A/N:  Thanks, thanks, thanks!!!


Disclaimer:  Hmm... yeah, still don't own them...

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Hermione couldn't quite believe that she had actually talked Harry into going through with the protection spell.

It hadn't been easy, of course.  She'd actually had to resort to speaking very loudly and using very large words if for no other reason than to confuse him.  She had learned long ago that the best way to talk people into things they didn't want to do was to make them feel stupid because most of the time they gave in just to save themselves the embarrassment of showing that they had no clue what was really being said.  Truthfully, she'd felt a bit bad about tricking him like that, as he'd seemed genuinely sincere with his defense that it wasn't safe and that they were all three risking expulsion or worse.  It was, as he so often pointed out, Dark magic, a subject which none of them should have been exploring.  She assured him, though, that they wouldn't get caught because there would be no way of tracing the spell, and she told him with full honesty that she didn't feel any sort of anxiety about the spell being Dark magic because it would inevitably help them.  In the end, he'd finally given up and given in, an action which had surprised both Ron and Hermione.

They'd spent the last week preparing to mix the potion, writing Fred and George for help, and planning exactly when and where.  This had all been mixed with other things.  Somehow, both Ron and Harry had managed to complete their homework on time and correctly at that. This was one burden taken off of them, but there were still several more, not the least of which was dealing with the obvious sullen tone that had taken over the Weasley house with the dismissal of Mr. Weasley from the Ministry.  No one really talked about it, and Hermione often felt uncomfortable whenever the thick silences settled over the dinner table.  She hadn't said a word about it to Ron and had actually run unknowingly into Ginny's wrath because of it.

She hadn't meant to offend the younger girl when she'd offered her a couple of old school shirts that she had outgrown but still hung onto.  Actually, the fact that Ginny's father was now jobless had not even entered her mind.  This reasoning, though, hadn't stopped Ginny from glaring and snidely saying, "I don't need your charity, Hermione.  My parents can still afford my clothes, you know."  Hermione had sat in slightly shocked silence until Ginny had frowned and muttered an apology.

The overreaction hadn't been spoken of since, but Hermione hadn't dared to make any other suggestions that included giving Ginny any of her old things.  Mostly, everyone had just avoided the subject, and Hermione suspected that Harry had partly agreed to the spell in order to get everyone's minds off of other things. 

It had certainly worked.

As the days had drawn closer, Hermione had spent most of her time reading and rereading the pages of the book, which laid out the instructions. Ron had convinced the twins to buy them some supplies and ship them over, but he'd had to agree to be their Hogwarts' representative and sell their products to the students there.  Hermione, of course, had told him that he was a Prefect and that he shouldn't be partaking in such childish endeavors.  He'd, of course, told her that there was no other choice, and she had shut up.

Besides, she would have much worse things to worry about that year than who was buying which Skiving Snackboxes and whatnot.  There were her obvious worries about school, but she now also had a million other things to worry about, not to mention keeping up with all of her other commitments.  They would obviously still try their hardest to continue the D.A., since it was more important than ever that they be prepared to defend themselves, and she had also spent the summer devising a series of new points to present to the house-elves about why their freedom should be something they desired instead of feared.  In addition to all of that, she'd gotten her school letter and had, once again, been named Prefect.

The letters had arrived just yesterday, the same day as the box containing all of the ingredients that Fred and George had dug up for them.  Ron had also been asked back, and Ginny had, predictably, been passed over for Prefect in lieu of Bria Myers, a decision which didn't seem to upset Ginny in the least.  All of their schedules had been approved, and Hermione had a complete list of all the classes she'd been taking in the past; Ron and Harry had gotten the same schedule as each other and were both looking forward to a much lighter load than normal.  The most notable thing about the letters, though, had come in the form of a letter to Harry from Professor McGonagall.  It had been short and to the point, welcoming him back onto the Gryffindor Quidditch team and congratulating him on his new appointed position as team captain.  He'd been elated and had been in a considerably better mood ever since; the only downside to the announcement had been a list of the other team captains, all of which were new to their positions.  For Harry, the list couldn't have been much worse.  Hufflepuff- Zacharias Smith.  Ravenclaw- Cho Chang.  Slytherin- Draco Malfoy. 


But, completely horrifying as the list was, Harry still couldn't be anything but thrilled.  And when he was in a better mood, he tended to rub off on everyone else, a good thing in the present condition of the Weasley household.

Hermione thought about all of this as she squinted at her watch in the darkness.  Ginny was asleep in the next bed with Crookshanks curled beside her legs, and Hermione knew it was going to be difficult to sneak out without waking either of them up in the process, but she'd promised to meet the boys at twelve-thirty, a time when the rest of the house was sure to be asleep.  She could barely make out the hands of her watch to read 12:26.

It was time to do this.

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The deja vu was almost too much.

Harry stared at the scene in front of him and suddenly felt like he was twelve years old again.  The surroundings were a bit different, and they were all a lot older, but the familiarity of the situation was definitely there.

Hermione was sitting on her knees in the middle of the Burrow's second floor loo, stirring the potion carefully and checking her book every few seconds to make sure she was doing everything correctly.  It was unlikely, of course, that she would make a mistake, but she tended to be a bit of a perfectionist.  Ron was sitting on the edge of the tub watching her with a slightly bored expression on his face, apparently not finding anything at all interesting about brewing a potion.  Harry was leaning against the door and sharing much the same sentiment.

He was nervous, naturally, because Hermione hadn't been a hundred percent sure of how the potion would affect them or what would happen when they did the spell.  He was also worried that, even though both of his friends had assured him that the Ministry tracked only wand-use among underage wizards, that they would somehow find out about the use of magic and try to expel him again.  There was also the chance that a member of the Weasley family would need to use the bathroom and find them out, an event that would certainly not be pleasant.  He couldn't imagine what excuse they would give as to why they were all locked in the bathroom together with a cauldron of potion in the middle of the floor.

It was almost two o'clock in the morning, and Harry could feel himself getting sleepy; Ron seemed to be having the same idea, as his eyes were closing slightly, the potion-brewing doing nothing to keep his attention.  Hermione, though, was being very quiet and seemed very intent on making sure everything was done just perfectly; sleep didn't seem to be on her agenda.

"It's ready," Hermione announced, drawing Harry out of his tired thoughts.  She glanced once more at her book before reaching for her bag, removing the empty Butterbeer bottle they'd had left over from dinner, and filling it; it was almost transparent but with a slightly bluish shade, certainly much more appealing than the Polyjuice Potion had been.  She set the ladle back into the cauldron with the extra potion and then got to her feet.

"You sure you did it right?" Ron asked, appearing slightly uneasy all of a sudden.

"I think so," she said with a furrowed brow.  "It should work."

Ron stood up, and Harry stepped forward, meeting his friends in the center of the small bathroom.  Hermione looked nervous, too, and Harry knew that she was second-guessing herself as she always tended to do; he was confident with her potion brewing ability, though.

"So, we just drink this and then do the rest, right?  You know how to do all of it?"  Harry looked at Hermione and saw her bite her lip slightly and nod.

"Yes, it should work," she repeated.  She looked at them expectantly.  "Ready?"  They both nodded, and she took a deep breath before raising the bottle to her lips and taking a long drink.  She swallowed and lowered the bottle, her eyes blinking with the taste.  "It's not bad," she said quietly, offering the bottle to Harry.

He took it and decided not to hesitate before taking his own dose.  The liquid went down his throat smoothly, tasting slightly of mint.  He actually felt it settle in his stomach and waited to see if there was any effect.  There wasn't.

"Is anything supposed to happen?" he asked uncertainly.

Hermione shook her head.  "No, not until the spell's performed."

Harry held the bottle out to Ron, who took it and raised it to his lips immediately.  He, too, took a long sip before lowering it and taking a moment to taste it. 

"What now?" he asked when he apparently realized that he wasn't going to choke. 

Hermione took the bottle from him and knelt down.  She dumped the excess potion back into the cauldron and then replaced the bottle into her bag, pausing a moment before withdrawing the knife she'd nicked from the kitchen.  Harry felt his own nervousness start to settle into the pit of his stomach; the full reality of what they were about to do washed over him, and he wondered if they were doing the right thing.  He glanced over at Ron and saw the same feelings reflected in his best friend's eyes.

Hermione dipped the knife into the cauldron for a minute and then stood back up and spoke in a very business-like voice.  "Okay, who's first?"

Harry, knowing that this was all for him, pushed his uneasiness aside and firmly said, "I'll go."

Hermione looked at him for a moment before slowly reaching for one of his hands and lifting it between them.  She turned it over in her own and once again drew in a steadying breath.  "It'll work," she said quietly, looking into his eyes very determinedly.  Harry nodded and focused his gaze on a place behind her head.  She placed the blade against his palm, and he noticed how cool it was before he felt her bear down and cut into his flesh.  He bit down hard on his back teeth as she made a perfectly straight line.  "You okay?" she asked softly, lifting the knife.  He nodded, looking down at the blood now dripping from the cut; his mind, though, drifted.

"Kill the spare..."

"Blood of thy enemy, forcefully taken..."

"Harry?"  He jumped slightly, not having realized how quickly his mind could wander.  Hermione was staring at him with a look full of concern, but he shook his head, partly to tell her that he was alright but mostly to try and shake the memories away.  "I need to do the other hand..."  He swallowed and offered her his left hand.  This time, though, instead of focusing on something else, he watched intently as she pushed the blade along his palm and drew more blood to the surface.  He didn't feel the dull ache anymore; he didn't feel anything.

In fact, the only thing that he could even see anymore was blood dripping into a bubbling cauldron.  In the back of his head, he heard a shrill cry of agony as a knife rose and dropped onto the wrist of a small man.  There was blood everywhere now...


And He was back.

He was back, and the only answer was death.

"And either must die at the hand of the other, for neither can live while the other survives..."

"Harry!"  Hermione's sharp voice made him jump slightly, and he stared at her, his breath feeling shorter by the second.  "Harry, are you okay?"

He stared at her and saw that Ron was looking at him just as strangely as Hermione was.  They didn't know; neither of them knew.  They didn't know that he was either going to kill or be killed, just as the prophecy had instructed.  It was the only way.

And they didn't know.

"I'm fine," he said quickly, blinking away the images, which were filling his head and once again bringing himself back to reality.  His hands were throbbing, he could feel them now, and he winced slightly as Hermione handed him the knife, which she had just cleaned off in the potion.  The rough wood of the blade slid against the cuts on his palm, and he tried not to notice them, though it was a futile attempt.

Hermione looked at him curiously but apparently knew enough not to pry.  She nodded slightly and very quietly said, "You need to do Ron's now."

He nodded and turned to face his best friend.  Ron was looking at the blood, which was now dripping onto Harry's wrist, but he held out his own hands willingly.  Harry forced his mind clear, knowing that concentration on this part was extremely important, and he took a deep breath before carefully putting enough pressure onto the blade to where it cut into skin.  He felt Ron wince slightly, but he didn't protest when Harry dragged the knife and made a perfectly straight cut, nor did he say anything when Harry switched and performed the same actions on the other palm. 

"You need to wash it off now because the bloods can't mix yet," Hermione said, and Harry knew she was nervously awaiting the final bit of this part, which would be her own cutting.  He nodded and bent down to soak the blade in the excess potion and noticed with vague interest that the blood didn't stain the potion red as he would have expected, but instead seemed to disappear within it.  He stood back up and handed the knife over to Ron, who took it with hesitation.

He stared at it for a moment, and it was clear that he wasn't too keen on cutting anyone, least of all Hermione.  Hermione, for her part, was biting down on her lower lip, and she nodded quickly when Ron muttered a very quiet apology that sounded so sincere Harry could almost feel it.  Her eyes squeezed shut as soon as the metal touched her open palm, and Harry saw Ron's own hand shaking as he cut into Hermione's.  There was no time wasted between the first and second hand, though, as they both seemed to want to get it over as quickly as possible.

Harry expected the tears in Hermione's eyes when she opened them, but she blinked them away quickly, refusing to let them actually fall.  Ron tried to look at her, and she finally met his glance, nodding her head and answering his unasked question of if she was okay.  Drawing in a very long breath, she once again took the knife and placed it back into her bag, glancing at the book once more and reading over the last bit. 

She stood back up and looked from one to the other.  "All that's left is the spell."

"You know it, right?" Harry asked, just to make certain because she had assured them that she had learnt the spell and knew it from heart.  She'd also said it wasn't necessary for all of them to know it.

"I know it," she answered calmly, inhaling slowly once again.  She looked at them.  "Ready?"

This was the most important part, the part that classified the spell as Dark magic.  It was when their blood would mix and the protection be placed over them, though there was no such thing as full-protection.  Harry nodded to answer her question and assumed that Ron had done the same despite the fact that he didn't look over.  With a very firm nod, Hermione held one hand out to each of them.  Harry hesitated just a second, thinking the whole thing over in his head for what he knew would be the final time before placing one hand in hers and one into Ron's. 

Nothing happened.

He looked over at Hermione to ask if this was normal, but she had already started muttering something in Latin that Harry couldn't make out.  He didn't know much as it was, and he wasn't very good with what he did know; Hermione, though, had always been quite skilled with the language, so he trusted that she was saying something that wasn't going to curse them all into toads or something equally as uninviting.  He glanced over at Ron and briefly met the other boy's eye; it was evident that both of them were nervous but neither of them wanted to let on just how much so.  The last few unfamiliar words tumbled out of Hermione's mouth, and there was a moment of complete silence and stillness.

Then, all at once, everything changed.


Harry wasn't sure if he was spinning or if it was the room that was partaking in the action; all he knew was that he saw everything shooting past him and he could barely stand up.  There was a tugging at his belly that reminded him strongly of traveling by Portkey.  The strangest thing, however, was the sensation of actually feeling the blood leave his body and his friends' bloods entering.  It wasn't necessarily unpleasant, but it was probably the weirdest feeling he'd ever had in his life. 


And then, as quickly as it had begun, the spinning stopped, and everything went still.

Harry somehow managed to keep his footing, but Hermione, being by far the smallest of the three, stumbled and hit the bathroom floor on all fours, her knees hitting with a thud and a stifled groan from her.  Harry was closest, so he helped her up, only to be shrugged away as she pushed past him and kicked the cauldron out of the way as she turned around in a rush.  Without so much as a warning, she threw her head over the edge of the toilet and threw up.

Harry didn't know what to do, nor, did it appear, did Ron.  They looked at each other in question as to whether they should help her or just let her be sick until she was finished.  Before they had a chance to ponder the problem much longer, though, she had done all the vomiting she could do and was sitting back on her knees, breathing heavily for a few moments.  She reached up to wipe at her mouth and gasped quietly as she looked at her hands.  Harry looked down at his own and was shocked to find that the cuts had completely healed themselves, leaving no sign or even a mark to show that they had been bleeding just seconds before.  He glanced at Ron's and Hermione's and saw that theirs, too, were totally healed up.

"Are...  Are you okay?" Ron asked warily. 

To his surprise, and Harry's, Hermione glared and stood up, whirling around and addressing Ron directly.  "Why didn't you get sick?" she demanded hotly.

Ron took an unconscious step backwards, and Harry knew that there was nothing but confusion filling his head at Hermione's reaction.  "What?" he managed, eyeing her timidly.


"Why didn't you get sick?" she repeated, her eyes now blazing.

"I..."

"I got sick!  Why didn't you?"

Ron looked around for help, but Harry didn't know what sort to give.  "Harry didn't get sick, either," he pointed out.

"He wouldn't," she said firmly.  "But I did, so you should have!"

"Why?" he asked, his own eyes changing slightly, as he watched her totally uncomprehendingly.

"Because of this!"  She motioned between them.  "Muggle...  Wizarding."

"Huh?"

Harry was no clearer than Ron was.

"All of my blood is Muggle, and all of yours is Wizarding.  I got sick because of yours!"

"But Harry-"

"Harry already had both!" she finished without hesitation.  "But it doesn't make any sense!  Your blood made me sick, so why didn't mine make you sick?"

"I don't know, Hermione!" Ron said, finally losing some of his temper.  "Do you want me to gag myself and make myself throw up?  Will that make you happy?!"


"Don't be stupid!"

"Then what the hell do you want me to do?" he demanded, his voice now just as hot as hers.  "I don't understand!"

"Me, either!"  She shook her head, her face no longer angry but now almost frightened.  "It doesn't make any sense.  But this is horrible..."

"What is?"

Harry watched as Hermione put a hand to her forehead and took a moment to seemingly think something over.  Finally, though, she shook her head and said, "Don't you get it?  Purebloods have the means to make all the Muggles and Muggle-borns in the world ill if they want to.  And all they have to use is... their own blood."

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Ron glanced at the calendar over his bed before he climbed under his covers.  There were still two days before the start of their sixth term, and he, along with his two best friends, had just performed a very powerful and very risky spell, a spell that was classified as Dark magic.


Hermione had gotten sick because of it, and Ron couldn't help but feel guilty.  He knew that there was nothing he could do, but it had, after all, been his blood that had made her ill.  He didn't want to hurt her, and he would have given anything to take it back.  But there were some things that couldn't be redone.

The spell had given them one advantage, though.  At least now they knew that the potential was there for dangerous activities involving blood; whether or not anyone else was aware, though, was still unknown to them.  They couldn't very well warn anyone, either, because if they had gone to his parents with the information, both his mum and his dad would have had all three of their heads for doing such a spell.  They couldn't go to any of their teachers, either, because they were just as likely to get in trouble with them as they were with his parents.

There was nothing to do except keep the knowledge private and hope that it didn't somehow become public.

One good thing, though, was that now they had an extra protective ward surrounding them.  Ron knew, of course, that it could only do so much, but at least it was there.  Harry needed all the help he could get right now, and Ron would have done anything for him.

He glanced over at the camp bed into which Harry had climbed moments before and already appeared to be fast asleep in, and he thought back to Harry's reaction after Hermione had cut into his hands.  He'd seemed to fade away into a totally different dimension at the sight of the blood, and Ron suspected that it had to do quite a bit with memories of the night at the end of their fourth year when Harry had been tied to a gravestone and had his arm sliced open.  Harry had actually never told him the story personally, but he, along with everyone else in the wizarding world, had read the interview in The Quibbler and knew the details.  Or at the very least, the gist.

Thinking about those sorts of things made everything seem too real to Ron.  He knew, of course, that they were all in danger, but up until just recently, he'd been able to push the thoughts aside.  There was something about being kidnapped and having the Cruciatus Curse hurled at you in an alleyway, though, that made ignoring the obvious impossible. 

A war was starting, and Harry was right at the middle of it.

People wanted to kill his best friend, but Ron had always known that there were some things worth sacrificing yourself for.  He'd realized that when he was just barely twelve years old and facing a giant chess set.  Two years later, he'd vowed to die for his best friend when they were being faced with, what they knew to be, a convicted murderer.  And things hadn't changed.

Harry Potter was his best friend, and that was one thing that would never change.

It was because of that one simple fact that he'd gone through with the spell.  If he could do anything to help Harry, he was going to do it.  It didn't matter what or how or even why because Harry was one of those things worth sacrificing for.

Even if the prospect was... terrifying.

There were some things worth being terrified over. 

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Back to Hogwarts in the next chapter!  Yay!!! 

Anyway, reviews are fabulous!