names. She was only interested in one of them.

She had been sitting outside his office all morning, shivering against the cold. She'd gotten here well before the sun had risen ahead of any and every go-getting Ravenclaw in the school. Only three teachers had been awake at that hour, and the only reason two other students were similarly awake was because Hermione had drug Harry and Ron out of bed herself and kicked them outside into the Forbidden Forest. If she was going to risk her entire future, they could very well get themselves out of bed to find a bit of dew.

Approximately eight minutes ago – she had timed it – her target had left his office and wandered in the direction of the Great Hall to breakfast as he always did. Hermione would know. She'd been observing his early morning routine on the Map since their first morning back at Hogwarts. Professor Snape was an intimidating, vicious, mean-spirited man who she never wanted to get on the outright bad side of, but he was, nonetheless, a creature of habit the same as anyone else. If his pattern held true today – and she would certainly kill Harry and Ron if it didn't – he would remain in the Great Hall until roughly six forty-five in the morning, after which he would return to his offices to do…something until classes began at eight. Hermione didn't know what the part of his routine was when he was back behind the confines of his locked office door, and she didn't particularly care. It had little bearing on her task here this morning.

When she had made sure – for the ninth time – that Professor Snape was in his usual spot at the end of the staff table, Hermione took a deep breath and stowed the map in her back pocket. She cast a quick, cursory glance around – as if worried some deranged Prefect was doing rounds in the dungeon at six thirty in the morning for the specific reason of looking for people trying to break into Professor Snape's office – and then jabbed her wand quickly at the door.

"Alohomora!"

The door's latch 'clicked', and it lightly eased open with a barely audible 'creaaaak'. Hermione winced as if it had exploded.

She moved forward quickly, stumbling over the cloak as she did. She was no longer the tiny eleven-year-old she had been when she, Ron and Harry had snuck through the halls of Hogwarts underneath the cloak's flaps, but she was still the smallest of the three of them. It drug along the ground around her as she stumbled through the doorway. Inside, she turned around and shut the door as quietly as she could manage – quite a feat given that every muscle in her body was screaming at her to slam it closed as a way to release her jittery nerves. It would not do for the slamming of a door to echo throughout the dungeons and draw attention her way.

Inside, Hermione pulled back the hood of the cloak, banishing the effect of invisibility as she did. It had been all well and good to drape it over herself like a blanket when she was younger, but she was quite content to wear it as it was meant to be worn today. Now it just looked like a soft cloak of rich burgundy. She glanced around quickly.

Hermione had never been in Professor Snape's office before, having never infuriated him enough to necessitate a private visit nor had enough courage to seek him out to ask a question about any of his assignments. And that was a genuine shame since she had, had plenty of questions about his assignments over the years. Now that she was finally here where she had never been before, Hermione allowed her curiosity to override her sense of urgency for just a moment.

For Professor Snape, it was actually quite warmly decorated, she decided. There was a fireplace – the embers of which were dying down from their morning roar – on the far right wall with a rug and two comfortable looking recliners arrayed around it. Hermione took a moment to wonder at what type of people Professor Snape entertained down here before moving on. Alone the walls on either side of the fireplace were bookshelves, lined wall to wall with tomes of all shapes and sizes. A cursory glance of their titles revealed that they were, one and all, about the subtle art of potion brewing. On the far side of the room was a desk, upon which sat a stack of freshly graded papers beside a – much larger – stack of papers that were yet to be graded. Hermione spied the freshly written 'P' on the top of Vincent Crabbe's latest assignment. She was surprised that Professor Snape evidently was capable of failing his Slytherins. On the left side of the room was a table with three cauldrons on it, the middle of which had a deep blue potion in it which was simmering softly. It bubbled and popped from the persistent warmth of the flames underneath it.

And there, on the far wall behind Professor Snape's desk, there was a cabinet of potion phials. Her curiosity sated well enough, Hermione bounded across the room and fingered the delicate lock that kept the cabinet closed. Behind the glass she could spy rows and rows of phials of all different kinds. There were far more within the cabinet than its outward size would suggest. Magic, Hermione shrugged.

A flicking of her wand and a muttered, "Alohamora," and the cabinet was opened. Hermione ran her hands over glass phials and diamond phials and ruby phials and quartz phials and emerald phials and even obsidian phials which she knew could only be used in the makings or enhancements of some of the world's deadliest poisons. Hermione put that thought away, but she was sure to log the information. One never knew when Harry would well and truly infuriate Professor Snape past the point of rational thought after all. She'd have to start carrying a bezoar in her back pocket. There, though, on the top row, Hermione found her prize. A long series of crystal phials – too many to count at a glance. Hermione wrapped her hand around the delicate necks of three of them and stuffed them quickly – but gently – into her bag.

Quick like a whip, the door to the Professor's cabinet was closed and the lock reapplied. She checked her surroundings. There was no other indication of her presence in the room for him to find. She would be like a ghost, she thought happily. Professor Snape would never know she was here, even if he did notice the missing three phials from his collection. As disinterested in rule breaking as she was, Hermione could always take pride in a job well done.

Hermione made to raise the hood of her cloak again but stopped suddenly to fish the Marauder's Map out of her back pocket instead. Even the most unobservant of students would notice a door opening and closing of its own accord for no reason, she thought. Best to make sure the hallway was empty before exiting.

"I solemnly swear that I am up to no good," she intoned dutifully, her wand tip pressed to parchment. A few seconds later, Hermione very nearly dropped the map in her haste to stuff it quickly into her back pocket.

Panicking, her hands gripped the fabric of the cloak's hood, but she thought better of it. There were too many risks involved with that. Hermione took a deep breath…

…and the door opened.

Professor Snape froze in the middle of a doorway, registering the closest thing to shock Hermione had ever seen on his face. That is to say, his eyes widened fractionally, and he was not currently sneering. "Ms. Granger." There was the sneer. "May I ask what you are doing here?"

There was an edge to his voice, and Hermione knew her next words would determine whether or not she spent the next month in detention. Something she was not at all prepared to forgive Harry for if it came to pass.

"Professor Snape," she smiled nervously, putting on her best 'breathy, nervous student' voice. Something that was not hard seeing as how she was both out of breath and very nervous. "I'm sorry, I thought you'd be here and – well, you see Professor McGonagall just lets us walk into her office if she needs us…and, well then you weren't here, and I thought it'd be very rude to have just walked in unannounced and then walked out of your office without you even knowing I was in here. But then, I suppose it was rather rude to be here in the first place…"

"Spit it out, girl," the greasy-haired Professor snapped through gritted teeth.

Hermione gulped audibly. Her hand fished blindly in her bag, the cool touch of the crystal phials making her heart jump, until they gripped a loose sheet of parchment which she pulled out and extended towards the Professor.

"I had a question regarding the details of your assignment on King's Blood." These words all spilled from her mouth in a single breath.

Professor Snape gazed at her for a long moment…and then sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose between two fingers. "And this could not have waited until after the ungodly hour of seven in the morning?"

"The early bird gets the worm, Professor," she replied meekly with a weak shrug.

Professor Snape rolled his eyes, slammed the door behind him and walked forward towards his desk, grabbing Hermione's parchment from her extended hand as he did. Her back to the Professor, Hermione breathed a shaky sigh of relief that she hoped came off as her genuine fear of disappointing authority figures. Had she gotten away with it? She hoped she had.

Hermione swallowed again. Well, it wasn't all bad.

She had, had some questions about the King's Blood potion.

September 5th, 1994

Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry

7:27 A.M.

"Well," Harry said delicately, trailing his eyes across his friend's face, "at least we haven't run into any Acromantulas."

"Shut up, Harry," Ron snapped. He was on the ground, sat upon a wide root with his back against an impossibly wide tree. With a single finger he poked repeatedly at a wide gash across his cheek which was bleeding quite profusely, wincing as he did. A few minutes ago, his foot had hooked a root and he had gone sprawling, cutting his cheek on a jagged bit of rock. "What am I gonna tell Madame Pomfrey?"

Harry shrugged, offering Ron his hand. He took it, and Harry hauled him back to his feet. "Tell her Malfoy did it."

Ron stopped prodding his cheek for a moment. "Yeah, that'll work," he decided. "Maybe the git'll lose points."

"Or get detention," Harry smirked.

"Or get expelled," Ron grinned.

They both shared a laugh at the absurdity of that happening.

"How far in do you think we are?" Ron asked looking around. They didn't know where the Forbidden Forest ended, but it had shown no sign of relenting so far. They had passed through a dozen different types of trees along the way. Tall skinny ones that numbered in the hundreds, short stout ones that were arrayed in perfect lines and even squat, fat little trees that barely reached their knees sometimes. Just now they were surrounded by trees as big around as Gryffindor Tower and seemingly half as high. There were a dozen or two of them that they could see, arrayed dozens of feet away from each other. Up above them, they created an impressive canopy, casting the ground around them in an eerie, gray sort of light. There had been grass here or there, but never anywhere that they could be absolutely certain had not been touched by light. Harry and Ron continued to console themselves that they were, at the very least, well past the point that any human feet would have reasonably been around.

Harry raised his wand. "Tempus," he muttered. Then he shook the ghostly numbers that appeared away. "We've been walking for two hours. A good distance, I'd wager."

Ron groaned and ran a hand down his face only to then hiss in pain as his palm drug against the gash on his cheek. "Ugh, that means it's two hours back."

"At least," Harry sighed.

Ron groaned again.

No more was said, and the two of them trudged forward. At periodic intervals, one of them would stop to slash a wide gash into a tree with a powerful cutting charm. There were hundreds of trees marked just like that now, marking their way back to the school. They had attempted to keep as straight a line as possible along the way, but the both of them knew how confusing an endless forest could be directionally, and so they had prepared a backup plan.

As they walked, they talked, having little else to do. They discussed the Quidditch World Cup and how wicked it had been to see professional players in action. It had really put the skills of the Hogwarts teams – however talented they were – into perspective. Then they had discussed the attacks on the camp after the cup, and how right Mad-Eye was to be teaching them what he was. Neville's behavior after Mad-Eye's 'Unforgiveable Class' – as it had been christened by the student body – was especially weird to the two of them. The boy was always jittery and nervous, but he'd been downright catatonic by the end of it, and he'd seemed more willing to have tea with Professor Snape than to sit alone with Mad-Eye in his office afterwards. They wondered how Hermione was getting on for a moment before mutually deciding that she'd likely already been done for an hour or more and was impatiently waiting on their return. And, of course, they talked about girls.

"It's Susan Bones," Ron said definitively, his mouth full of a ham sandwich he'd packed into his pocket the previous night. "It's gotta be."

Harry shook his head. "Susan's alright, but her face…I don't know, it's disproportioned, you know?"

Ron glanced at him sideways. "You actually look at her face?"

"I–There's more to–I mean…sometimes!" Harry sputtered wildly, blushing. Ron crowed with laughter causing Harry's blush to deepen further. He slugged his friend in the shoulder. "You're lucky Hermione isn't here."

Ron rolled his eyes. "Hermione," he scoffed. "Girl needs to loosen up, she does. She'd be in the runnin' if she wasn't so…Hermione."

"Oi, don't be rude," Harry scolded him.

"What?" Ron smirked at him. "Someone got a crush?"

Harry blushed again. "Don't be ridiculous," he muttered. "It's Hermione."

"Exactly!"

Harry shoved him. "I don't mean it like that!" he insisted. "She's like my sister!"

"Yeah," Ron nodded sagely. "And it just so happens that your 'like a sister's' got buck teeth and hair out to here?"

Harry's hand shot out to tighten around Ron's shirt, stopping him dead in his tracks.

Ron stumbled lightly, his hands flying up to latch onto Harry's suddenly iron grip. "Oi!" he protested. "I was only joking! Calm down, you lunatic!"

"Ron, look!" Harry cried, pointing with his free hand.

Ron looked.

There before them was a wide clearing of healthy, green grass overshadowed by nine of the enormously wide trees they'd been walking through. Overhead, their canopies wove together, forming an unbroken barrier of leafy green. Harry leaned down to spy closely at the nearest blade of grass. Still wet with the morning dew, if only just.

"Another hour and we'd have missed this," he commented. He glanced sideways up at Ron. "And you wanted to sleep in."

Ron straightened his jacket. "Twice in two weeks I've had to get up before five in the morning," he muttered. "It's torture, it is."

"Yeah well," Harry said, standing up, "should be worth it. You got the phials ready?"

Ron fished around in his bag a moment before he pulled out six regular glass phials in two hands. Hermione had been vague about exactly how much of the dew they were going to need, so Harry and Ron had decided to air on the safe side of things and overstock.

"You sure you're gonna be able to do this?" Ron raised an eyebrow.

Harry nodded firmly, withdrawing his wand. "I've been practicing all week. I think I got it."

"You think?"

"Shut up. Get the phials ready. And…sorry if I drench you."

Ron sighed heavily, having expected that somewhere in the back of his head. He carefully set three of the phials down before unstoppering the other three and holding them steady in his hand, the necks pointing up.

Harry took a deep breath. "Aguamovere," he intoned, swishing his wand in a wide arc. Unsteadily, as if it wasn't certain what it was supposed to, the water lifted off of the grass, following the arc Harry had created with his wand. It trailed upwards, following Harry's direction as he swirled and swirled and swirled it into a moving, spherical mass of water thereabouts the size of a quaffle.

"Carefully," Ron muttered slowly, watching the water with wary eyes.

"That's not helping," Harry snapped. His left hand was gripped tighly around his right wrist, holding his wand as steady as possible. "Get ready."

Slowly, Harry pulled his wand arm back, beckoning the floating ball of water with it. It moved through the air like molasses, slowly and hesitantly, shedding droplets of water as it went. Finally, it came to hover over Ron who looked up at warily.

"Go on then," Harry muttered, strained. Sweat was beading on his brow. He had never held a spell like this for so long. Come to think of it, he had never held a spell at all. Ron carefully raised up the three phials until the tops of their necks were an inch within the ball of water. Then, Harry said, "Sorry about this," and released the spell.

Ron gasped loudly but held the phials steady as the water cascaded over him like a waterfall, drenching him most of his upper body. His eyes completely covered by his hair, Ron smacked his lips. "We get it?"

Harry swallowed and breathed a shaky sigh and he walked forward to peer at the phials, still head steadily upright in Ron's hands. Two of them had been filled all the way to the neck and the third had been filled almost three quarters of the way. It wasn't perfect, but it was perfectly serviceable.

"Yeah," he muttered, taking the phials from him so that Ron could correct his sight. Within a few moments, the phials were stoppered and had been stowed carefully within Ron's bag. The phials themselves had each been placed within their own canvas bag, all of which were likewise stuffed within an additional canvas bag within Ron's own bookbag. Hermione had been very clear that if any sunlight touched the dew at any time, it would be useless as a potion ingredient.

"Alright," Harry sighed, wiping his forehead. "Once more."

Ron sighed.

September 5th, 1994

Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry

10:57 A.M.

It was a testament to teenage boys' stomachs that even after six hours of trekking through rough forest, Harry and Ron still detoured to the Great Hall in search food rather than their beds. At the Gryffindor Table, they found Hermione waiting. She was nibbling idly on a piece of buttered toast which Ron promptly swiped from her hand and reading a book with a title that neither of the boys could translate.

"Hey!" she protested, wrenching her eyes away from the page.

Ron made an unpleasant noise at her with a mouth full of food and set about making himself a plate of his own toast. Harry sat down beside him and reached somewhat stupidly for the eggs. There weren't any over-mediums like he liked, but he would settle for good old fashioned scrambled in their place.

Hermione looked over the two of them. Their eyes were drooping, and their hands weren't quite doing exactly what they were supposed to. Where he went to grab the butter, Ron missed and stabbed at it with two fingers. Where he went to pour a glass of pumpkin juice, Harry misjudged the distance and knocked over the pitcher.

"You two look exhausted," she commented idly.

Ron leaned his face hard into the flat of his hand, closing his eyes with a look of palpable relief. The toast on his plate went untouched.

"Extremely," Harry commented dryly, shoveling a forkful of eggs into his mouth.

"Did you get it?" Hermione pressed, lowering her voice to a whisper and looking furtively around.

Ron, his eyes still closed, raised his bag high above his head and then let it fall back on to the bench beside him.

"If those don't work," Harry indicated to Ron's bag with his fork, "you're going into the Forest."

Hermione stared blankly at Ron, not hearing him. "How did you get that cut on your face?"

Ron's face slipped off of his hand and collided noisily with his buttered toast.

September 19th, 1994

Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry

4:19 P.M.

Hermione slammed her books down onto the table loud enough to make Ron jump. Cursing lightly, the redhead quickly corrected his misplaced chess pieces. It was just him versus the pieces – he hadn't found anyone willing to play – and he was actually losing rather badly. He'd had these pieces so long that they were fairly used to his style of play. Sometimes they got one over on him. His pieces back in their proper place, Ron looked up. Hermione was sat across from him now. Her hands had a death grip on the book she'd slammed into the table, and her hair was even wilder than usual. She looked positively harassed.

"Did you run here?" he narrowed his eyes at her.

"Where's Harry?" Hermione asked him as he hadn't spoken.

Ron shrugged, gesturing vaguely at the stairs. "Writing his third letter to Sirius," he had the good sense to lower his voice at that. "Trying to convince him to stay wherever he was before Harry went and blabbed about his scar."

It was then that Ron realized that Hermione truly was in a wrong way for she made no immediate mention of how 'right and proper' it had been for Harry to tell his godfather about his scar hurting. Ron looked up rather dramatically at his friend and was just about to ask after her health when she continued.

"I think McGonagall knows," she hissed.

Ron blinked twice. "Eh?" he asked dumbly. "How could she know. It's not as if she reads our mail. She doesn't, does she?" An embarrassing request to his mother weeks earlier for underwear he'd forgotten to pack flashed through Ron's mind.

Hermione narrowed her eyes at him, tilting her head slightly. Then she walloped him on the shoulder with her – really very thick – book. "Not that you idiot!" she snapped. She opened her mouth and pointed at it. "This!"

"Wha'!?" Ron squawked, rubbing at his suddenly throbbing shoulder. Hermione never pulled her punches. "How could she know about that? What, did she say something?"

Ron's voice had fallen into a harsh whisper as he spoke. Hermione mirrored his tone. "She mentioned my breath."

Ron blinked twice again. "What, are you not brushing your teeth regularly?"

THWAP!

"Bloody hell, woman!" Ron winced. Hermione had hit him again.

"My breath smells like Mandrake leaf, Ron!" she hissed at him.

Still rubbing his shoulder, Ron groused, "Well, who the hell knows what Mandrake leaves smell like?"

Hermione stared at him for a long moment, and Ron momentarily feared that she was going to hit him again. Instead, she set her book down on the table and began to tick off her fingers one by one. "Potion masters, Herbologists, Apothecaries," with every word, she touched the tip of her finger to a finger on the opposite hand and folded that finger into her palm. "Seventh Year apprentices in any of those fields, Alchemists, the occasional wand smith and bloody Animguses!"

Ron sat silent for a moment. "I thought it was Animagi?"

THWAP!

"Ow!"

"Hermione," Harry called out to them. They both turned to see him standing at the bottom of the stairs. He was bundled up tightly in a Gryffindor scarf that covered all of his neck and most of the lower half of his face. In his hands, he was clutching a thin envelope, within which surely lied his most recent letter to Sirius. "Stop abusing Ron."

"Harry!" Hermione cried. "Professor McGonagall! She –"

"I know," Harry interrupted her. "I heard."

"Well, what are we going to –"

"Hermione," Harry once more cut her off, this time going so far as to raise his hands in a placating gesture. "All she did was mention your breath. So, the most she's got is suspicions. The only way to prove what we're doing is if she opens our mouths and peers inside, and she's not liable to do that now is she?"

"You have met McGonagall, haven't you, mate?" Ron said dryly.

Harry sighed and ran a hand down his face ignoring Hermione's typical call of "Professor McGonagall." "Yeah, I have," he said. "And she can't rat us out on circumstantial evidence. Or rather, she won't."

"Harry," Hermione said gently. "She was a teacher here when your father and Sirius underwent the process and she's done it. She knows what to look for."

"And Draco Malfoy is a blood purist git whose father turned blood purity into a murderous profession," Harry countered. "But that doesn't mean we get to throw Malfoy in Azkaban for what his father did. Innocent until proven guilty."

"Unfortunately," Ron muttered. The other two looked at him askance. "I meant about Malfoy!"

There was a pause. "Right," Harry responded slowly. "Besides, with any luck this won't be a problem in a few days. The full moon is almost here. Anyway, I've got a letter to mail." He raised said letter gesturingly.

"Oh, Harry," Hermione bemoaned. "I wish you'd stop sending those. It was the right thing to tell Sirius."

Harry didn't hear her or at least pretended like he hadn't. He kept a steady pace until he disappeared out of the portrait hole in the direction of the Owlery. For his part, Ron settled back into his chess game. Hermione had been calmed down, McGonagall didn't have enough proof to work on and everything was going to be fine.

September 25th, 1994

Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry

12:19 A.M.

Harry looked up at the cloudy sky with angry eyes. The gray miasmic clouds had set in early that morning, and for as much as Harry and Hermione had exercised their will at it, the clouds had not moved. Now, staring up at the sky, Harry could not make out a single pinprick of starlight, and he certainly couldn't make out the glow of the moon.

"Bugger," he cursed.

Idly, he stabbed his wand into the roof of his mouth, awkwardly muttering, "Finite," as he did. He felt the annoying, scratchy little leaf fall onto his tongue, and he quickly reached in and plucked it out. Smacking his lips, he turned around to face his two friends. Hermione was cross legged on the ground, leaning up against the far wall with her face in her hands. A low, continuous groan was spilling from her lips. Ron was leaned up silently against one of the Astronomy Tower's pillars, fighting to keep a self-satisfied smile off of his face.

"Not even gonna get a day off," Harry complained, rubbing at his jaw. "I haven't tasted anything but leaf for two weeks."

"Dinner was amazing tonight," Ron told him impishly.

Hermione looked at him evilly, her hand straying towards her wand.

"Don't," Harry commanded, looking at her sternly. "You'll sooner pitch him off the tower."

"Who says that wasn't the plan?" Hermione groused. Still, when she pulled her wand, she didn't level it at Ron. Instead she did as Harry had, cancelling the sticking charm she'd applied to the roof of her mouth and pulling her own, saliva coated leaf out.

Harry joined her on the floor, heaving his own sigh as he thumped his head – rather more painfully than he had intended – on the wall behind him. "Well?" he addressed his friend.

Hermione shrugged mightily, flicking her mandrake leaf onto the floor irreverently. "Restart the process," she told him resignedly. Idly, she fished in her bag for a moment before withdrawing the black, rectangular boxes she'd first presented to them a month ago. "That's why I took extra leaves."

Harry pinched the bridge of his nose and fought back a groan. This was his idea, after all. He was the one subjecting his friends to having leaves in their mouth and barely being able to talk and not at all being able to enjoy most foods. He, himself did not have the luxury of being annoyed at the situation. Still, looking up at the cloudy sky, Harry felt properly annoyed. Tonight was meant to be the night. He'd been looking forward to it for the past week – well, the past month really, but his excitement had hit a crescendo seven days ago – and the weather had even looked good too! It hadn't been until this very morning that the clouds had moved in. As if God was teasing him.

Harry noted idly that Hermione was pressing his box into his hands. By mutual agreement, the three of them had agreed to split up the 'paraphernalia' – as Hermione liked to refer to it – between themselves to lessen the chances of being caught. Hermione was keeping her hands on the leaves and the phials she had stolen from Snape. Ron was in possession of the dew he and Harry had liberated from the forest. Harry, himself had been passed the dead husks of several moths – the ingredient that Hermione had ordered from Diagon nearly a month ago.

Harry flipped the lid of his box open and closed several times. A thought occurred to him. "The dew," he said slowly, turning to Hermione. "It won't like…expire, will it?"

Hermione shook her head. "It shouldn't," she assured him. Glancing sideways at Ron, she said, "So long as it hasn't seen any sunlight, anyway."

Ron raised his hands in surrender. "It's been double bagged in my trunk until tonight," he crossed his heart. Currently, the phials of dew were double bagged in Ron's own bookbag at his feet. None of them had been particularly hopeful that the potion would be made tonight – particularly not Ron who was still hoping they'd be stalled enough for him to join them on time – but they had prepared for the best nonetheless.

Hermione nodded. "Should be fine then. We just have another month of…this." She glared at the leaf in between her fingers for a moment and then shook herself. "Come on, Ron, do me."

"Oi!" Harry cried, tongue in cheek. "Not while I'm in the room."

Hermione blushed a bright crimson, and Ron wasn't far behind her. "Harry!" Hermione hissed at the same time that Ron complained, "Come on, mate."

Harry only laughed. "Go on then, Ron," Harry nodded in Hermione's direction. "Do her."

Hermione glowered at him even as Ron crouched down level with the two of them and directed his wand into her open mouth. She did not stop glaring even when Ron had finished. Roughly five minutes later, all three of them had, had their mouths once more scoured with cleaning charms and sticking charms applied to the leaves on the rooves of their mouth.

All three of them smacked their lips uncomfortably for a moment, lightly probing the rooves of their mouth with their tongues. They gazed up at the moon petulantly, excited and irritated all at once. None of them wanted to endure another month – at least – of the mandrake leaves, but they did want to be Animaguses. And they had convinced themselves that it would be worth it in the end.

"Ron, you will keep control of your temper this time," Hermione ordered waspishly after they had packed up and made towards the door.

"Yeah, yeah," Ron said, shrugging the strap of his backpack farther up his shoulder. Harry drug a hand down his face, groaning as Hermione launched into a whispered rant about the 'delicateness of the process'. Their bickering had nearly set Filch on them on the way up to the Astronomy Tower, and it seemed that it would likewise nearly set him on them on the way down.

A/N: 'King's Blood' reference taken from Deprived by The Crimson Lord.