One day in their seventh year at Hogwarts, on, a cold winter night in December, Harry and Ron were huddled around a desk in the library. Hermione sat betwixt the two, as she read from a large dusty volume.
"It says here that sonilapi mushrooms grow only deep in underground caves in the north territories. I don't see how we'll ever get a sample in time!"
Ron had a growing look of concern. He knew Harry was worried too, as he watched his best mate rubbing the scar. Ron thought it would be best to change the subject, as they had been working on the Draco Malfoy crisis for hours now. "Hey, what do you think about that new keeper for Hufflepuff, Arlis Figaroon?"
"Ron, we haven't time to mess about!" Hermione stammered, since she was still secretly in love with Ron, and didn't want to get him all mad at her, and etc. Luckily, she was saved from the awkward moment by Harry, who exclaimed, "By Dumbledore! I've got it!" Harry had taken to saying "by Dumbledore!" ever since the headmaster had vanished. There were, of course rumors and such, but no one quite knew what happened to the body of Dumbledore, who was widely regarded as a terrifyingly powerful wizard, who even Voldemort didn't wish to mess around with.
The other two quickly put aside their disagreement and looked up at Harry. "Well," Ron started, "don't leave us hanging here like the time Fred left us all upside down for an hour!"
"Ok, here's how we can get the terribly troublesome mushrooms! We all travel by floo-powder to the northern school, you know, that one that Fleur is from? Then we get one of those people who we're friendly with up there to send a house elf down to the caves for us!" The plan did seem to be foolproof. The two friends were so impressed that Ron was dumbstruck and Hermione caught herself imagining herself going to the final graduation festival on the arm of Harry rather than Ron.
They were interrupted by Ron's younger sister, Ginny. She seemed to sense Hermione's feelings, and she drew herself up to be as impressive as possible before saying, "what's up?" She'd imagined herself saying something a little less loop-i, and something more collegiate. Harry spun around, blushing, and he decided that she'd be a good person to add to the team. After all, with all the competition going on, it would be good to have a fourth person around. This was unfortunately a line of reasoning that Harry would come to regret.
Soon the group were walking briskly toward the solitary hut at the bottom of the hill, better known as Hagrid's place. It was almost less like a real house, and more like a rainy-day fort. It seemed that nearly anytime, the place was in danger of an ordered disassembly by a giant mother figure.
They had a fine chat with Hagrid, who was busily trying to hide some new illegal kind of bug or whatever. Luckily, the foursome really liked Haggy, as they'd taken to calling him, and they were not going to bust him. Plus, it wasn't like Dumbledore was even around to tell.
As they walked back to the Gryffindor spot of the castle, they saw a dementor. Harry was nearly forced to break out his white stag thing, if you know what I'm saying. But, the dementor was scared off by something else, perhaps a strong mysterious force emanating from the place. Hermione nearly felt that she could sense a breeze brush past her cheek, and she wondered what it could be. A small part of her was telling her that it might be Dumbledore, back from the dead, protecting the place. But, she wasn't sure, and she was still waiting for some Obi-wan style reanimation trickery. She decided that it was best to keep quiet. Anyway, they made it back to the castle, and they visited the potions class directly, and scored some of the traveling chimney dust. As soon as they were back in the Gryff-room, they each stepped into the fireplace, after sprinkling some powder, of course!
They soon appeared in The North land. After a few tense moments of explaining the plan to some of the ministry people, they got the item that they came for. Instantly, they disapparated, even though it made Ron a little weary, since he was the worst at it. Ron seemed to be the worst at practically everything, he was realizing. Ginny, of course, grabbed Harry's hand and rode with him.
They had only been back for a few moments when it seemed that Hermione had already generated the correct potion for the fixing of Draco! Now all they had to do was to find him and pour some of the power on him. Then he would break free from the Dark-magic that his evil father was using to control him. Sometimes they wondered about Snape too. What was with that guy anyway?
So they found Draco and turned him nice without much trouble. And a funny thing happened! Ginny found herself blushing, and she was imaging going to the final party with the new and improved Draco Malfoy, who they were about to start calling Drakey, since it sounded less ominous. Anyway, they sat down for a talk.
"You and me have to get some things clear here first!" Harry yelled.
"Like what man?" Draco was all shocked and surprised.
"Like why you been acting so messed up towards me?" Harry was starting to diffuse the tense situation.
"Well, you're Harry Potter man! Maybe I was feeling a little threatened man!" Drakey was looking much less mean recently. "And why have you been acting so messed up towards me man?" Now it was Harry Potter's turn to squirm under the microscope of examination. Not a fun place to be, if you take my meaning.
"Well, you were, like, younger and better looking, and, well, I was feeling a little in-se-cure!" Harry knew that his answer was a little weakish. He thought he could hear Hermione snicker. Man, later he'd get even with her. Maybe frogs in her bed or something. Yeah.
Anyway, they all found out that Snape was actually good, pretending to be bad, pretending to be good. If you follow all that. It was his strategy to confuse the Death Eaters, which, in Ron's estimation didn't really need that much effort to confuse. Just then, Dumbledore appeared in a vision.
"Hey guys, pay attention, I'm going to say this once." Dumbledore seemed a little distracted. Sort of like a guy who was having an active fight, or was one the phone, but was trying to get out an urgent message. "Anyways, I know you all thought that Lucius Malfoy is a bad guy, but I had a little chat with the man, and let's just say that he's seen the error of his ways. The point of all this is that the real bad guy is McGonagall." Everywhere around the school there was a shocked silence. Ginny spoke first. "Wow, dude." Everyone else agreed.
Harry looked as though he has a million questions for Dumbledore, but he wasn't going to get a chance to ask this time, since Dumbledore was like, "bye guys!" and then he vanished!
"Well," said Hermione, "we have to find McGonagall, and put an end to her Death-Eating ways!"
"Right you are," screamed Harry with excitement! "We'll break out the MM, or
Marauder's Map, and find her name on it!"
Hermione beamed.
To Be Continued...