A/N
READ PLEASE. CRITICAL TO STORY! I WISH TO INFORM YOU OF THESE FOUR FACTS;
IT IS THE SUMMER BEFORE SEVENTH YEAR.
THE DURSLEYS ARE DEAD AND HARRY HAS HIS OWN ROOMS AT HOGWARTS FOR THE SUMMER.
HE STAYED THERE MOST OF LAST SUMMER AND NOW KNOWS ALMOST EVERY NOOK AND CRANNY OF THE CASTLE-INCLUDING A SECRET ROOM THAT NOT EVEN THE WEASLEYS TWINS COULD HAVE FOUND ON THE MAP.
GINNY IS DATING DRACO. RON WAS MAD AT FIRST BUT REALIZED THAT DRACO HAD NOT TAKEN THE MARK AND WAS ON THEIR SIDE. DRACO IS NOW THE FIFTH MEMBER OF THE DREAM TEAM. GINNY WAS FOURTH.
A/N
"Thanks." Hermione said to Albus wheeling her trunk further into the entrance hall of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Making sure her purse was secure on her shoulder and tucking one stray strand of her brown hair that she had tamed to be curly, and long behind her ear. She began walking towards a hall barely used by anyone in the castle, heading in the direction of Harry's private rooms. Albus had generously added another room off of Harry's living room that she could use while she was here for her final year at Hogwarts and Minerva had offered to play her guardian as well as Harry's. It was nice to feel loved after something as big as what had happened. She made a left turn followed by a sharp right turn, walked down towards the door on the left and opened it following one more corridor. Turning right and at the end of the hall turning right again until she reached a final door, which was in the form of a picture and the opening to their room.
"Golden Snitch." Hermione tried remembering that she didn't know the password.
"Sorry." The portrait of Godric Gryffindor denied her access.
"Quidditch?" Hermione tried again.
"Nope." Godric replied.
"Quaffle, Bludger, Keeper, Seeker, Chaser, Viktor Krum sucks, Potions is useless, Voldemort, Death munchers?" Hermione rambled.
"Finally." Godric said opening the door.
"Thank you." Hermione said feeling the need to be gracious to one of Hogwarts four founders.
"Hermione, how are you?" Harry asked hugging her.
"Umm…okay I guess. I mean as good as I can get after my parents dying…" Hermione trailed off. Death was a new word to her and she didn't like it.
"Why don't you get settled in and we can have dinner in here tonight instead of going down to the great hall." Harry suggested. He felt very bad for her, he missed his parents of course but he had never known them. Then when the Dursleys had died Harry had barely felt a thing except maybe about his Aunt because she had been his mom's sister.
"That sounds fine but I do need to go see Minerva to thank her for taking me as a charge." Hermione told him. She hadn't really broke down about her parent's death.
"Okay, I'll be here reading when you're ready for dinner." Harry told her trying not to press her for how she felt or what she wanted.
"Thanks Harry." Hermione smiled pulling her trunk towards a door clearly marked with the words 'Hermione's room'.
Hermione entered the room and looked around, it was Gryffindor colors with a queen size four poster bed instead of the regular double. There was big windows showing the gorgeous Hogwarts grounds and a dresser beside a big double door closet. Hermione was under the impression that her and Harry would have to share a bathroom but upon seeing another door she opened it and to no avail there was a bathroom, better than the prefect's bathroom. Hermione smiled weakly to herself and she began unpacking and then she proceeded to wash up and put on some crisp white, summer robes. These were her favorite robes and her mother's favorite-Hermione supposed that was why she wore them to see Minerva, her stand in mother.
"I'll be back soon Harry." Hermione promised heading back out of the portrait hole. She took the route opposite to the one she had used to get here and made her way towards her transfiguration professors private quarters. I guess I won't be calling her professor out of the classroom anymore, Hermione thought to herself.
"Who dear?" A portrait asked.
"Hmm?" Hermione replied.
"Who won't you be calling professor?" The portrait repeated her question.
"Oh no one." Hermione mumbled shaking her head, she hadn't meant to say that outloud.
--
"Death munchers." Hermione murmured to Godric as she reached the room.
"Yes ma'am." Godric replied opening.
"Thank you." Hermione said courteously.
"Not at all." Godric said evenly as Hermione clambered through the portrait hole.
"You're back." Harry said smiling.
"Looks that way doesn't it." Hermione said attempting a weak smile at Harry.
"Yes." Harry agreed, "Are you ready for dinner?"
"Just something light." Hermione requested.
"Soup or chicken?" Harry asked.
"Chicken soup?" Hermione replied.
"Sounds good, "I'll join you." Harry said about to call for a house elf.
"You don't have to. I mean sometimes you have an appetite to rival Ron's so you might want something more." Hermione told him.
"Soup is fine because I have a bit of cold." Harry told her.
"I know you're lying but okay." Hermione attempted another weak smile.
"Oh and by the way I resent being compared to him-especially when it involves his appetite." Harry laughed.
"Understandable." Hermione agreed and Harry called the house elf to order the chicken soup.
"This is good." Hermione commented 10 minutes later.
"It is." Harry agreed taking another bite of chicken.
"They can make anything, can't they?" Hermione asked.
"If I said no would it stop your spew about S.P.E.W.?" Harry asked hopefully.
"Probably not." Hermione said thoughtfully.
"Than yes." Harry laughed.
"They shouldn't have to work for free…" Hermione began.
"They're used to it." Harry commented.
"That doesn't make it right." Hermione interjected.
"They love it too." Harry assured her.
"I'm sure they do but…" Hermione continued.
"Hermione listen fighting with me about this isn't going to help anything so why don't you just shut up." Harry said evenly.
Hermione looked away hurt clear in her eyes.
"Hermione I…" Harry started.
"It's fine, I'll be in my room if anyone needs me." Hermione told him leaving the common room.
"I'm such an idiot." Harry whispered to himself. He screwed his first night with her up badly, he hadn't meant to do that-he didn't want to hurt her but it was annoying when she went on about S.P.E.W.
--
Hermione entered her room and sat on her bed. She looked out her window and sighed heavily-it wasn't fair that she had to be moved and shuttled around because of the evil death munchers. Her life was in ruins as much as her house and it was all because of them. Hermione lay back on her bed and began to stare at the ceiling, but it was boring so she sat up and grabbed her homework, that always helped her stay preoccupied. But not even that was working tonight so she decided to go to the fireplace in the living room and floo to the library but remembered that Harry was out there and she wasn't in the mood to talk. Finally Hermione settled on reading a book about dangerous spells and animals before falling asleep with the book on her lap.
"Hermione?" Harry knocked on her door at around 9:30.
No reply came from in the room so Harry carefully opened the door to see Hermione asleep with a book on her lap shoes still on and the light on. Harry smiled and he clicked off the light so it wouldn't wake her before moving to her bed and gently removing one shoe.
"Hmm." Hermione mumbled rolling over to one side.
Smiling Harry removed the other shoe and picked up the book placing it on her bedside table he gently tried to pull the blanket out from underneath her. It was stuck under her head so Harry slowly lifted her head up with one hand and then removed the blanket from underneath her with the other. Then Harry smiled at the look of gentle peace on Hermione's features and he slowly pulled the blanket over her brushing a soft kiss over her forehead Harry began to leave the room.
"Thank you." Hermione whispered but when Harry turned to look at her she was facing the other way, her eyes closed peacefully and Harry shook it off as wishful thinking.
--
Harry kicked the punching bag roughly before turning to one side and throwing a punch at an invisible guy and turning his leg around so he brought it down on the kneecap of a dummy. Harry stopped and wiped his forehead pulling off his shirt he turned and began fighting again, he kicked and punched before doing the seemingly impossible he flipped over the dummy to land on the other side and quickly kicked him in the back to bring his opponent down. Harry was training and he was training hard for the final battle with Voldemort. His plan was to defeat him without using an unforgivable, without magic-he planned to kill Voldemort the muggle way. There were two reasons for this, one-he needed to be able to harm him and his wand didn't work against Voldemort's and two-Voldemort needed to die the muggle way. Harry needed to teach his followers that nobody was invincible. With that thought Harry pushed a stray strand of hair out of his eyes and proceeded to train throwing punches this way and that kicking, using his tai-kwon-do and his gymnastics. He had started this training last year and the only one who knew was Dumbledore. He didn't tell Minerva his stand-in guardian and he didn't tell Ron and Hermione no one needed to know and even Albus felt it would be impossible to kill him without magic. But Harry knew better and next week he planned to start sword training. What Harry also knew was that he needed to practice magical dueling as well and he did devote an hour to that each day as well.
And in order to fit all of this into his busy world he would wake up and 4 am. It was hard to maintain his grades but Harry was still top of the class in DADA and charms. But of course Hermione was top of everything else…even potions which was weird yes considering Harry and Hermione were the only two Gryffindors in Snape's N.E.W.T. class and he hated both of them.
"Har…" Hermione trailed off watching Harry fight his way through the entire set of dummy's, flipping around and using all of these muggle methods to fight. There was that and the fact that Harry had his top off-those two factors contributed to the fact that she did nothing to catch Harry's attention any more. Watching him do a double roundhouse kick she stared in awe as he completed it with a jab at a dummy and an uppercut at another.
"Hermione?" Harry asked turning to her all of the sudden. What was she doing here?
"Hi Harry." Hermione said staring at the floor.
"What's up?" Harry asked leaning against the wall exposing his tight abs.
"How long have you been doing this?" Hermione asked trying not to stare at his bare chest.
"Since last summer. I plan on killing Voldemort the muggle way." Harry explained at her confusion.
"Will he die that way?" Hermione asked.
"I hope so." Harry said grimly lifting a huge dummy out of his way. As he did this his muscles in his arms flexed and Hermione once again had a hard time not staring.
"I could research it for you. The spell he did in fourth year could have made him resistant to muggle actions." Hermione said lightly.
"That would be good, thanks." Harry said.
"Were you doing tai-kwon-do?" Hermione asked shyly.
"How long were you standing there?" Harry asked curiously.
"Long enough to know that you're really good." Hermione told him looking away.
"Yes there was tai-kwon-do, gymnastics and kickboxing." Harry told her, "I train with magic too and I start sword fighting next week." Harry told her.
"May I?" Hermione asked.
"Hmm?" Harry asked.
"May I train with you?" Hermione asked.
"I don't know…" Harry began, "I'll be really far ahead."
"I can catch up slowly and if I'm holding you back I'll stop." Hermione promised.
"I could take a week out of my training to work with you." Harry pondered.
"I can figure it out on my own." Hermione argued.
"Not a good idea." Harry warned.
"It can't be that bad." Hermione said.
"You need to read these. It's Friday right?" Harry asked.
"Yep." Hermione said looking at the titles of the six books in her arms.
"Can you finish them by Monday?" Harry asked.
"Sure." Hermione agreed.
"4 am. In this room." Harry said.
"4 am?" Hermione asked.
"You said you wanted to learn." Harry reminded.
"And I do." Hermione agreed and she made to leave the room.
"You can stay and watch my technique if you want." Harry suggested.
"I'll go start reading." Hermione said knowing if she stayed any longer she's stare.
"Okay." Harry smiled at Hermione and watched as she left the room that adjoined to their common room.
--
"Albus in two weeks I'm starting sword fighting." Harry began.
"Okay." Albus agreed.
"I have a sword that I conjured to practice with for now but in the final battle I need a good sword." Harry explained.
"Fine." Albus said.
"I was wondering if I could use the sword of Godric Gryffindor?" Harry requested.
"That seems fine to me." Albus agreed.
"Thank you. Hermione wishes to train with me in the mornings." Harry said suddenly.
"She does?" Albus asked.
"Yes. I've told her that if she finishes the six books on fighting by Monday she could begin to train with me. I would help her for the first week and then she would continue with that while I started my sword fighting." Harry told him.
"As long as she keeps up her studies once school starts I see no problem with that. Although seeing as I've seen you train and know what you're like she may even quit before then." Albus spoke surely.
"You'd be surprised." Harry said as he left the room.
"Maybe I will be." Albus agreed to himself and his Phoenix tilted its head at him.
--
"You finished them?" Harry asked Sunday night.
"Yes." Hermione agreed. The last day or so had passed with no great incidents. Hermione had yet to break down; she was strong and felt that crying a river would do nothing to prove that to anyone-least of all her.
"That's good." Harry said, "What's a big thing you picked up?"
"There was two major things and one subtle one." Hermione told him.
"Which were?" Harry asked curious to know if she had figured it out on her own.
"Things can't be completed without you knowing how to do them-you need to be taught how to do things before you can do them. Nothing can be done by chance and if it is it can not be repeated." Hermione recited.
"Very good. Next?" Harry asked. She had recited it as if she had read it in a book, which essentially she had except it was never actually written down like that.
"Your moves are always going to be anticipated by the opponent. You can never safely assume that they won't know what is coming next and there fore you must take what you have and what they give you to swing the fight in your direction." Hermione recited once again like a dictionary.
"You're good." Harry said in awe.
Hermione stood from her place on the couch and moved to the window. She could see the squid in the lake and imagine herself, Harry and Ron sitting out there last year trying to relax after a serious muggle attack by the death munchers.
"What was the other one?" Harry asked curiously.
"You need to know what you can and can't do. If your opponent is doing flips and gymnastics and all you know is ballet – use it. Pirouette out of the way, go on your toes to reach a tree branch and swing out of the way. Everyone has something they can use no matter how big or how small you just have to know how." Hermione explained.
"Wow." Harry said.
"I mean I spent years doing ballet before I came here and still do in the summer. I could really use that, just like you can use the gymnastics. Although I have a feeling you learnt that from a book." Hermione laughed.
"Ya. I'm surprised though because I took awhile to figure the second one out and you managed it just from books." Harry told her.
"I've always managed to find things in books that no one else could see." Hermione reminded him, 'And I found that spell, Voldemort used and it looks like he can be harmed by muggle ways. It was the one imperfection of the charm so he used it and probably tried to find another charm to stop muggle injuries." Hermione said happily.
"What if he found one?" Harry asked worriedly.
"Then you use someone else's wand to defeat him. It is possible Harry, I know it is.' Hermione said confidently.
"I'm glad you think so." Harry rolled his eyes.
"I do." Hermione agreed and she looked out the window again. She looked towards the whomping willow and remembered their third year.
"What are you looking at?" Harry asked coming up behind her.
"Just memories. I'm not really looking at anything just seeing things." Hermione said then laughed, "Did that make any sense?"
"A little. It's like you're not actually looking at something but you are seeing things that you saw when they were there and you were able to look at them." Harry elaborated.
"Sounds right." Hermione said.
"It's late we have to get up early." Harry said regretfully. He enjoyed being with Hermione and he didn't want to go to bed.
"Ya, I'll see you in the morning." Hermione agreed crossing over to her room.
"In the morning." Echoed Harry.
"Night Harry." Hermione called closing her door.
"Night." Harry replied throwing his head back on the top of the couch.
--
"Up, up, up!" Hermione's alarm clock screeched.
"I'm up." Hermione yelled hitting the off button and rolling so she could see the time. 3:30am. What a way to start the day.
Hermione got up slowly and went to her closet; she grabbed some tight sweat pants and a tank top. She went into her bathroom to brush her teeth and get changed before heading to the room where she would begin her training.
"Hey Mione." Harry greeted when she entered the room.
"Hey." Hermione said and she began her stretching.
"Right. We need to stretch then we can begin with kickboxing." Harry told her and he joined her in stretching.
"Are we going to do tai-kwon-do?" Hermione asked.
"Later." Harry explained.
"What will I do when you're doing gymnastics?" Hermione asked suddenly.
"You can practice using ballet in fighting." Harry reminded.
"I wasn't serious about that." Hermione said.
"I was." Harry said and he stood.
"What first?" Hermione asked.
"Jab." Harry demonstrated.
"Jab." Hermione repeated throwing the punch.
"Uppercut." Harry said showing her an example.
Hermione followed his example perfectly for the jab, uppercut, roundhouse kick, jumpkick, crossover, and a set of three moves. They were as followed you take a right hand jab, clasp your hands and bring them back into your opponents stomach and finally using a back kick to take your opponent out. By now Hermione could successfully do every punch and kick that Harry could, it was just a matter of getting her to use them in a hand-to-hand combat without running out of steam. And in order to do that Harry had to teach her tai-kwon-do so that she could fight without losing as much energy.
"That's great Hermione." Harry looked at his watch; it was 4:30.
"What now?" Hermione questioned.
"Now we learn some tai-kwon-do moves." Harry said and he charmed music to be playing.
"Is this the Beatles?" Hermione laughed.
"Yes. Eleanor Rigby." Harry replied and he began to slowly concentrate on his movements.
"Do you want me to follow you?" Hermione asked.
"Yes." Harry replied, "No talking in this."
Hermione nodded her consent and they began to practice their routine.
--
"Let's go children, Arthur we're going to be late." Molly Weasley called to her family.
"We're coming Molly." Arthur replied and they all piled into the ministry car.
"How long are we staying in Romania with Charlie?" Ginny Weasley, the youngest asked.
"We'll be there all summer and Bill will join us in 3 weeks." Molly informed them.
"I won't get to see Harry and Hermione at all?" Ronald Weasley or Ron the youngest male asked.
"No you won't." Arthur smiled.
'But this is our last official summer of school." Ron exclaimed.
"Suck it up Bro." George Weasley one of the twins told him.
"We don't need someone to whine on this trip," Fred began.
"Ginny already takes care of that." George laughed.
"Hey!" Ginny cried.
"Boys." Molly warned.
"We are going on a family vacation but maybe at some point Harry and Hermione can come and visit you." Arthur told Ron.
"Thank you." Ron said closing his eyes.
"Your welcome. And boys stop pulling your sisters hair!" Molly ordered.
--
"I need to do my gymnastics now." Harry told Hermione.
"I'll do my ballet, as weird as that sounds." Hermione laughed.
"Fine." Harry smiled and he stripped off his shirt. It was too sweaty to have it on.
Hermione turned her back to Harry and conjured a barre so she could begin her practice. She started by holding the bar and going on her toes as high as she could without her point shoes on. She could go all the way up it just hurt more than with the shoes. She could feel Harry's eyes on her so she figured give him something to watch and she did a 2-minute mini-routine. It started by her going on her toes and slowly going down into a pirouette before doing the rest of her routine. She finished the routine and turned around to see Harry watching her in awe.
"What?" Hermione asked crossing her arms over her chest self-consciously.
"How do you go up on your toes, like that?" Harry asked.
"It takes practice, a lot of practice." Hermione explained, "Your turn to show off."
"You should keep practicing in 20 minutes we start our magic training." Harry said.
"You have to do something first." Hermione requested.
"Fine." Harry rolled his eyes and he did a triple back flip, followed by a back somersault and ended with two cartwheels into a roundoff.
"Wow." Hermione said eyes wide.
"After practice though, that's easy. Your stuff looks like 100 concentration." Harry explained.
"It is." Hermione agreed and she went back to her ballet.
Twenty minutes later Hermione had gone through only a quarter of what she new and Harry had admittedly not done much because he was watching Hermione in her tight clothes.
"Time for magic training." Harry called to her.
"What do we do?" Hermione asked.
"We take theses dummies and charm them to fight us. There is three levels, I suggest you start at one but you should be at two by the end of the hour.
"Okay." Hermione agreed, "What's the charm?"
"Here." Harry did a weird wand movement without any noise and the dummy came towards her.
"Accio wand." Hermione called and her wand flew into her hand.
"Wandless magic?" Harry asked, "I thought I was the only one who bothered."
"Nope." Hermione said throwing her first spell.
"You have to remember what you know about muggle fighting. The opponent can track your next move if they fight you long enough. You must take them down quickly and you have to use what the opponent knows about you to your own advantage." Harry reminded.
"I know." Hermione yelled dodging a bat bogey hex with a protego charm.
"Why is he using charms?" Hermione asked ten minutes later.
"It's level one." Harry explained.
"Right. Yano!" Hermione called out a hex that she had picked up in a book she was reading it was like impedimenta and it slowed your opponent down but it also turned their limbs to jelly.
"Nice one." Harry congratulated. As Hermione stole the dummy's wand and cast stupefy.
--
It had been two weeks since Hermione had begun training with Harry and she was still not as good as he was but he had an advantage. She was on level three with the dummy fighting but she couldn't defeat it as fast as Harry and it had taken her over a week to beat level two three times. It now took her 2 hours to defeat her dummy and she was very good at tai-kwon-do, it was probably her favorite part of training. The kickboxing was fun and a great way to take out anger frustration or to get over sadness. She was slowly getting better and she concentrated very hard on her releveé (up on point). This was because she knew it could be the most important move in her ballet fighting. She also concentrated on her ronde-de-jam attitude but that was for her own benefit. She was frozen in time, or so it felt because the same thing happened every day. She knew people were worried about her, she hardly ate and she hadn't cried. She spent most of her time in the library looking up possibilities that Voldemort could have used to stop muggle injuries. Like now, she was in the library but she was looking out at grounds from her favorite window. Hermione looked at the lake where she had once read letter form her parents about 'staying away from boys', then over at the forest where her parents had stood after Percy Weasley had died and their was a funeral for him. Remembering so much about her parents at once could have been what pushed her over the edge but she didn't know.
"Oh Mione." Harry cried rushing to her side and pulling her into his arms.
"They're gone Harry, they're really gone." Hermione sobbed.
"I know. It's okay Mione." Harry stroked her hair and hushed her.
"I have no one left." Hermione said through her tears.
"You have me." Harry assured pulling her closer, "I'll always protect you."
"Thank you…" Hermione whispered before falling asleep. Harry gathered her in his arms and walked to the library fireplace flooing back to their rooms. Harry took off her shoes and placed a light kiss on her forehead before gently trying to remove his arms.
"Hmm." Hermione whimpered unconsciously. So Harry lay down next to her until he was sure she wouldn't wake.
--
"Harry?" Hermione asked seeing a sleeping figure in a chair in her room.
"Mione." Harry smiled moving over to her.
"How did I get here?" Hermione asked.
"I brought you. You fell asleep in the library last night so I brought you in here." Harry informed her.
"You didn't have to stay." Hermione scolded.
"You wouldn't exactly let me leave." Harry said.
"I'm sorry." Hermione blushed. She was embarrassed at her momentary weakness.
"You don't have to be ashamed. I don't mind." Harry promised pulling her into a hug.
"Thank you." Hermione smiled looking up at him.
"Anytime. I'll always be here." Harry smiled.
"I know." Hermione said and she leaned forward to kiss him gently on the lips.
"Umm." Harry said when they pulled apart. That was wow.
"I'm sorry Harry, I shouldn't have, I'm just so emotional and…" Hermione was cut off by the sweet sensation of Harry's lips on hers again. This felt so…right.
"Don't be sorry." Harry pleaded.
"Okay." Hermione agreed.
"It's very late. It's like 2 am we need to be up in an hour and a half." Harry said looking at his watch.
"Oh god." Hermione said.
"I'll see you in the morning." Harry said and he kissed her lightly on the forehead.
"Don't go." Hermione pleaded not releasing his hand.
"Mione…" Harry warned.
"Please don't." Hermione whined.
"Okay." Harry kissed her hand and sat back down on the chair.
"You can…" Hermione said gesturing to the other side of her bed.
"Are you sure?" Harry asked.
"As long as you take off your shoes." Hermione joked.
"Deal." Harry smiled and he removed his shoes and clambered into Hermione's bed. He was still two feet away from her on the huge bed but it felt like closer.
"Night." Hermione said.
"Night." Harry replied.
A/N
Well? I don't want to beg for reviews it's not my style…but I wouldn't mind knowing how I do so reviewing would be great!
Thankz.
"A/N