A/N: I'm really excited about the fact that this story is, as of this chapter, finally done with all of the setup that it needs. The next chapter will be the third task of the tournament, and the two or three chapters after that will explore the direct consequences of the third task, with significant divergence from J.K's Goblet of Fire. I hope that you'll enjoy reading these chapters as much as I've enjoyed writing them.

Hermione leaned back against the cold stone wall, trying to calm her racing heart. Ginny had just attacked her. Ginny, who had been her friend for over three years, had just tried to hex her.

It was only after a minute of standing there in shock at what had just happened that Hermione remembered she hadn't dismissed her Shield Charm. A split second later she realized that she was going to be late for Potions if she didn't run. The thought cut through the heavy mud in her head, and she started to speedwalk towards the dungeons.

She was a zombie all through Potions, unable to focus on anything more than chopping, measuring, stirring, and trying to give acceptable answers whenever Harry, Ron or Neville talked to her.

"I'm going to the library," she announced afterward, hoping that it would be a good place for her to collect herself. "Got to keep working on that snake."

She spent about an hour sitting on a wooden stool at the back of the library, a copy of "The Monster Book of Monsters" sitting tamely on her lap, until she came to terms with what had happened. She had, incontrovertibly, wronged Ginny. She couldn't deny that. Ginny had then, somewhat understandably, lost her temper and acted without thinking. Ginny clearly hadn't been herself - she had been so out of control that she had actually been levitating - but that didn't excuse what she had done. Being justifiably angry was no reason to use a hex on your friend, especially not one as nasty as the Bat-Bogey Hex. When you're furious with a friend you find other ways to express your displeasure with them, ways that have a lot more to do with words and feelings and that don't end with your ex-friend in a bed in the Hospital Wing.

What Ginny needed most, Hermione suspected, was time and space. For Hermione to try and resolve this while Ginny was in this state could only make things worse, because they both had things to own up to, and Ginny would be in no mood to apologize. Unfortunately, Ginny tended to be both quick to anger and slow to lose it, so it might be weeks until a good opportunity arose. Hermione promised herself that when that time came, she would do everything she could to make things right.

Feeling much better, albeit still a bit apprehensive, Hermione stroked the spine of the Monster Book of Monsters and undid the twine that was holding it shut. The table of contents listed a short section on magical serpents, but when she flipped through it she didn't see any creatures with more than one head.

Hermione re-bound the book, dropping it at her feet. Not being able to find an answer to something in the library was starting to infuriate her. Maybe it was possible that they were going about this all wrong. Could it be that the creature wasn't a serpent after all, at least in the technical sense? It seemed unlikely, but she knew nothing about magical taxonomy, so maybe the creature was formally classified as a member of some other category. She scoured the library front to back looking for books that discussed any kind of multi-headed beast, even briefly enlisting the unwilling Madam Pince, but her search turned up nothing that even remotely resembled the mystery creature.

It was some time later, as Hermione sat leafing through the pages of 'Hydras and Cerberuses and Chimeras, Oh My!' for what felt like the millionth time, when Ron walked up to her, his footsteps loud against the hardwood floor.

"Any luck?" he asked, leaning against a nearby shelf.

She shook her head. "Still nothing."

"I ran into Ginny," Ron said sharply, looking Hermione in the eye. "She wouldn't tell me what happened, but I'm guessing you have something to do with why she was crying?"

Hermione closed her eyes, her head bowed. "We had a small altercation," she admitted reluctantly, closing her book. Ron's face bore a grim expression, his eyebrows narrowing, and Hermione rushed to continue. "She was furious with me, I was an oblivious idiot who had no idea what was going on, and by the time I realized what I'd done to her and tried to apologize she had her wand out and she tried to hex me. She wasn't thinking straight, but most of this is still my fault. If I'd thought to talk to her about this whole situation weeks ago we could have avoided this."

Ron sighed, his frown fading slightly. "Wonderful. As if this bloody year hasn't had enough fights already."

"I got worried when neither of you showed up to dinner," he continued, his voice more amiable. "Me and Harry both."

"I think we'll work it out eventually," Hermione said, trying to sound optimistic. Wait, dinner? As soon as Ron mentioned the word, Hermione realized how hungry she was, and how stiff her legs were from sitting for so long. She walked over to the window and saw that the sun was just beginning to set. She'd promised herself that she would try to stop working through meals, but given that she'd missed two today she wasn't off to a good start.

"At any rate," Ron said, "I was going to go visit Hagrid. It's been a while. And besides, I was thinking he might know something about the snake thing. Maybe it's even one of his 'experiments' - would explain why we can't find it anywhere. Want to come with?"

"Oh, er..." Hermione stumbled, considering for a shameful fraction of second whether she shouldn't tell the truth. She had made arrangements with Harry to meet at 8 outside of the common-room, and there was no way she'd have time to go see Hagrid first, but she felt awful that she and Harry were abandoning Ron. "I promised Harry I'd meet him tonight," she finally managed to say.

"Well why don't all three of us go visit Hagrid together then?" Ron said, smiling. "He's probably desperate to tell us all about what the Skrewts have been up to."

"I'm sorry, Ron, but me and Harry will have to go see Hagrid another time," Hermione said regretfully. "We have a date." She stared rather intensely out at the horizon as she spoke. It wasn't that she hadn't wanted Ron to know, it was just that she felt too guilty to face him right now.

"Oh. Right then. Right," Ron stumbled. He was also looking out over the grounds with considerable interest. "I uh.. I hope it's nice. I'll say hi to Hagrid for you." Ron started to leave before he had even finished his final sentence, giving Hermione no chance to say goodbye.

Hermione gave him a twenty second head start before she left the library as well, slinging her bag over her shoulder. It was quarter-to-eight, so if she made a beeline for the Great Hall she could grab something to eat extremely quickly and then still make it back to the common-room in time. Of course, if she did that she'd still be looking like - well, she'd look the same as she did right now, however good or bad that was. She pushed that worry aside; by now she'd been in classes with Harry for four years and he knew perfectly well what she looked like, so there was certainly no point in going hungry for the sake of spending ten minutes attacking her hair with a brush.

She sat at the now almost-empty Gryffindor table for the minimal amount of time necessary to eat some beef casserole and then she was up again, trying to smooth some of the creases out of her robes as she jogged up the steps to the seventh floor.

"Fairy Lights," she said to Sir Cadogan, who had unfortunately been chosen to be the Fat Lady's replacement as the guardian of Gryffindor Tower. He could be trusted to not drink on the job, which was certainly an improvement, but he had the annoying habit of insisting on chatting with you for a good five minutes and possibly challenging you to a duel before he would open. This time, however, he must have sensed that she was in a hurry, because thankfully he was quiet.

She dumped her bag and schoolbooks on her bed in the dormitory, and then sorted the books and put them back into place on the top of her nightstand. She then sat at the foot of her bed, taking a deep breath and trying to clear her head of everything that had been flooding it today, from guilt to shock to fear. Hermione didn't want tonight to be about all of the bad things that this year had brought; she wanted it to be the start of one of the good things. She was going to be her best self for Harry, and so this wasn't the time to get caught up in worries. For a moment she thought about stepping into the toilets to use the mirror, but the last thing she needed right now was to run into Lavender or Parvati and have them ask why she was labouring over her hair for the first time since the Yule Ball. She walked back out of the dormitory and through the busy common-room. Harry was waiting for her just outside, caught up in what looked like a losing battle with Sir Cadogan.

"I still say you should have charged!" the knight insisted, his armour rattling loudly as Hermione pushed the portrait-door closed again. "Far better than this cowardly broomstick nonsense everyone was gibbering about! Should have spurred your horse on right at that rogueish dragon, lance in hand, and shattered its scales with a mighty blow for Gryffindor!"

"I've been trying to tell you, I didn't have a horse or a lance!" Harry protested, nodding in acknowledgement of Hermione. He looked exhausted, although he couldn't have been stuck in this conversation for long.

"And you let that stop you? Why back in my day, when I fought the Wyvern of Wye, I had nothing but-"

Feeling decidedly sympathetic, Hermione grabbed Harry's hand and pulled him away from the persistent knight and in the direction of the Room of Requirement.

"Thanks," he muttered to her, as Sir Cadogan yelled after them. Harry glanced over his shoulder and hurried their pace somewhat.

"You looked like you could use a rescue," she said lightly, her eyes on him even as they walked.

He nodded. "Not sure how much more of that I could take, after having Mad-Eye this morning. Ran into him again after dinner too - he said Dumbledore wanted him to schedule another session in a few days, and the next thing I knew he'd dragged me into his office to spend an hour reminding me that I'd probably be dead in a week no matter what I learned. I swear, he's getting almost as morbid as Trelawney."

He spoke more quietly than usual, and maybe it was just the shadows, but the creases under his green eyes seemed deeper than they had been even a day before. He had been like this after the last time he'd met with Moody too, and while Hermione didn't doubt that Moody was justifiably trying to keep Harry on his toes, she still felt a surge of protective anger towards him for making Harry feel this way.

"I think he's a lot like Professor Trelawney," Hermione said. "Moody's Foe-Glasses and Dark Detectors are just crystal balls and tea leaves in disguise. Both of them see shadows and omens where other people don't, and they're wrong about those omens a lot more often than they're right."

"She must have predicted my death a hundred times by now, and yet I'm still here." Harry replied, cracking a small smile.

Hermione nodded, trying to be reassuring. "And you'll still be here after the third task, too. Dumbledore himself is going to be keeping track of everybody that he suspects while the task is going, and Moody will be watching to make sure that nobody can use the Cloak to sneak into the maze. If either one of them sees somebody try to make a move, they'll capture whoever it is in a heartbeat. Dumbledore is the greatest wizard the world has ever seen, and Moody might be old, but he's put more Dark wizards in Azkaban than anybody. They'll keep you safe, Harry. I know it."

She believed what she was telling Harry. She truly, genuinely, did believe it. That didn't mean that she wasn't absolutely terrified, but she had to stay strong. She had to help Harry learn as much magic as he could with the week that was left, and even more importantly she had to be someone whom he could rely on when his burden became too much for him to handle alone.

Harry took a deep breath. "You're right. I've been through a lot worse, I shouldn't be so worried about this. It should turn out alright."

"Of course it will," she said, squeezing his hand.

They walked for a moment or two in silence before Harry came to a sudden stop

"Do you recognize that painting?" he asked her, pointing at a picture of four caged canaries that hung on the left-hand wall.

"I think so," Hermione replied, trying to remember what this hallway had looked like the last time she had walked down it. "It's always been there, hasn't it?"

"That's what I thought too," Harry said, walking right up to the painting. "But I'm also pretty sure this is where the painting of those wizards was, the ones that the Fat Lady was drinking with on the night that my Cloak was stolen. Somebody must have switched the paintings."

He put his hands on either side of the frame and tried to lift it, but it must have been secured in place, because it didn't budge.

The canaries had begun to chirp amiably, and Hermione watched them sing as she thought.

"I suspect it was Dumbledore that had the painting moved," she suggested. "If he moved the Fat Lady because she wasn't doing her job, then he probably did the same to these wizards to punish them for encouraging her."

"Maybe," Harry replied, "but I swear I remember seeing these canaries here way back in September as well. This doesn't make sense."

"There's got to be thousands of pictures in this castle, Harry. Tens of thousands, probably," Hermione said. She knew from Hogwarts: A History that there were actually just over twenty-two thousand, but that didn't seem relevant right now. "Nobody could possibly keep track of where each one is, especially not somebody under as much stress as you are. You probably saw the canaries somewhere else before, and your brain is mixing up those two memories."

Harry nodded, exhaling deeply. "You're probably right."

Harry dropped the topic, and as they continued to walk towards the Room of Requirement they talked mostly about small things. It was nice to be able to chat about something other than the Tournament for a change, and she smiled like a madman through Harry's recounting of Neville practicing his ballroom dancing in the boys' dormitory the day before the Yule Ball.

"Alright," Hermione said a few minutes later as she stopped across from a large tapestry, "we're here."

Harry looked tremendously confused. "Where's here, exactly?"

Hermione grinned. "You'll see."

She paced back in forth in front of the wall three times, her heart racing, but she kept only one thought in her mind just as Dobby had told her to.

I need a good place for a date. I need a good place for a date. I need a good place for a date.

After the third time, a tall mahogany door appeared in the centre of the wall. She opened it and stepped into the room. Harry was right behind her, a look of awe on his face. The room beyond the door was dark, but once they had both entered and the door had shut, a number of candles scattered about the room lit up, providing a warm, dim glow.

They were standing in the most beautiful library Hermione had ever seen. Bookshelves ran up the walls of the octagonal room, going as high as the eye could see. There were plush cushions and beanbags to sit on near the room's centre, and an extravagantly large candelabra hung from the ceiling. She would have to remember to get Dobby an incredibly nice Christmas gift next year, Hermione thought to herself as she rushed to the nearest shelf.

It seemed to be filled with Agatha Christie novels (her favourite), and every single one of them was there. The shelf just above had the complete works of Shakespeare, and the other shelves nearby had Dickens, Austen, Lewis Carroll, A.A. Milne … everywhere she looked she saw wonderful books that she'd either read and loved or had always wanted to read.

"I've never seen so many books before," Harry said from beside her, standing on his tiptoes to look at a high shelf. "There's two whole shelves just on Quidditch strategy! And there's sections on methods of navigating mazes, and understanding curse scars, and..."

He trailed off, and even in the dim light Hermione could see his face turn more than a little bit red. She walked over and saw what he was looking at: a rather large collection of books on dating advice.

"What kind of library is this, anyway?" he asked quickly. "I don't remember ever seeing it on the Marauder's Map."

"That's probably because it isn't always here. It's called the Room of Requirement, and it only appears when somebody is in great need of it. Dobby told me it can take all kinds of different forms depending on what it's needed for, so I just asked it to become a good place for a date."

"So I guess a visit to a library is your idea of a good date then?" Harry asked, smirking slightly. His eyes crinkled as he smiled, like they always did.

"Apparently."

Harry walked slowly around the perimeter of the room, skimming the shelves. Hermione followed him, unsure of what she should do. She knew that she shouldn't be this nervous, but no matter how much she reminded herself that this was just Harry, the butterflies in her stomach wouldn't go away.

"To be honest, this is way better than what I was expecting," Harry said after a while. "I like your style."

"Do you want to do a book exchange?" Hermione blurted out. She realized it was a horrible suggestion as soon as she made it, but it was too late now. "There's loads of books I want to show you, and you can show me some of your favourites, too."

A book exchange? Was that really the best her mind could come up with? Nobody aside from her would actually want to do that on a date.

"I don't really have any favourites," Harry said, sounding embarrassed. "The Dursleys never kept any books in the house, so all I had was what my class read in school and none of it was very interesting."

Right. She should have thought of that, too.

"I guess I can show you this one, though. Ron and I have been trading the library's copy back and forth for years," he continued, pulling an exceptionally slim green volume from a low shelf and handing it to her.

There was a loud click as the book slid out of its place on the shelf, and Hermione only barely managed to read the book's title ('Quidditch Through the Ages') before it transformed with a 'pop' into a broomstick. It wasn't just the book that had changed, either; as Hermione looked around, she saw that all signs of the library were gone, and that she and Harry were now standing in the middle of a hedge-less replica of the Hogwarts Quidditch pitch. She groaned inwardly. As bad as the book exchange idea had been, at least it was better than this.

"Looks like you're not the only one the room listens to," Harry laughed, kicking off the ground effortlessly on a broom of his own.

He hovered maybe a dozen feet above the ground, watching her. "Are you gonna come join me?" he asked, nodding his head towards the broom in her hand.

Hermione swung her leg over the broom, trying very hard not to think about how much cozier and safer the library had been. She hadn't even held a broom since first-year flying lessons, and she'd only proven marginally more adept at flying than Neville had.

She pushed off the ground gently, slowly rising up towards Harry. He must not have had the time to get ready for tonight either, she thought, as his hair looked a complete mess and there were all kinds of wrinkles in his robes. The wrinkles were probably from his lesson with Moody, along with the dark smudges of dirt on his neck and collar. But despite all that, or maybe even because of it, Hermione found that she couldn't look away. Harry had grown into himself a lot over the last year. He was still skinny, but his shoulders had started to fill out, and his face had become narrower and more defined. As much as Hermione had chided Harry and Ron for not realizing until the Yule Ball that she was a girl, she had to admit that it was only recently that she had realized that Harry was a boy.

Hermione ascended the last few feet, finally coming level with Harry. She almost slipped off the broom when she stopped, her sweaty hands betraying her. She was careful not to look straight down, but from this vantage point she was amazed by how complete the room's illusion was. The towers of Hogwarts appeared to rise up into the sky beyond the far end of the pitch, and the grounds were visible all around, although she was quite sure she wouldn't be able to leave the confines of the pitch.

A whistle sounded from somewhere high above, and two balls rose up from the centre circle. Harry caught the first, which was the large red Quaffle, but the second made a sharp turn and buzzed away in a streak of gold.

"Do you have any idea what's going on?" Hermione asked Harry, whose eyes were focussed over her shoulder, no doubt tracking the Snitch.

"Maybe," he said. "I think the room wants us to play."

He lobbed the Quaffle to Hermione, who kept her left hand firmly on her broom and by some miracle managed to corral the ball with her right. She tossed it back to Harry, who had to swerve to the side to make the catch. They continued to throw back and forth for a while, and Hermione slowly gained some confidence.

It still didn't feel as natural as Hermione would have liked, but as they threw they started to talk, and as they talked it slowly got easier. They laughed together over how Ron had nearly choked on his glass of pumpkin juice when they had first told him their news. They made fun of Draco, who had been so taken aback at seeing them walking down the hall, holding hands and smiling, that he hadn't even managed a hateful glare. Without a doubt though, they both agreed that the best reaction had been that of Hagrid, who had beamed at them for so long that he hadn't noticed a Skrewt burning a large patch of his beard. They talked about Rita's article too, and while that one was a lot harder to laugh at, they took some solace in the thought that if they ever caught Rita on the grounds again they could probably talk Moody into turning her into a nearsighted ferret.

The snitch continued to buzz around them, in an almost-taunting manner, and Hermione noticed with amusement that Harry's eyes kept tracking it even when he was talking. Hermione had just finished telling the story of the first time she'd performed accidental magic at the age of ten (she'd animated a pair of dental pliers that had proceeded to chase her parents around the house) when he finally broke.

"I'm sorry, I can't help it," Harry said. "It's bothering me too much."

He tossed her the Quaffle one last time and raced off towards the far side of the pitch, where the glint of gold was dancing.

I suppose Seekers have to seek, she thought to herself with amusement, remembering Viktor's words from after the second task. She watched Harry for a minute or two as he wove around the scoring hoops, the Snitch always just a few feet ahead of him, and then she slowly flew closer. Everything seemed so much slower when you were up in the stands, but from here Hermione was amazed at how fast Harry was flying. Suddenly the Snitch swerved back up the pitch, heading almost directly for her, and without thinking she accelerated, zooming in a shaky line to try and cut it off.

"Hermione, move!" Harry yelled, barrelling towards her like a bullet, his body pressed flat against his broom.

There was no chance of her being able to slow down fast enough to get out of the way, and so all she could do was reach out her hand for the Snitch and hope that Harry could avoid her. Her hand reached the Snitch at the same time as his, and just a split second before they would have knocked each other off of their brooms, there was another 'pop'.

Her heart still pounding, Hermione was relieved to find herself sitting on a couch in what looked like a copy of the Gryffindor common-room. The common-room was decidedly peaceful when it wasn't filled with panicky first-years, she concluded. The fireplace crackled softly as the wood in it burned, and she could actually see the tapestries on the walls for once. Harry was sitting next to her, his hair somehow even more windswept than it had been an hour ago, and the captured Snitch lay meekly on the table next to them.

"Well that was close," Harry said, reaching forward to take the Snitch from the table.

"Sorry," Hermione apologized as he fiddled with the Snitch. "I wasn't thinking."

"Being on a broom tends to to do that to people," Harry replied. He leaned back, smiling. "Happened to me the first time I ever flew, when Draco stole Neville's Remembrall. But sometimes good things happen when you stop thinking for a moment."

He slowly extended his hand to her, the Snitch in it. "Go on, take it," he said. "It would have gotten away from me if you hadn't cut it off."

Hermione took the Snitch from his hand, sliding slightly closer to him as she did so. His eyes were bright tonight, shining like emeralds in the firelight, and Hermione felt a wave of affection welling up inside of her. She had thought about a night like tonight for so long that this still didn't seem real to her. It felt like a dream that she could wake up from at any moment, but she knew it wasn't, and she let herself be carried away by the joy that coursed through her.

"I'm starting to believe I can do this," he said after a while. "The maze, I mean."

"Of course you can."

"I don't just mean surviving," Harry clarified, his face serious. "I think I can win."

"Don't tell me you're that desperate to show up Viktor," Hermione laughed.

"Show up the Slytherins, more like. But honestly, I think I can do it. I know I don't have as much experience as the others, but I have something even more important that they don't."

"What?"

"I've got the brightest witch of her age helping me train."

Hermione blushed slightly. She slid closer to him again, their shoulders now touching. "Me? Books and cleverness? There are more important things."

Harry nodded. "I know. Bravery and confidence and determination. But you've helped me with all of those, too. I couldn't ask for a better..."

He trailed off, his eyes having to say what he couldn't, and before Hermione could think better of it she leaned in and softly kissed him.

She pulled back after a few seconds to smile at him, not caring about how red she was turning.

"Neither could I," she whispered.