A/n: ack! I am so so so so sorry for taking the better part of a year to put this up! I have like five or six chapters to put up, they are all on notebook paper, and I was lazy and didn't put them up until now! Jeez, I'm so sorry!

More sorries,

Cellie

Disclaimer: Do I even have to do this? We know this is not mine and doesn't belong to me.

Chapter 2: Old Friends

Hermione left the bar soon after Maude kicked out Avery and McNair. She set off walking to her little studio house. Her mind was buzzing with questions. What was two deatheaters doing in this one horse town? It had sounded like they were here on Voldemort's instructions, but what was Voldemort planning to do? She didn't know, but she certainly had a bad feeling about it. She wondered on, continuing down the sidewalk, twisting a lock of hair a she pondered. She was nearly to her building when she smacked into a pair of people she mostly wouldn't have noticed if she as paying attention.

Hermione, who had been winded, rubbed her stomach. "Umm, sorry, I wasn't paying attention." The people she had bowled over were two men, one tall red haired man who was fussing with a hole in his pants, the other a slightly shorter dark haired man who seemed to be searching the ground for something. He located the object of his interest (his glasses) put them on, and straightened up.

"Hermione?" he said, "Is that you?" Hermione's heart stopped as she realized who it was. Harry and Ron.

Ron looked as though he had been hit in the face by some higher power with a huge fly swatter. "Hermione….." He said, taking several minutes to get over his utter shock and disbelief. "Where have you been?"

"What business is it of yours Ronald?" Hermione said sharply, to cover up the panic in her voice. They're going to make me go back now, and I just can't…

"Hermione," Ron said, "We thought you were dead. We're your friends. You couldn't tell us?" And when his lip trembled, in the style that was so uniquely Ron's, she lost it.

"Ron you don't understand!" She bawled, appalling God and everyone, "I couldn't…..couldn't stay….."

"Why?" He said, reaching out it brush back a strand of hair hanging in her face, causing Hermione to burst into a fresh tears. Ron looked a mixture of trying to understand and surprise, as Hermione hadn't cried in public since Crookshanks had gone to the big catnip field in the sky.

"Never mind forget it…" She said, trying and failing to regain her composure.

"Oh." said Harry, put the pieces together and understanding. "Hermione, it happens to everyone."

"What?" said Hermione, snuffing in a way that wasn't very ladylike.

"Post battle stress." said Harry quietly. Ron nodded. Ron gestured to Hermione to come to him. She went and sat in his lap, still snuffing.

"Hermione, during my first battle, I was scared to death. I had nightmares for months afterward. It happened to Harry. It happened to everyone." said Ron, folding his arms around her. "It's just a part of you that never goes away."

"Thank you Ron." she whispered into his shirt.

"Let's go back to the room you guys." said Harry, ruining the romantic mood of the moment. They gathered themselves up, and walking arm in arm with Hermione, feeling just a bit in a better mood than leaving Maude's Roadside Retreat, began to whistle 'We're Off to See the Wizard' as they went.

In the room

"So, what's been going on?" asked Hermione once they had reached the room and stepped inside. She looked around the room, noticing the disarray of it, with a black sock hanging over a lampshade, and an old pot of coffee in the maker. She immediately started to tidy it up, picking up the sock with a broom kept in the closet. Harry and Ron took places on the cozy armchair and the bed, which needed to be made. After cleaning most of it, she scowled at the coffee and sat on the second mismatched cozy armchair.

"Now that you're done, we've been tracking deatheaters for about three months now, and their moves of recent seem to be centered toward this (he pointed at circled in red spot on the map of the Pacific Ocean, one of the various maps the were haphazardly push pinned up on the wall) area." Harry explained.

"Do you have any idea what their up to?" Hermione asked. At this, Harry and Ron shared a look, one that intensified Hermione's previous bad feeling she'd been having after she left the bar.

"Hermione, do you remember the campout by the lake in 7th year?" asked Ron.

"Yes of course, Seamus and Dean set off some of Fred and George's fireworks by my tent."

"Do you remember the wizarding legends we told by the fire?"

"Yes…" said Hermione, not sure where this was going and not liking the ominous tone of Ron's voice.

"Remember the one about creating new dementors…" Hermione stood up.

"That's supposed to be a myth, I mean, I assume they breed?" said Hermione, and all present shuddered at the horrific mental image that gave. "It's just not possible…"

Flashback

"Want to hear a really scary one?" said Ginny, whose mischievous nature that made her so like her brothers, Fred and George, was shining through her eyes.

"Yeah lets hear it!" shouted Dean, teasing Neville who was shaking his head vigorously 'no'.

"Okay," said Ginny, leaning closer to the fire, "back in the dark ages, the evil witch Morgan le Fay, mortal enemy of Merlin and half sister of King Arthur. She was the developer of the unforgivable curses. And some say she could turn a person into a …" Here she paused for dramatic effect, "dementor!"

"No!" whispered Neville, plugging his ears.

"Yes," said Ginny, grinning maliciously. "Though they had existed for thousands of years, the evil sorceress found a way to make new ones. It doesn't have to be a person of magical blood, and it had to be an aguishly tortured soul before the potion is drunk and curse is performed, and then, an existing dementor must administer the kiss of death." Neville buried his head in his pillow he had brought to the fireside. "And with the newly created ones, they don't look any different, only they never age, and are completely pale and have almost black eyes. And so," Ginny finished, "You better watch out before talking back to Snape, because he could just suck out your soul." and just about everyone had laughed at that.

"Do you think it's true?" said Ron, his voice betraying it jumpiness as he walking her back to her tent.

"Of course not Ron." she said, and kissed him on the cheek. "Good night."

end flashback

"Its just not possible." said Hermione.

Hermione, please sit down. All evidence points to this. It isn't a fairy tale anymore. This is real, and we need your help. Will you?" said Harry, his eyes pleading. Hermione considered their evidence. Well, it would be on her continence if either of them did something dumb and got themselves killed…

"Fine, okay, you've got me, I'm in." she said throwing her hands up in surrender. Harry and Ron both simultaneously sighed.

"Thank you Hermione. Now, lets get started." said Ron. "I'll send for pizza and coffee, this might be a while."

A/n: YES! I finally got this up! Sorry again to all of you! Since this is all on notebook paper, this shouldn't take much longer to get all of the chapters I have up.

Tanx for being patient,

Cellie

ps: r+r happy authoress! Just a hint…