Chapter 29

The Burrow, that night

Hermione spread her napkin across her lap and glanced at Ginny nervously. She'd come straight from work, where she'd got a note from Harry. They'd barely had time to discuss Ron's news before dinner, so she was still reeling.

" More mashed potatoes, Dear," Molly stood over Ron with an expectant look on her face. The room was warm and inviting, lit with the same candlesticks on the table and set with the same faded floral dishes. Harry'd spent a fortune replacing the burrow, albeit a much improved, more sanely laid out burrow, and he'd gone to great trouble to replace some of the family's most cherished items that hadn't survived the fire. But the familiar setting made Hermione all the more nervous for what was coming.

" Sure," Ron said simply, grinning like an idiot in another of his favorite tacky sweaters.

Molly served him and then herself, settling down in her chair with a satisfied smile, " So how was your appointment today, Ronald?"

" Yeah, mate, who's the lucky girl?" Arthur asked jovially.

George sniggered, and then rubbed a hand over his mouth. Angelina kicked him under the table.

Ron calmly stuffed half of a dinner roll in his mouth, " It's Blaise Z'bini, actually."

Arthur and Molly froze, and George started laughing.

" You tactless-" Angelina did something rather complicated with her foot so that George's chair flipped backwards and he landed with a thud, still laughing.

" I'm sorry," He said helplessly, " It's not funny Ron, it's not."

" I did plan on telling you when I was sure," Ron said glibly, " I'm sorry to have surprised everyone. Today kind of surprised me too."

" Oh, Ron," Ginny laid a hand on her brother's.

" I mean, a slytherin," Ron shook his head, " This Maritare charm is brutal."

" That's what surprised you?" George brought up his chair with a grin, " Mate, it's a man."

" Oh, that," Ron turned bright red, " It was just… like, a confirmation really. Kind of a relief."

" So you're…" Arthur looked like he'd been shown a naked picture of the Minister and didn't know quite how to cope.

" I'm bisexual," Ron took a generous bite of mashed potatoes, " Great dinner, Mum."

" Your sister made it," Molly said in a faraway voice.

" Great dinner, Gin," He redirected his compliment.

" Bisexual, meaning?" Arthur offered timidly.

" He likes blokes same as birds," George supplied helpfully, earning a dirty look from his sister.

" So you're… fine with everything?" Hermione ventured.

Ron looked at the ceiling thoughtfully, " I mean, I guess. It's not as if Zabini's a bad looking bloke, but I don't really know him. He sent me a note asking him to lunch. Guess he found out today too."

Harry choked on a bite of asparagus, " Lunch?"

" No, I mean you're fine with coming out and everything?" Hermione said forcefully.

" Reckon it was about time," Ron answered infuriatingly simply. One of the many reasons that they hadn't always worked: Ron failed to comprehend complex emotions, especially his own, and generally resorted to oversimplifying or ignoring things. It was one of his most annoying traits.

" About time, Ron," Ginny burst out, " Just when were you planning on telling us?"

" When the time was right," Ron shrugged, " I didn't think it was a big deal."

" Slightly underestimating this news, Mate," George offered, " Not that it makes us think differently of you… but this is pretty big news."

" Yeah," Angelina supported her boyfriend, " How's Hermione supposed to feel?"

Ron's blue eyes swung over to Hermione, who shifted uncomfortably, " I'm sorry, 'Mione, is this upsetting?"

" N-no, not upsetting," She knew that the entire table would be listening intently, " I'm just happy you're telling us."

Satisfied, Ron went back to eating, " So do you think I should go to lunch with him?"

Harry sat back in his chair, astonished, " Why would you?"

" Well… he's supposed to be so magically in tune with me," Ron offered.

" So?" Ginny raised an eyebrow imperiously.

" So that's worth finding out about, right?" Ron looked to Hermione for support.

" I, uh…" She stuttered. It wasn't like he was wrong, but she wasn't about to defend Blaise Zabini wholeheartedly.

" Well forgive me, but I think his history of rudeness towards Harry and us slightly trumps that," Ginny sniffed.

Ron laughed, " If I had to stop short of every person who'd ever talked about any of us behind our backs, I'd have to move to Istanbul. In case you forgot, your husband used to be one of the most sneered-at men in England when Voldemort came back. Besides, I've never been asked out by someone before."

Angelina grinned, " Aww, Ron, you're blushing."

" Am not," He took a big forkful of mashed potatoes, slightly pink in the ears.

Ginny looked down at her untouched plate, " But it's Zabini."

" Hermione's trying to trick Malfoy into marrying her, and that's all peaches and cream, but you can't accept one lousy lunch date with someone we barely know?" Ron bristled.

" Hermione what?" Molly burst out.

" Ronald!" Hermione cried.

" Oh… Bloody hell," He exclaimed miserably.

Molly's mouth was a perfect 'o', " I didn't know you were dating again."

" I'm not! It's… hard to explain," Hermione wilted under the surprised look of her second mother, almost-mother-in-law.

" There was a prophecy, mum, about another uprising of something dark," Ron offered quickly.

Molly closed her eyes and a pained expression crossed her face.

" What is it?" George asked.

" We're not sure," Hermione answered truthfully, " But we know that another prophecy is what caused the Ministry to pass the Marriage Law."

" And… Malfoy and you have something to do with it?" Arthur furrowed his brow.

Hermione bit her lip, " Yes, our um… child is meant to stop it. Somehow."

" So 'Mione's doing her best to fulfill the prophecy," Harry filled in.

" But if it's a prophecy, wouldn't it fulfill itself?" Angelina said around a mouthful of dinner roll.

George's eyebrows were sky high, " No she's right to be doing what she's doing. It wouldn't happen on its own, not if it's Malfoy. You're a braver soul than I, 'Mione."

Molly stood, and Hermione found herself embraced in a warm, motherly hug, " Indeed you are."

" Well," Arthur looked around the table and shook his head, " At least this was a lively meal. Now, explain this 'tricking' business?"

Later That Night

Hermione ached down to her bones. She crawled, dripping blood, along an unfamiliar floor. The ground seemed to glow white beneath her, and her head ached to look at it.

'Stay with me, Granger, it's all going to be alright,' a voice commanded in a hoarse whisper.

What could she do if she didn't know where she was going? Who could she stay with if there was nothing but the white ground and her.

' I know it hurts, it hurts me too, Granger,'' the voice whispered hastily.

The urge to collapse was overwhelming, but she had a strong sense that she was supposed to be somewhere.

' I'm so sorry,' The voice was tight, like the person was crying, which she remembered was sad, ' So sorry I hurt you.'

Big, strong arms encircled her from behind, cradling her against a great, warm chest, and she fell into the soft cushion of a mattress. The presence of the voice was gone, and with it the panic, although she was left feeling strangely bereft. She turned and looked into crystal clear blue eyes, echoed by the navy ceiling of the parlor at Grimmauld Place.

" 'Mione, thank god, we thought we'd lost you," Ron held her hand tightly, " When I saw you lying there I thought you were going to die."

" No," She responded weakly, " What happened?"

" We got you out, that's all that matters," He ignored her, " It's getting stronger."

" Was it bad? Ron, what happened to me?" Hermione begged.

" You're home, and you're safe," He said, " We were so afraid the cause was lost."

" You're not making any sense, Ron, where's Harry?"

" Harry?" Ron furrowed his brow, " Who's that?"

" Harry Potter, our friend, the chosen one."

" Hermione, the chosen one-" His voice became distorted, like it had been sliced away, like the other half of the prophecy. Ron shook her urgently, and his mouth was moving, but she couldn't decipher any of it.

She woke in bed with a start, staring at her framed poster from the movie Gone With the Wind that hung above her dresser. She placed a hand over her heart to stop its wild beating. A bad dream, only a dream. She sat up slowly and swung her feet out of bed, padding to the kitchen for a glass of water to clear her headache.

The kitchen was lit with the glow of the streetlamps outside and a little clock on the shelf where she kept her spices that read 12:38 AM. She'd only been in bed for an hour, but it had seemed like eternity. She took a few deep breaths, trying to calm herself and focus on the room. Sometimes, she could slide back into the dreams, and she combated this by staying grounded in the now. She concentrated on little details from her freshly washed breakfast dishes and the stack of file folders on her kitchen table, and a broken quill nib she was repairing to crookshanks quietly snoring on top of her nearly useless refrigerator.

" How are you, my darling?" She whispered, leaning against the counter, blushing when she realized that it was the same place she and Malfoy had been just days before.

She paused, and then reached into the lower cupboard for the glowing box behind her unused pots and pans. She'd put the prophecy in an old christmas box after its glowing had kept her awake in her bedroom. She struck it on the counter and listened again, her bones filling with the same sense of unease that she'd felt when she first heard it.

… After the dark one is vanquished

Enmity will turn to true love

Love broken not even by death

Soul from soul

Life from life

Weighted but not bound

By the history of strife

When she was done she set it back in the box and leaned against the counter. For the past few days she'd been trying to make out the whisperings in the background. Mr. Bourbeau had said that the prophecies were made at the same time, so she had to assume that the whisperings would eventually clue her in as to what they were dealing with.

So far, all it was doing was giving her a headache and reminding her insistently that she had to move quickly with Malfoy, more quickly than she was really comfortable with. She'd considered smashing it, like Harry's prophecy, so it would be louder and they could all three listen, but that would mean breaking it forever.

She sighed. What she really needed was another set of ears on it, but it was too late to give it to Malfoy. She grabbed a pad out of her drawer and wrote down what she thought she'd heard, 'eighteen' and 'together.' She thought for a moment and then wrote down a list of questions to calm her. Somehow having things on paper made them less overwhelming, to her at least.

Who or what is it?

What will it do?

How will it do it?

What can we do now?

When will it happen?

She underlined the last one twice. Satisfied, though anxious, she set the list down on her counter, and went to the bathroom to wash her face and brush her teeth. Trying her hair into a long messy braid with a scrunchie, she crawled back into bed.

Hermione looked up at the ceiling in the dark and tried to formulate a plan. She knew that the records kept at the department of mysteries were the key, but she couldn't very well go in and demand a prophecy that wasn't hers. Once again her mind offered Malfoy as a solution, one that she quickly threw out. He'd been a very different person to her Saturday, so much so that it actually seemed like a dream. She had to concentrate on reality, and not let that dream warp the way things were between them. Somehow the thought of going back to horrid, sharp mouthed Malfoy seemed distasteful.

No, she'd have to think up a plan herself.