Update 13/07/2020: Due to the complaints about the excessive swearing, I have decided to reduce the amount of swearing that the teens will have in the fic.
Update 18/03/2021: The original vision for this fanfic was to be a Harmony re-imagining that sticks very close to canon. However, that is not the vision now, after fourth year there will be a massive canon divergence, more worldbuilding, more POVs than just Harry and Hermiones, and the relationship won't be in the forefront anymore. Fourth year, especially the first half, sticks relatively close to canon - but as time goes on it diverges more and more.
This fanfiction could not have been possible without the outstanding work of my beta Aani.
She has put in hundreds of hours of effort on planning, editing, and just dealing with me. I could not have found a better beta or an even better friend than you, Aani, and if this fanfiction is any good, it's because of you.
Thank you so much for everything you have done for me. I dedicate this to you.
It was still dark when Harry woke up, but as tired as he was from his Astronomy exam the night before, he didn't want to go back to sleep. Knowing the rest of the boys that shared his room at the tower of Gryffindor, he would be the only one awake for a long time, especially considering their exam from last night. Harry always hated Astronomy, he didn't see any use for the subject. It wouldn't help him learn any magic and the only subject Astronomy could help with was Divination, and Harry hated Divination way more than Astronomy, something he didn't think possible only a year ago.
But at this point, he was sure that Divination had overtaken Astronomy for the worst class he was taking. He didn't even know why he chose it. Well, he knew, but it definitely wasn't worth the hassle of being a free O.W.L if every class he had ended with his death being prophesied. At this point it was worth putting the minimum amount of effort in another class just to be free of Divination, he knew he could do it, he was sure that if he applied himself he could get an Outstanding in any class.
It wasn't that Harry didn't enjoy the subjects, he was fascinated with most of them and loved learning new things about magic constantly, he even liked Potions, a class where he's constantly targeted by Snape due to the hatred he has for his father. But the amount of work the professors usually gave them made it very hard for him to enjoy the classes, especially when just paying attention in class usually guaranteed him an Acceptable and in some cases an Exceeds Expectations, so he didn't put much effort into his homework or studying sessions.
Today was the last day of exams and with that came the feeling of melancholy as usual
On one hand, he was happy that exams would be over, and he didn't have to study anymore. He could spend the rest of his days at Hogwarts with his two best friends and enjoy the wonders of Hogwarts without his piles of homework.
On the other hand, that meant that there were only four days before he would have to return to the dump, called Number 4 Privet Drive. He honestly wasn't up to another summer filled with chores and the loneliness that accompanied being away from the wizarding world, from Ron and Hermione.
Knowing that he had his Divination exam today, Harry didn't even bother with a quick review of the subject. The best thing he could do is go ahead and predict his gruesome death in front of Trelawney, and he would probably get an Outstanding. So he went and took a shower.
After finishing readying himself for the day, he went to the common room where he knew he would find Hermione, probably studying for Ancient Runes or Arithmancy. And just as he predicted, there she was, still in her nightgown with a large tome of Ancient Runes. Maybe I won't do too bad in my Divination exam after all, Harry thought to himself and chuckled inwardly.
"You do know you can take a small twenty-minute break to sleep once every couple of months, don't you?" Harry said cheekily at Hermione, who continued to stare at her book, but Harry was sure she was tempted to glare at him.
These days Hermione could explode by any little inconvenience, to say that the stress of finals had reached her would be a considerable understatement.
"Ha. Ha. Very funny Potter. I'm dying of laughter over here." Hermione retorted without looking away from her reading.
"Well, I haven't heard you laugh since before Christmas, so maybe you just lost the ability altogether." Harry teased her.
But it was true, ever since their big fight, Harry hadn't heard Hermione laugh, and the only time he saw her smile was when the three of them finally went back on speaking terms. He didn't like seeing her like this, she looked exhausted, she had deep black bags under her eyes that betrayed her lack of sleep, and the constant frown on her face showed how much she's having trouble with keeping up with her heavy course load.
"I do laugh, I've just been busy with all the homework and exams. And if you must know, I slept earlier here in the common room, but woke up half an hour ago." Hermione said in her usual matter-of-factly way that Harry always loved. "Anyway, what are you doing up, it's barely seven thirty. I would have thought you would be sleeping after last night's Astronomy exam."
"I've been up for hours, Hermione. I couldn't really sleep."
Hermione stared at him with concern in her eyes, but Harry didn't see her, for he was looking at her Ancient Runes book. He was about to mention to Hermione that it looked fairly interesting, but Hermione talked before he could.
"Why couldn't you sleep, Harry?" Hermione asked with the concern in her voice.
"No reason," Harry answered nonchalantly. "Now, back to you, what you need is a big breakfast and a quick break from all the studying you've been doing. Come on." Harry stood up and started to walk towards the portrait hole.
"Harry, no, I'm not going with you, I'm staying here to study." Hermione pouted, but Harry knew better. He knew if he just continued down to the Great Hall, Hermione would follow him. She always did, Harry thought fondly.
"Whatever you say," Harry said absent-mindedly.
Harry walked from Gryffindor Tower towards the Great Hall, joining the large number of students that were already there, eating and studying for their respective exams.
As he took his seat at the Gryffindor table, Harry began to wonder if he was wrong about Hermione, he really thought she'd follow him even if she wanted to stay and study. But his question was answered fifteen minutes later when he heard the sound of running from outside.
Then a recently showered and robed Hermione stepped into the Great Hall and began walking towards Harry while sporting a glare on her face. When she huffed and sat down, Harry couldn't help but tease her.
"What happened to, I'm not going, I'm staying here to study," Harry teased with his best Hermione impression.
"I don't speak like that, and you forced my hand by leaving the common room." Hermione pouted and Harry laughed.
Hermione glared at him for laughing at that just made it worse. It too him over a minute to finally get hold of himself, and stop.
"Well, for a second I thought you were going to abandon me here after you didn't show up while I was making my way to the Great Hall."
Hermione huffed. "Well, I wasn't coming down in my nighty now, was I? That would've been a really stupid thing for me to do."
Then, she pulled out her large Ancient Runes book, and Harry thought this would be the perfect opportunity to see what Ancient Runes was all about and at the same time make Hermione take a break for what most likely was the first time during the whole year.
"What do you think you're doing?" Harry asked Hermione, but before she could answer him Harry took the book from her hands and put it in his lap under the table, "I thought I told you that you needed a break from studying to have some food before going to your exam."
"I can read and eat at the same time Harry, besides, it's not like you're going to read it, so just give it to me so that I can get back to studying."
"As a matter of fact, I am going to read it, if that's what it takes to get you to take a break then I'll gladly read it," Harry responded, he didn't want to let Hermione know he was interested in Ancient Runes, he would never hear the end of it, especially since she recommended him to sign up for Ancient Runes instead of Divination.
He wouldn't give her the satisfaction. Hermione huffed and grabbed a plate, while Harry opened the book in his lap and started reading it. Immediately he was engrossed in the reading, Harry found the subject very useful and incredibly interesting, with a huge potential to use it to learn more magic. While translating runes was not something Harry would be completely fond of doing, he wouldn't mind it. He was interested in how runes were used to read and potentially learn about old forgotten magic, but the aspect that caught his attention the most was the defence and attack runes.
Harry loved Defence Against The Dark Arts, and the fact the Runes had a connection to DADA and other branches of magic was the aspect that made Harry fall in love with Ancient Runes.
While Harry kept reading the large tome, Hermione didn't fail to notice how Harry seemed to be really interested in the book. She had tried to start a conversation with him because she thought that him reading her Ancient Runes book was an excuse so that she would eat her breakfast without reading, but after the third time, he didn't answer, she knew that Harry was reading the book. Actually reading, not like when he just stared at the book and drifted to his thoughts and pretended to read like he often did while she tried to force him to study.
When she finished breakfast, she just watched Harry read. But when five minutes passed, and he still kept reading the book and was wasting her precious study time hours before her final exam, she became a little annoyed.
"As much as you're enjoying my book, I really do need to keep studying Harry," Hermione said a bit louder and a little harsher than she probably should have, but she thought this was the only way to break Harry out of his trance.
And she was right, Harry practically jumped when he heard her voice and then blushed a little before giving her book back. "Sorry," was all he could say before he started grabbing some food and began eating it.
Hermione tried to get back to studying, but she couldn't shake Harry's unusual behaviour. First, he teased her all morning, something he usually never did. Then he began to force her to take a break from studying and made her eat breakfast.
She pushed all thoughts that were not related to Ancient Runes to the back of her head and began reading. She didn't know for how long, but she was pulled out of her reading when Harry threw a piece of bacon at her head.
"Oi! Exams start in fifteen minutes, come on, let's go," Harry said in a somewhat rushed tone.
Hermione started to panic, how could exams start in fifteen minutes, it had been about eight in the morning when she started reading, and her exam wasn't until three hours after that. But then she looked up at the Great Hall, it was almost full, with most people packing their school bags to go to their exams, she saw Ron and Harry also packing their things in their respective bags, and she began to panic more. She was about to be late for her exam. She quickly began packing her things while she snapped at Harry.
"Why didn't you warn me before!? I'm going to be late to my Ancient Runes exam, I should have been there ages ago!"
"Sorry Hermione, I got a bit umm… distracted. I'm sure that you'll get there in time."
Hermione huffed and started to walk with haste towards the door of the Great Hall when she heard Harry jogging towards her and then reached for her arm.
"Good luck, Hermione, you'll do great." Harry beamed at her, and Hermione began to blush.
"Thanks, Harry. Good luck on Divination as well," said Hermione before she started jogging towards the Ancient Runes classroom.
She reached the Ancient Runes classroom with two minutes to spare, and she began scolding herself for not being focused on her Ancient Runes exam. She began reciting everything she could remember about the subject while she waited for Professor Babbling.
The Ancient Runes exam turned out to be easier than she expected, mind you, it was still hard, but Hermione studied way more than was needed for the exam. When she finished checking her exam she handed it over to Professor Babbling but as soon as she left the room she began to become anxious, and thoughts sprang to her head, wondering if she had missed something or remembered incorrectly a rune or confused a translation.
She didn't know why she was surprised by this, every time she left an exam she would begin panicking, and it wouldn't stop until she received her score.
So, to distract herself, she set off to the North Tower to try to find Harry before he left the tower. While she was ascending the spiral staircase - she saw that Ron was on his way down.
"Hey Ron," Hermione greeted Ron while he neared her. "Is Harry already finished as well?" Hermione asked Ron.
"No, he just got in, we were sent in separately and Harry was the last one there," Ron answered back before he made a confused face. "Why are you looking for Harry?"
"Well, since we're done with exams, I thought that we could all go to the library to clear our heads from them."
"Hermione, we just finished exams, and you want to drag us back to the library! No, thank you, I think I'm going to the common room where I can truly clear my head. I doubt Harry wants to go to the library, but you're welcome to try." Ron answered Hermione with a bit of disgust in his voice as to the thought of going to the library after exams had finished.
"Fine, I will, I'll see you later, Ron." Hermione snapped back before huffing and continued ascending the spiral staircase.
Hermione tried to brush off Ron's comments as she continued her way up the stairs, and just as she got to the trap door, Hermione heard it open.
Before Harry could continue to ponder about what had happened with Trelawney, he saw Hermione waiting for him near the bottom of the trapdoor.
"I'd never thought that Hermione Granger would make her way back to the North Tower. Are you going to ask Professor Trelawney if you can also take her exam? It would be the only thing missing to complete your collection." Harry teased as soon as he got to the ground next to Hermione.
"It would be a tempting offer since it's a free Outstanding, I'm pretty sure all you would need to do for it would be to predict your gruesome death and add a grim or two to the mix," Hermione replied cheekily.
"Well, Professor Trelawney is still there, maybe I should yell at her to come and visit her favourite student." Harry retorted with a smirk.
"Don't you dare, Potter, or I'll make sure your Firebolt meets the Whomping Willow!" Hermione replied while trying to feign anger, but she couldn't keep a small smirk from creeping to her face.
"Hmmmm, I still think it would be worth it," Harry replied, his smirk turning into a full grin
Hermione huffed, turned around, and started walking down the spiral staircase with Harry following her close being while trying not to laugh. When he finally calmed himself enough to talk, he went beside Hermione.
"So how was the Ancient Runes exam? I'm pretty sure you crushed it, but knowing you, you probably think all your answers are wrong and want to compare every one of your answers with your notes."
By the look on Hermione's face, Harry realised that he read the situation correctly.
"I don't think all my answers are wrong," Hermione replied with an indignant look on her face. "But there are just so many answers I gave that could be wrong. I mean, what if I remembered a translation wrong or what if I forgot something or-" But before Hermione could spiral any further, Harry stopped her by gently grabbing her arm.
"Hermione, calm down. Let's just go to the library, and you'll realise that you nailed it, and you don't have anything to worry about."
Harry could see a substantial grin on Hermione's face. Then, she proceeded to grab him by the arm and dragged him toward the library.
While at the library Harry was able to comfort Hermione by helping her realise she answered everything correctly, and by the time they were finished she seemed really happy, unfortunately, that didn't last as Ron entered the library with a note.
"Where the hell have you been!? I've been looking for you for hours! Look!" Ron said, looking incredibly pale, as he passed the note to Hermione, when Hermione finished reading it she looked like she was about to burst into tears.
"We have to go there to be with Hagrid when it happens," Hermione said, composing herself. "I don't care what he wrote, we won't let him face it alone."
And that was the moment it finally hit Harry, today was Buckbeak's appeal, and by the looks of it, he had lost and was going to be executed soon. Hermione must have noticed what Harry's expression betrayed because this time it was her who hugged Harry. But Harry wasn't about to cry, not because he wasn't sad, but because his anger against the Malfoys was far more powerful than any sorrow he felt.
"Those fucking bastards!" Harry said in a low, cold tone barely above a whisper. "We need to do something, we can't let him die, we need to save him."
"Harry, we already tried every appeal we could to save Buckbeak's life." Hermione said dejectedly. "I don't think there's anything else we can do."
"We can break him out, he can fly far away from the castle, and they wouldn't be able to get him," Harry responded, with a tone in his voice that sounded like a plea.
"If we do that they'll just blame Hagrid, and then he'll get sacked, maybe even removed from the grounds altogether."
"Hermione's right, Harry," said Ron, joining the conversation after watching his best friend's reaction to the news. "The best thing we can do is be there for Hagrid."
Harry knew they were right, but a small part of him wanted to believe that they weren't, that there was a way to save Buckbeak while making sure Hagrid or anyone else didn't get the blame. But if there was a way, Harry couldn't think of it. So the three of them agreed to use Harry's invisibility cloak that he recently retrieved from the passage of the one-eyed witch to go down to Hagrid's Hut an hour before sundown, an hour before Buckbeak's execution was scheduled for.
Since there were still three hours until sundown, they decided to go to the Great Hall and have dinner, since Harry and Hermione had skipped lunch. After that, they went to retrieve the cloak from Harry's trunk, and they set off to Hagrid's hut, it was close to sundown as they lost track of time during dinner.
While they neared Hagrid's Hut, Harry could see Buckbeak tied to the fence in the pumpkin patch. He looked blissfully ignorant, unaware of what was going to happen in less than an hour. It took Harry all of his willpower not to rush to Buckbeak and set him free. He knew that could only cause more harm than good, but he didn't really care at the moment, he didn't like to stand idly while he could do something to help his favourite Hippogriff.
When they arrived at Hagrid's hut, they knocked on the door, and a rough-looking Hagrid opened the door. It looked like he had been crying for hours, his hands were shaking, and he had a haunted look in his eyes that made it seem like he hadn't slept in days, even though the appeal was only earlier today.
"Hagrid, it's us, let us in," Hermione whispered to Hagrid.
"Hermione, Ron, Harry? What're yeh doin'ere? I told yeh to stay in the castle. I don' wan' yeh ter see this." At the same time, Hagrid said those words he went inside and left the door open, taking that as their invitation they entered and shut the door behind them. It looked like it was less than half an hour until sundown and Harry was sure that Fudge and his executioner would be here any minute now, which meant they didn't have much time.
"Hagrid, we're really sorry. We should have helped Hermione more with research for the appeal for Buckbeak, we're really, really sorry." Ron began, clearly feeling guilty about all the time wasted on fighting with Hermione instead of helping Hagrid.
"It wouldn'tve matter'd anyway, ever since Lucius Malfoy was set on k- killin' Buckbeak there wasn't anything we could've done." Hagrid began crying, and Hermione went to his side to pat him in the arm to try to comfort him.
"Isn't there anything Dumbledore can do to save him, Hagrid?" Harry asked, this time he didn't bother to hide the plea in his voice. He was sure that if anyone could save Buckbeak it could be Dumbledore.
"No, there isn't anything anyone could've done. Dumbledore's already helped enough fer me ter keep my teachin' position." Hagrid responded between sobs. Harry couldn't believe this was happening, it wasn't fair for Buckbeak to die because of Malfoy.
Harry was so angry that he lashed out and kicked a lone chair against the table and caused a milk jug to fall from the table. He thought he was hallucinating when he saw Scabbers come out of the jug of milk, and then immediately turned back inside his refuge.
"Ron, it's Scabbers, he's inside the milk jug," Harry said and instantly Ron leaped up from the chair where he had sat down as they entered the hut and picked up the milk jug, turned it on its head and Scabbers fell into Ron's hand.
"Scabbers, you're alive!" Ron beamed happily at his rat, which he immediately put in his pocket.
"I think that means you owe someone an apology." Hermione stated coldly at Ron, clearly having held a bit of resentment for being blamed for the Scabbers' "death".
"Right, when I see Crookshanks, I'll apologise." retorted Ron
"I meant me, you prat!" Hermione snapped back at Ron.
Whatever Ron was about to respond to Hermione was lost when Harry looked out the window and saw Fudge, Dumbledore, and the executioner nearing Hagrid's Hut and snapped at them.
"Shut it, you two, we have to go now."
As soon as he said it, Hagrid looked out of the window and saw the committee approaching the hut. He quickly grabbed the invisibility cloak and gave it to Harry.
"Let's go." Harry motioned to Ron and Hermione, and they quickly got under the invisibility cloak and left through the backdoor to Hagrid's Hut. They moved towards the nearest entrance to the castle, but it was still a long way to go, Harry decided it would be for the best not to look behind when Buckbeak was executed, he didn't want to have the image of a headless Buckbeak ingrained in his memory.
As they started moving, Harry could hear Scabbers squealing and Ron fidgeting with his pocket. When they reached open ground while the sun had finally started setting and darkness started to creep upon them.
Ron started jerking violently trying to stop Scabbers from moving, while Scabbers started squealing more violently.
"Ron! Stop moving around like that, you're going to -" Hermione couldn't finish what she was saying because Ron jerked so violently that Harry's cloak fell to the ground, and they were no longer hidden. Ron continued to move around violently while Scabbers was getting more desperate
"Stop moving Scabbers you dumb rat. OUCH! He bit me, stay still you-"
But Ron stopped, because at that moment, even through the rat squeals and Ron's yells, the distinct sound of an axe crashing against something was heard. It was then that Harry knew what had happened, Buckbeak had just been executed.
I am proud to announce that I have just created my own discord server where we talk about ALAYWM, any other fanfics, movies, TV series, and more. You are welcome to join it by using the following link (copy-paste on browser and delete the spaces): discord .gg/ S64anMh7YU