A/N:  Thanks to everyone who reviewed the last chapter!  You guys are the best!!


Disclaimer:  If I owned them, I'd be rich.  I'm not, so that would mean I don't.

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****  The dark figures rushed into the crowd, their heavy hoods hiding their faces and yet giving away their identities completely. 

All around them, people screamed and shoved each other, all trying to get out of the way and into a safe haven.


And then those people fell. 

One by one.  They fell.

And their screams faded away, only to be replaced by loud, shrill, mechanical laughter that filled the night air and then disappeared into the stars.  ****

Hermione Granger sat in the History of Magic classroom trying to listen to whatever Professor Binns was lecturing on.  However, it was simply no use.  For once in her life, she had no clue what the topic of the lesson was, nor did she care too much. 

She'd woken up that morning in a cold sweat, and she'd been sick immediately upon rushing into the bathroom.  Lavender and Parvati had both hovered about her when she fell back into her bed, her head splitting and her eyes watering.  They'd offered to fetch Madame Pomfrey or to make excuses for her if she wanted to skive off for the day.  She'd refused both offers, though, because going for the nurse or missing class would only make her ailment obvious, and that was one thing she did not want.

In fact, after forcing herself to get back up and ready for class, she'd carefully avoided both Ron and Harry by skipping breakfast and pretending to immerse herself into her notes as soon as she'd rushed into History of Magic just a minute before the final bell rang.  She didn't want to answer their questions about why her skin was so pale or why her eyes were wet and swollen.  She knew, of course, that she wouldn't be able to successfully ignore them for the entire day, but she was still thankful that the next period was Arithmancy; it would give her at least another ninety minutes of peace.

As it was, she was doing her best to appear interested in the lecture, though a glance at her notes showed page upon page of empty parchment.  She could feel the boys staring at her from either side, but she forced herself to look straight ahead and not meet their eyes.  When Ron had passed her a note asking what was wrong, she'd simply scribbled back, "Stop passing notes.  I don't want to get in trouble," and slid it back.

The night before had been riddled with sleeplessness.  It had taken her hours to fall asleep in the first place because she'd been anxious about something completely unknown to her.  When she'd finally dropped into the zone of sleep she'd been waiting on, she had been plagued with unpleasant images that she'd rather have not seen at all. 

Over the past few weeks, she'd started having more and more 'bad' feelings, and sleep had become more of a chore than a comfort.  She didn't have nightmares exactly; she would classify them more as startling thoughts in the form of dreams.  If a dream could be a feeling, that was what she'd been having- terrible, horrible feelings.

She could sense the way Ron and Harry were staring at her, and she studied the paper in front of her intensely, forcing herself not to look at either of them.  She just didn't want to deal with them.

Please let this class hurry up, she prayed silently.  She wanted to get away from them and into her Arithmancy class as soon as possible.  She simply didn't trust herself around them, not when she knew that they could both read her like an open book.  Sometimes she hated that they knew her so well; sometimes she wished she didn't know them as well as she did.  As it was, though, their friendship was so deeply rooted that none of them could successfully hide anything from the others.

 And it was obvious that they were both going to interrogate her at the earliest moment.

A knock at the classroom door drew her attention away from her blank notes, though, and she turned with the rest of the class to see who the visitor was.  Professor Binns, thoroughly annoyed, called for the knocker to enter, and a House-Elf entered timidly.  The tiny creature was obviously very timid about walking into a crowded classroom, and he stumbled as he hurried to the teacher and whispered a message.

Professor Binns sighed loudly and turned to stare at the class.  "You are all to report to the Great Hall," he said glumly.  Apparently, his number one pet peeve was being interrupted; after all, he hadn't even allowed death to distract him from his teaching.

All of Hermione's classmates seemed excited at escaping History of Magic a bit early, but Hermione felt nothing but dread.  She wasn't sure why but she was positive that whatever reason they were being summoned to the Great Hall for was not going to be pleasant.  She was used to the feeling that lay heavy in her stomach; she'd become quite accustomed to the feeling of dread over the past few weeks.

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Thirty minutes later, she was seated at the Gryffindor table between Harry and Ron.  They'd both hounded her the entire way to the Great Hall for the reason she was looking so frightened, but she'd shrugged them away and, in no greater words, told them both to shove off.  It had worked, though, and the three of them now sat in silence as the rest of the school buzzed with excitement over the upcoming message.  All of the houses were present, but Hermione noticed that the first and second years were not in attendance.  The fact that the youngest children hadn't been summoned only heightened the horrible feeling that was already boding so well inside of her.

"Silence, please!"  Professor McGonagall's voice boomed from the front of the Great Hall, and Hermione looked up to see all of the staff seated at their normal places, though there was obviously no food.  All of their faces were ashen and regretful, and Hermione knew this wasn't a good sign.

The Great Hall quieted quickly, as it so often did when the Transfiguration teacher called for silence.  She was one of the few teachers who exulted that much authority.  The only other staff members who really did were Professor Dumbledore and, regrettably, Professor Snape.  McGonagall waited for her command to be met, and then she seated herself to the left of the Headmaster, who stood and cleared his throat, preparing to make the announcement.

"If I may have your attention, please," he said gravely.  "There is something that all of you need to be made aware of." 

Almost immediately, an excited whisper broke out amongst the students, all of them wondering what this amazing revelation was.  Hermione simply stared at the table in front of her, listening but making eye-contact with no one.

"You will notice that the first and second years are not with us, and I would like to express my sincere hope that what I speak of now will not be passed to them in a way meant to frighten or deceive them.  They will find out, of course, but I think it best that for now they are not given full details."  Once again, a buzz lit up in the form of excited whispers.  "Please hold your conversations until I am finished," he said curtly, perfectly silencing the crowd.

"Now, what I am about to tell you is disturbing, and I want to make it perfectly clear that I am in no way attempting to scare you.  I simply believe that you should all know the truth, and by the truth, I mean facts, not gossip and exaggerated stories which you may read in the papers."  Dumbledore cleared his throat once more.  "Diagon Alley was attacked last night."

Hermione closed her eyes and missed the gasps of shock and loud questions and demands for more details; all she heard was the Headmaster, who continued speaking after several seconds. 

She wished she hadn't even heard him.

"Six people were killed."

Six people.  Six people were dead.  Six people were dead after an attack.

And then those people fell. 

One by one.  They fell.

And Hermione had seen it all in her dream

She had known what was going to happen before it happened.  She had seen those people fall, heard their cries of agony, and watched as they'd died.


And she'd been hundreds of miles away from Diagon Alley.

And yet she'd seen it.

Her hearing shut down completely at this point, and she didn't hear the rest of the story.  She didn't need to, though; she knew all of it.  The Death Eaters had killed those people. 

The Death Eaters had killed six people.

And she had dreamed about it.

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The rest of the day passed oddly.  Classes went back to session after the mid-morning announcement of the attack on Diagon Alley, but none of the teachers really seemed up to teaching.  The students all seemed to be in a daze, especially the Hufflepuffs, who realized almost instantly that one of their own sixth years, Damon Timmon, hadn't been in attendance during the mini-assembly.  He'd been called away from class an hour before the other students had.

His father, the owner of a small junk shop on Diagon Alley, had been one of the six.

Hermione had never spoken to Damon; she'd seen him in the hallway once or twice, but he'd never sparked her interest enough to the point where she would seek him out for a conversation.  She didn't know anything about him.

And she would probably never see him again.

She couldn't imagine coming back to school after losing a parent; in fact, the whole concept of losing a parent seemed odd and foreign to her.  Ironic, really, considering the fact that one of her best friends was an orphan.

But that was Harry.  And Harry wasn't normal. 

Harry Potter was the hero of the wizarding world, and even though Hermione knew him as so much more than the Boy Who Lived, she still, deep in the back of her mind, held an image of him that was invincible.  Harry was strong.  He could go through anything and survive.  Bad things happened to him all the time, and he always went on; he never allowed himself to surrender.

Was Damon Timmon that strong?  Would he return to Hogwarts?  Would she ever get the chance to converse with him?

Hermione, sitting in a Common Room chair facing the fire, was well-aware of the fact that she was thinking completely random thoughts, but she honestly had no idea how to make real sense out of anything that had happened.  She wasn't even completely sure that she wanted to make sense out of it.

Because if she pretended things were normal maybe they would be.

Maybe she would just be a fifteen year old girl, trying to make her way through school and juggling a first relationship.  Maybe she wouldn't be one-third of a prophesized trio meant to save the world.  Maybe her best friend would just be a boy with glasses and a demure personality.  Maybe he wouldn't be a revered hero, famous for something he couldn't even remember.  Maybe she wouldn't have to worry each day that someone she loved was going to be hurt or killed.

Maybe she could just be normal.

Unfortunately, she was one of Harry Potter's best friends.  And, as she'd earlier thought, Harry wasn't normal.  Even more unfortunately, this meant she couldn't be, either.

"Will you please tell me what's wrong?"

Ron's voice broke through her reverie, and she looked up, surprised to see that the Common Room had mostly emptied.  The last time she'd bothered to pay attention, it had been busy and crowded.  She wondered what time it was.

Hermione looked at the redhead unenthusiastically, and her answer came out a little more sarcastic than she had meant for it to.  "Six people are dead."

Ron looked away for a moment, and Hermione wondered if he was just going to give up after her curt reply.  He answered, though, and she realized that he wasn't going to just let it go.  "You were upset before that."

"Where's Harry?"  She avoided the question by asking one of her own.

Ron looked slightly annoyed at her tactic, but he answered anyway.  "Where do you think he is?  He's upstairs brooding and blaming himself even though he was clearly nowhere near Diagon Alley."

Hermione stared once again at the fire.  "It wasn't his fault."

"Of course it wasn't," Ron said non-hesitantly.  She felt him perch himself lazily onto the arm of her chair, but she didn't react.

"It was mine."

"What?"  She sensed his stare, but she forced herself not to acknowledge it.  She answered instead in a dull and emotionless voice.

"I could have stopped it."

"What are you talking about?"

Hermione closed her eyes briefly, images of her nightmare swimming before her.  In a weak voice, she repeated herself.  "I could have stopped it."

Ron was silent, and she could feel his eyes boring into her.  He was as shocked as she felt but for completely different reasons.

Without having to be asked, Hermione clarified her claim.  She wasn't really sure why she was telling him; maybe she felt guilty because Harry was blaming himself or maybe she just needed to tell someone.  It was starting to be too heavy of a weight.

"I dreamed it."

"You..." she turned and saw Ron staring strangely at her as he tried to make sense of her story.  "You dreamed it?"

Hermione nodded blankly, not looking away from him for once.  "Last night.  I dreamed about it.  And then it happened."  She felt a cold chill rush through her.  "I should have stopped it."

She was aware, of course, that her dream had probably occurred simultaneously with the actual attack, but she still couldn't help feeling as though she could have prevented it.  For once, logic didn't seem to matter much.

"You dreamed it?"  Ron seemed only capable of repeating himself, but Hermione barely noticed.  She saw the ashen fear on his face, and a sharp twinge of guilt tugged at her insides. 

"Just forget it," she said briskly, not wanting  to make him worry and especially not wanting to hear him repeat himself fifty million more times.

"You dreamed it..."

"Ron!"

Ron seemed to jerk out of his state of disbelief, and he glanced back at her sheepishly, muttering, "Sorry," and then going quiet again.

Hermione wondered if, for once, Ron had listened to her and actually decided to forget it as she had instructed him to do.  No such luck.

"Do you..." his voice sounded oddly strained, "dream things often?"

She turned back to the fire and studied it, noticing not for the first time what a beautiful thing flames really were.  Carefully, she sorted out how to answer his question.  After a second, she settled for, "Not really dream a lot...  Mostly I just have bad feelings- sort of like I did the day when the Dementors showed up in Hogsmeade."  She made a point not to look at him.  "This was the first time I've ever really seen anything visually..."

Another deafening silence surrounded them, and Hermione found herself pondering the term 'deafening silence.'  It was an oxymoron- two completely different meanings that somehow made sense, and she decided that her entire life was an oxymoron. 

"I think you should tell Dumbledore."

Ron's sudden yet firm statement forced Hermione to stop thinking about oxymorons, and she looked instead at him as if he were a real moron.  "Are you out of your head?!" she asked incredulously.

He just stared back at her blankly.

"I am not telling Dumbledore!  I'm not telling anyone!"  She jumped out of the chair and spun around to face him wildly.  "And if you tell anyone, I will never forgive you."

"Hermione..." he started to speak, but she cut him off.

"No!  I'm serious.  Don't you dare tell anyone!  And I mean anyone."  By 'anyone,' she was explicitly referring to Harry. 

Ron looked at with such intensity that she couldn't decipher whether his look was meant to be intimidating, angry, pitying, or confused.  The answer was clear when he finally spoke, his voice dripping with disgusted disbelief.  "You are so selfish."

The words hit her like a physical slap to the face.  The fact that he sounded completely honest and sincere with his claim hurt even more.  She was so stunned, in fact, that she could nothing except stare at him.

"This could be serious, Hermione," he said icily, not moving from his place on the armrest.  "This could help someone.  It could help Harry." 

Hermione felt another familiar twinge of guilt, and she had to look downward to the floor.  He didn't stop, though; he simply went right on degrading her.

"I can't believe that you're too selfish to want to help him.  I thought he was your best friend."

And then Hermione could take no more.  "Don't judge me!" she shouted, jumping a bit at her own suddenly loud voice.  She was thankful that the Common Room was deserted, as she wasn't really in any mood to be the center of a spectacle at the moment.  "You have no idea!"

Ron didn't raise his own voice to match hers; in fact, he was infuriatingly calm.  "You're right," he conceded lazily, "I don't have any idea what it's like to see things happening in my dream and then hear about them coming true."  For a second, she thought she'd actually won.  "But I do know that I wouldn't let anything stop me from helping my best friend if I could."

And she had lost.

The guilt trip he was giving her was almost unbearable, and, in that moment, she hated him.  Out of all the things that annoyed her about Ron, there was one that stood out far above the rest.  She hated it, couldn't stand it, when he was right about something.  And at that moment, he was right, and she hated him for it.

His eyes bore into her until she had no choice but to meet them.  Knowing fully well that what he said was the truth, she finally sighed.

"Fine."

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The next morning, Hermione found herself trudging slowly behind Ron and Harry on the way to the Headmaster's office.  She'd finally given in and decided that if anyone had a right to know that she was dreaming about things happening, it was Harry.  He'd been surprised and even worried, but he had firmly agreed with Ron that she needed to go to Dumbledore.

They'd approached him at breakfast and asked if they could have a moment; he'd agreed, of course, and given them the password to his office as well as a pass for missing their morning Charms lesson.  After the meal, they'd made their way down the twisting corridors to the large gargoyle statue that guarded the Headmaster's office.  Ron had given the password ("Candy Cane!"), and they'd entered the large circular room.

It wasn't the first time that any of them had been inside of the office, but it was still amazing.  Fawkes was sitting high on a perch beside a tall bookshelf, and he fluttered his wings to greet them.  Portraits of old Headmasters lined the walls, and a magnificent desk made with the most intricate patterns of wood stood slightly toward the middle of the room. 

The three friends looked around curiously, not sure if they should seat themselves on one of the large couches or if they should wait for Professor Dumbledore to show up and offer them a place to sit.


They didn't have to wonder long, though, because moments later, a hidden door opened, and the Headmaster entered.  He offered them a brief smile before motioning for them to sit.  He himself sat behind the large desk and opened a small dish. 

"Would you care for a gummy bear?"  He'd always had a liking for Muggle sweets, and he held the candy dish out to them.  All three of them politely shook their heads, so Dumbledore simply took two for himself and replaced the lid.  "What can I do for you?"

Hermione kept quiet.  She ignored the way both Ron and Harry were staring at her and waiting for her to offer up the explanation.  She hadn't wanted to come in the first place, and if they wanted the story told, they would have to do it themselves.


Finally, after what seemed like an extremely long silence, she caught Ron rolling his eyes and answering.  "Hermione had a dream about the Diagon Alley attack."

Nice roundabout way of going about it, Hermione thought ruefully.

Surprisingly, though, Professor Dumbledore didn't seem too concerned.  "Well, it's only natural that some people will be uneasy after hearing the details of such a tragedy.  I imagine quite a few students dreamed about it last night."

"No," Ron said seriously.  "She dreamed about it the night before last- before it happened."

Hermione couldn't help but look up and gauge the Headmaster's reaction.  He still seemed rather unsurprised, but he did look keenly interested, though.  "Oh, really?"  Hermione was positive that a light flickered on in his eyes, and he studied her intently.  "Is this true, Miss Granger?"

Hermione wanted to lie; she wanted to deny the whole thing and pretend that it had never happened.  However, she knew that the professor would see straight through her falsity, though, so she didn't even attempt it.  Instead, she barely nodded a yes.

"And have you had any other such dreams?"

Hermione didn't think she'd ever been so uncomfortable in her entire life, and she wished harder than ever that she was just normal.  In way of an answer, she quietly said, "Not really.  I've had some bad feelings, but I've never really seen anything."

"Have any of those bad feelings occurred before actual bad events?"  He was staring at her, and she realized that both of the boys were, too.

She nodded again, wanting simply to disappear.

"I see."  Dumbledore stood up and crossed the room to a rather packed bookshelf.  He reached for what was quite possibly the largest book Hermione had ever seen in her life; it was too heavy to lift, so he floated it back across the room to his desk where it fell with a heavy and loud thud.  All three Gryffindors watched intently as he raised his wand and pointed it to the book, clearly saying, "Granger, Hermione."

The book opened and thousands of pages fluttered in a haze as the book turned itself to the proper page and stopped abruptly.  The Headmaster leaned over the book and pushed his moon-shaped glasses further up on his nose as he read whatever was written.  Hermione had an extremely strong urge to read what it was, too, as it did seem to be about her.  She didn't dare ask, though.  And after a moment, Professor Dumbledore smiled softly, "Just as I expected," he said more to himself than to them.

"Begging your pardon, Professor," Hermione said weakly.  "But what is just as you expected?"

The Headmaster looked back to the students then, the smile still protruding from under his thick white beard. 

"Miss Granger, it appears that you have an extremely rare gift.  Especially for a Muggle-born."  He chuckled softly.  "And especially for someone who detests Divination as much as you seem to."

Hermione just stared back at him, willing him to just get on with it.

"Miss Granger, you are a True Seer."

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And so the secret about one of the trio is revealed! 

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