"Before you begin getting complacent, or thinking about how smart you've been, just remember one thing - you don't know who else is thinking the same."
Anonymous
Prologue I - Another Normal Evening?
It was another normal Friday evening in the Gryffindor common room – well, normal enough for the adventurous Trio, anyway. The Creevey brothers, Colin and Dennis, were once again hunched together around the fireplace, pouring over a ragged piece of parchment and exchanging whispers. Ginny, the youngest member of the Weasley family, was curled up on the softest part of the carpeted floor. She was biting her quill in frustration as she tried to remember the dates of vampire and werewolf strikes in the nineteenth century. And just like any other day at Hogwarts, Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger were sitting in armchairs, opposite each other, now only thirty seconds away from one of their notorious little arguments. Ron was just putting the finishing touches to the bottom row of an Exploding Snap card house, moving his hands dramatically as he did so. Hermione, on the other hand, was being Hermione, as usual. She was frantically scribbling away on what must have been her third roll of parchment, the top of which was now brushing daintily against the carpet. It would have been amusing to watch her at work. She was going through a continuous cycle of actions. She would write for a minute or two, her hand dancing elegantly across the face of the paper, her brow furrowed in concentration. She'd then follow that with a sigh, then a frown, before shooting an impatient glance over the top of her work at Ron. And the cycle would begin all over again.
Ron shuffled away from his handiwork and rubbed his hands together in satisfaction.
'A masterpiece in the making!' he proclaimed. 'Let's hope this run of luck continues, I'm starving. And I'm not going anywhere until I've finished this!'
Hermione sighed for the tenth time that minute. She lowered her parchment from where she'd been holding it three inches away from her face, and fixed her best friend with a quizzical stare.
'Just what, Ron,' she began, 'is the point in spending your time building one of those... things? Even if you do manage to get all of the cards on top of each other, how long do you really think it'll go without - blowing up again?'
'Hey,' Ron answered simply, 'that's the whole fun of the game, Hermione! You never know what's going to happen next! It makes you admire what you've done while you can, at least. I'll bet it's a hundred times more exciting than whatever it is you've been scribbling away on for the past century, anyway.'
'Some of us who value our education, Ron, get work done every now and then. Maybe you should be following my example. You are a prefect, after all.'
Ron snorted in mirth. Hermione quickly glared daggers at him.
'Of course I care, Hermione. I'm always hard at work, when I have to be, anyway. It's just I think there're times for working hard, and then there're times for doing... well, other stuff. Fun stuff.'
'Wouldn't you feel a lot better if you sat down with me and at least made a start on your Transfiguration essay?'
Ron wiggled his eyebrows mysteriously. 'And how do you know I haven't already done it, Miss Perfect Granger?'
'Well, Mister Lazy Weasley,' Hermione replied sarcastically, 'that would be because we were only set it this afternoon. And all you've been doing since then is playing game after game of Wizard chess with Harry, and trying to build that stupid card house for the hundredth time. Which, I might add, is very annoying to people who are trying to work in the same room!'
'Just you, then, I see.'
Hermione let out another sigh of impatience, and returned to her busy scribbling. Ron could sense the withering stares that were regularly being shot his way as he completed the second row of his masterpiece.
'Hermione, we've got all weekend to do that wretched essay! It's Friday evening, for God's sake! Have a bit of 'you' time for once. You've been working like a hou – er, well, really hard - all week. I'm surprised you've avoided arthritis.'
Ron caught the smallest of smiles appearing on Hermione's face out of the corner of his eye.
'I'm glad you care, Ron. But even you can't say that the work isn't being piled on us this year. If I want to get the grades I need to carry on to my seventh year N.E.W.Ts, I can't afford to stop now. Neither can you, either.'
'Ahh... you've got me there, I s'pose. Can't say you're wrong.'
Hermione's eyebrows were raised in surprise. 'So,' she inquired, as sweetly as she could, 'does this mean that you'll do at least a bit of work on your essay tonight, Ronald? I'll even help you, if you ask nicely.'
'No.'
Ron couldn't stop himself from laughing now. Hermione was not pleased.
'Ron! I'm being very s –'
But what it was that Hermione was being, exactly, Ron never found out. She stopped speaking as soon as they both heard the familiar sound of the Fat Lady's portrait creaking open slowly. It looked as if the person on the other side was having to use a lot of effort to open it.
After a couple more seconds of exhausted pushing and grunting, a thin face appeared into the room, followed closely by an equally thin body. The boy standing in the entrance had a skinny, pallid air around him, as though he had hit a growth spurt and the rest of his body was struggling to catch up. He wore thick-rimmed glasses, and had jet-black, untidy hair and a scar in the shape of a lightning bolt across his forehead. Harry Potter was also, at this moment, drenched to head to foot in rain and mud, and clutching a broomstick half-heartedly in one hand.
'Evening, Ron. Evening, Hermione,' he began wearily, stumbling over to the nearest armchair and collapsing into its cosy depths. 'How are things?'
'Hello, Harry,' Hermione replied brightly, her curling piece of parchment momentarily forgotten. 'How was your Seeker practice?'
It was a while before Harry could gather the breath he needed to utter a reply.
'Exhausting,' he answered, 'and... wet. Cold, too. Anyway, I'm glad I finished when I did. I missed most of the rain. All right there, Ron? Haven't you got it finished yet?'
'No, he hasn't,' said Hermione icily before Ron could open his mouth. 'He's been sat there for two hours now, doing nothing but irritating me with that pointless exercise. In fact,' she added scathingly, 'I'm under the impression he's doing it deliberately.'
'Hey!' Ron protested, waving his arms wildly in front of him. His violent hand caught a pair of cards balancing gingerly on the third row, causing the entire top section to topple onto the table like dominoes. 'Dammit! Look what you made me do now, Hermione! That could've blown up right in my face!'
'Oh, sorry, Ronald. I forgot how important that card house was towards getting something worthwhile done, rather than wasting another evening away while I get even further ahead of you. I'm so sorry for interrupting you.'
'Oh, what was that? Harry, did you hear that? Was that sarcasm I heard in your voice there, Miss Granger? Please, do go on.'
'Oh, Ron, don't start with me now, I've got a lot to do. So have you. I've got to finish this essay soon and get started on Hagrid's diagrams of the Cockatrice before I go to bed!'
'Start? Start what? I haven't started anything! It was you that made me knock over part of what I've been concentrating on for the last hour building! Thanks a bunch, Hermione!'
'Concentrating? Concentrating!? You wouldn't know the meaning of the word if it –'
Harry clapped a damp hand to his forehead in fatigue as both Ron's and Hermione's voices rose in anger. He had been hoping he could relax by the fireplace, after another excruciating night of personal Quidditch training. His muscles were aching, and he was sure his hands had gone completely limp from the cold. He wasn't sure just how much of his best friends' endless bickering he could withstand tonight. Usually, he would have been immune to it. He was sure everyone who had sat around the Gryffindor common room for at least thirty seconds could develop a mental barrier against the tirade of noise. It was as common a sound to this room as the flickering of the flames in the hearth opposite him.
In fact, most of them already had. As he stole a quick glance around the rest of the room, Harry noticed that the Creevey brothers hadn't even bothered to turn their heads. Ginny had shown a brief amount of amusement at the two as they began to tear chunks out of each other once again. That hadn't lasted very long, however. She had quickly rolled her eyes when she'd detected Harry's gaze on her, and went back to struggling with her complicated essay.
Harry risked a quick listen to what Ron and Hermione had moved onto now.
'I don't understand how you think, Ron! You're not as stupid as you ever make out, you're smarter than most people here, and if you only applied yourself with just a bit of commitment to your studies, I think you'd show a considerable amount of improvement!'
'Oh, so now I'm failing, am I, Hermione!? Am I completely dysfunctional? Am I dragging you down because I'm not totally enthusiastic about working on a Friday evening? Just because I don't sit in a chair with ten books beside me every night, not talking to my best friend, who I might add chose to spend time with you anyway, doesn't make me a total idiot! Just because I don't write three foot long essays for McGonagall every night, or Flitwick, or Vicky...'
Harry knew at that moment that Ron had just poured a hundred barrels worth of petrol onto their already heated argument. He braced himself for the explosion. Earmuffs, he thought suddenly, that's what Dumbledore should have given all the Gryffindors at the start of the year. We all need earmuffs.
The outburst never came. Hermione, it seemed, had at least an ounce of sense in her. She threw Ron the worst possible look that she could muster – not of anger, nor of hatred, but of pure pity.
'How did I guess you were about to drag Viktor's name into the conversation again?' she said quietly. She was obviously trying to control her temper, and doing a fairly good job of it. 'You seem to be making a habit of it. I've got important work to do here, Ron, and if you want to sit around, throwing insults at Viktor behind his back, then there's a perfectly good wall over there waiting for you. I suggest you use it.'
With that, she disappeared once again behind her roll of parchment. Harry and Ron quickly recognised the familiar scratching sound of pen on paper, which told them that Hermione was busy working again.
Ron's breath caught in his throat. He really hadn't expected Hermione to take the argument down a dead end. He was temporarily thrown off guard.
'That's real typical of you, Hermione. Real mature! Whenever we raise stuff that you don't want to talk about, you always get out as soon as you can! Why are you so afraid of talking about Krum to me!? What are you scared of?'
Ron's question was answered by Hermione's pen, as it placed a full stop onto the parchment with a flourish. Harry couldn't be sure of anything, but he guessed that Hermione was wearing a smug smile that nobody else could see. Even the blank side of the parchment seemed to be smirking at Ron's fuming expression.
'Hermione! I'm talking to you!'
Scratch, scratch, scratch. Pause. Sigh. Scratch, scratch
'Fine! Go away and hide behind your work! See if I care!'
Ron sat down on the floor rather abruptly and stretched his legs out underneath the coffee table. He turned his entire body away from Hermione's and carried on where he had left off with his card house. He wasn't having much success, though - Harry couldn't help but notice the way that he tried desperately not to keep glancing over at Hermione's armchair, or the way that he kept pushing two cards together with much more force than was necessary, causing the second tier of his house to eventually collapse as though it were made of straw.
Harry would have laughed out loud, or at least chuckled quietly to himself, at the situation before him. However, Ron and Hermione were his two best friends. This meant one important thing. Unless he stepped in now and made the peace between them, he would be looking forward to another week of passing messages between them, or forcing them to try and talk to each other. Not surprisingly, he chose the former. And he'd have to take a risk to do it.
He cleared his throat.
'Er... so, Hermione?' he began. The scratching noise immediately ceased, and the parchment lowered by an inch or two. 'Um... how is Viktor Krum doing? Did you – did you go to meet him over the summer in the end?'
The scratching immediately ceased.
He could Ron breathing loudly through his nostrils as the last sentence left his mouth.
'Don't you start with me now as well, Harry, because I'm telling you now, mate, I'm really not in the mood for this.'
'I'm sure that Harry's petrified with fear, Weasley,' Hermione said scathingly, placing her work aside on the table. 'It's a reasonable question, Harry. I'm glad at least one of my so-called best friends is open to making friends with Viktor.'
'So? How is he?'
There was an odd silence from Hermione for a moment or two before she answered.
'I – I really wouldn't know, Harry,' she began in a higher voice than usual. 'So far this year, I've written to him three times – once in October, once on Christmas Eve and then just last week. But... I haven't had any replies from him yet. He hasn't sent as much as a short note saying 'Hello'.'
Ron's hands paused from where they were about to begin the second row again. Harry got the distinct impression that he was listening in, but didn't want Hermione to know he was too interested in the subject. Harry, on the other hand, was just puzzled.
'He hasn't said anything to you at all?' he asked, frowning. 'Hasn't contacted you in any way?'
Hermione suddenly had a wary expression on her face. She was hesitant in answering Harry again. He couldn't quite put his finger on it. She looked as though he was about to open her cupboard door, and spill all of her innermost secrets out to whoever was close enough to see them.
'No, Harry, I just told you that! No letters, no owls, no telegrams... no muggle mail, even! Nothing.'
Harry was now even more puzzled. He was hard pressed to see why the man who had been more than a little jealous of his and Hermione's friendship in fourth year had suddenly decided to start giving her the silent treatment.
'But... why?' he pressed on. 'That doesn't seem like the Viktor Krum that I met in the Triwizard Tournament. You two are still friends, aren't you?'
Hermione threw Harry a pained expression, her eyes darting towards Ron and back as she did so. Luckily for her, Ron didn't notice. He was still too busy trying to listen to their conversation and complete his card house at the same time.
'Yes, Harry, we are,' she said quickly. 'We were still friends the last time I saw him.'
'When was that?'
Hermione took a deep breath. 'The same time as you... and Ron. I... I haven't seen him since then. Since the end of fourth year.'
Ron couldn't pretend that he wasn't listening in anymore. The cards he was holding in his outstretched fingers fluttered to the carpet, forgotten. His eyes were fixed dumbly on Hermione, his mouth hanging open. He probably wouldn't have noticed if his card house had detonated right there and then, reminding him that his eyebrows didn't have to be a permanent feature of his face. He wasn't the only one. Ginny Weasley's essay was immediately pushed to one side as her eyes snapped upwards to stare at the back of Hermione's armchair.
'What?' Ron asked dimly. His eyes seemed to have glazed over, and his animosity towards his best friend suddenly seemed to have vanished. 'I mean, didn't you – didn't you go and see him that summer? He asked you to, didn't he?'
The look on Hermione's face at that moment said to Harry that she would have sentenced a million house elves to slavery, if it meant she could evaporate on the spot and reappear in a different room.
'I – I don't want – yes, Ron, he did,' she stuttered. 'And I was going to go, as well. He asked me after he pulled me out of the lake, and I said yes. I – I meant it, too.'
Harry got the message that this was a subject Hermione did not want to discuss at great length. Ron, however, was not so subtle. Either his curiosity got the better of him, or he was suddenly too blind to notice the silencing looks that Harry was sending his way. Either way, he decided to unwisely plough on.
'So?' he said abruptly, shrugging his shoulders in question. 'What happened? Why didn't you? Did he say anything else to you? Did he call it off?'
Jesus Christ, Ron, you're digging too deep now. Just shut up. Shut up. It's not worth going there. Really.
Despite whatever skills in Occlumency he had picked up from Snape over the course of fifth year, Harry's telekinetic abilities were still non-existent.
Hermione was desperately trying to avoid Ron's stare. 'Well,' she mumbled, 'do you r-remember when we left Hogwarts that year? When we were getting on the train, and Viktor pulled me over to one side for a minute? Do you remember, Ron?'
'What did he say to you?'
Hermione took another deep breath, as though she were bracing herself for a deep plunge.
'He... he said that he would really m-miss me that summer if I didn't go and see him. He told me that – that I was the thing that he would most sorely miss. And then, he... he asked me to be his girlfriend.'
