Previously:

"For an apartment so temperature-conscious, it sure it hot in here," she remarked. Harry laughed. She could tell he was tired, so, out of respect for his feelings, she kept the rest of her thoughts to herself as his breathing grew more and more rhythmic. She closed her eyes and willed herself to go to sleep. Unfortunately, sleep was a long way off. She turned on her side. The couch's springs poked into her. She tried to perform the spell that cushioned things. Her wand moved a bit by itself, side to side. She gasped and dropped it. It lay on the floor, solid and unmoving, as a wand should be. She picked it up and placed on the coffee table. It's only my imagination, she scolded herself, I'm just tired. Wands don't move by themselves. Soon she fell asleep and forgot all about it.


"Wake up, sleepy-head!" someone yelled and threw open the drapes, causing yellow beams to flit about the room. She groaned.

"No," she heard Harry moan, "S'not mornin' yet." She smiled into her pillow. She felt something sit on her. She lifted her head. It was Ron.

"Wake up, sleepy-head!" someone yelled and threw open the drapes, causing yellow beams to flit about the room. She groaned.

"Hermione, help me wake up this lazy-butt," Ron commanded. Hermione giggled and pushed Ron off of her slim body. He jumped up and pulled Hermione up next to him. "On three, we both jump on him," Ron whispered. Hermione shook her head, having something more entertaining in mind. She put her finger to her lips and grabbed her wand. She whispered a spell to it, and it obeyed.

Water sprayed from the tip of her wand to Harry's half-asleep form. He shrieked and leapt up as if there was a pin stuck into him. His jet-black hair was plastered to his forehead, and Hermione could see through his shirt. Oh, Merlin, Hermione thought, but her thought sped across her mind and darted out of sight before she could register it.

Harry mouthed wordlessly as he stared at his two best friends. One, who was bent double with laughter, and the other, who had her wand pointed to the wet spot where he had been sound asleep moments ago. Hermione saw his hand inch toward his wand. She didn't want to take any risks of being hexed into next Thursday—and there was no doubt in her mind that Harry could—so she raced out of the room; Ron on her tail, and Harry following closely behind.

He finally caught up to them in the kitchen. He reached toward Hermione and she felt her mind blank out. His hands went to her ribcage and, before she knew it, he was tickling her. Her breaths came short as she laughed and tried to shove him off.

"Ro-Ron!" she gasped. "Make him stop! Oh, Harry, stop! Please stop!" Ron merely searched the cabinets looking for something to eat as Harry continued to tickle her mercilessly.

"Oi, mate, there's some popcorn in here!" Ron yelled excitedly. Harry dropped Hermione and hurried over to the food.

"Boys," she muttered as she picked herself up from the brown linoleum floor.

After their rather unhealthy version of breakfast, Harry and Ron shouted something about Quidditch and abandoned her in Ron's apartment. Feeling a bit downcast, she wandered around, switching from the limited book supply in the apartment to the half-eaten ice cream in the freezer in record time. After that was all gone, she retreated to the couches to take a nap.

When Hermione woke up, feeling much better, she had opened her eyes blearily to the sight of her wand twitching again. She bolted upright and was about to step on it when she realized that it was moving clockwise, as if it was determined to point to a specific place. She waited for it to stop. When it finally shuddered to a halt, it was pointing to the couch Harry had slept on. Too curious to ignore it, she sat on the floor staring at the place the wand pointed to. Wonder shot through her, and she stuck her hand under the cushions. Her fingers, the nails partially covered with chipped silver polish, touched something stiff and not at all cushiony. She pulled it out. An old newspaper clipping!

Skimming the article, it was clear that it was from two years ago—when she had first moved to the small town of Cernere. She had been lonely without her best friends right by her all the time, and decided to take a break from the spotlight. There was an ad in the paper for a job there, and she took it immediately. Though she lived alone, the small pleasures in her life, like not having to wear sunglasses in public, made it bearable. Hogsmeade was close by, and friends were easy to come by in the carefree atmosphere of the Three Broomsticks.

Shaking her head, she returned to the issue at hand. An article from the year she had moved that was about…her move? Boy-Who-Lived's Best Friend Leaves Spotlight, Saying "No More". What was this doing here? As she heard footsteps and laughter approaching the door, she shoved the article in her pocket and sat down with a random book from the coffee table.

The door burst open, and Ron fell inside with Harry close behind.

"Have you been drinking again?" Hermione demanded from over the top of her book, which she belatedly realized was upside-down.

"No, I don't think so," Harry said absently, dragging Ron into his bedroom.

"Then what have you been up to?" she said, following him. She felt the old bossiness start its creep into her mood and attempted to shove it back down. She knew that Harry hated it.

"I dunno; he just flopped over on his broom. It's a miracle he was so close to the ground…" Harry looked at Hermione. She willed her knees to support her, but felt them wavering.

"Maybe," she squeaked. Drat. "Maybe," she said in her usual voice, "we should take him to St. Mungo's. I'd prefer Madam Pomfrey, of course, but she's probably busy as it's the school year." Harry seemed to consider this.

"Maybe," he said, with an odd touch to his voice. It wasn't until they had gotten home from the wizard hospital that Hermione realized what it had been: unease. This disturbed her, but not quite as much as Ron's condition. Why had he collapsed? Was he going to be all right?

"Harry?" she whispered late that night, when the moonbeams snuck through the sheer curtains and spread muted light around the room.

"Mm?" came the half-asleep answer.

"Do you know why there was an article about my move to Cernere under the couch cushions?"

"I have no idea," Harry responded patiently. Hermione sighed. Harry was always patient with her, even when he was exhausted beyond belief.

"Okay," she said quietly, almost to herself.

A week passed by, full of anxiety and tension. Finally, Hermione was able to talk to Ron again, and he confirmed that he did not know why that article was there.

"Could have been Mum; you know how she worries about you." Ron did supply that the couch was fairly new, a gift from Draco Malfoy as a means of appeasement. Apparently, if Ron didn't set Harry on Malfoy, Malfoy would leave Ginny alone and give Ron a free couch as well. Hermione sighed.

As the conversation turned to the Chudley Cannons' chances of winning, Hermione bid the boys goodbye and wandered off to the library. She planned to do some research on wand movements.

Two cappuccinos, five overlarge books, and a few hours later, Hermione had found her answer.

"It is now common knowledge that wands choose the wizard, not the other way around, but it hasn't always been. When this astonishing concept was unearthed, Wizcoverers around the globe worked on the finer details of how this phenomenon occurs. Aurora Bacmire, world renowned Wizcoverer, first proposed the theory that wands have the intelligence of their should-be owners' previous lifeform. For instance, whichever wand chooses Nicolas Flamel's next lifeform, it will have his intelligence. Lucky owner! Of course, this argument raises many disputes over past and future lives, beliefs of which Ms. Bacmire refuses to comment upon. However, she did prove that wands move by themselves with the agility of someone closely linked by DNA with their owner. With this knowledge, she was able to hypothesize that wands can move by themselves in some situations in order to inform its owner of extremely crucial information. As of printing, her experiment involving numerous newts and many murtlaps is still in session."

Well. That certainly answered her questions. This Aurora Bacmire seemed quite a character. Determined. Hermione had been that determined, once, to get Harry through the Final Battle alive. Once, she sardonically told herself. The old pressures to be perfect were starting to resurface. Once upon a bloody time.


Thank you for reading!
I hope your summer isn't as boiling hot as mine is...
See you next time,
insanehpluver