Author's Note: I'm finished with Desperate Measures (though it's not all posted on as of yet), and so I found it a lot easier to write this. Basically, the last… 1400 or so words of this are the product of 3 hours writing (nearly without interruption), and I like it a lot. Nope, it hasn't been beta-read, so pardon whatever errors you may find.

w1cked angel – Heh, good guesses… we'll see if your summary's right or not, though.

Monkeystarz – Bless you. lol And thanks for the review, I'm glad you liked it!

404 – I try. 

Nia – That was probably one of my favourite lines from last chapter.
cm-88 – Glad you liked last chapter, and I hope you like this one, too!
Encantada – Would you, by any chance, be the person on Light & Darkness with the same name? hehehe. And all explanations in due time, my child. ;)

Ilana Kohen – You're right, there's not enough TR/Hr stories, which is why I'm writing another!
sakuya-kaleido – Umm… Yep, that's the (eventual) pairing…
Anuksunamun-Kalia (AKA Sam) – I've actually worked through all my explanations… as to the question you posed… there's a hint later in this chapter, see if you can find it!
Taintless – This story… well, it's longer and less fluffy, kinda, but don't take it too seriously – it doesn't take itself very seriously, as a matter of fact.
FrEckLeD tRiCkStA – See, look, continued!
Blondie05 – Glad you like it! Here's your chapter!

There's a really big hint in this chapter as to… well, something. I'm sure some of you will spot it!

Untitled

By: Jamie

Chapter Two: De Sol Rigueur

Packing was... interesting, to say the least. Tom had a knack for finding the most embarrassing things Hermione owned, and bringing them to her attention.

Luna had left shortly after Hermione instructed him to follow her; Hermione was glad to see that Luna, at least, found her predicament amusing, as Hermione herself was unable to see the humor in the situation. So once again, it was Hermione and what seemed to be her new roommate, unless she could find a way to remove him from her house. Or, rather, her parent's house. Oh dear.

"Oh dear."

"What?"

"This is my parent's house that you're invading, not mine. I'm leaving tomorrow for a very long time, and you'll still be in my parent's house. Alone." She sat down on her bed, ignoring the clothes she was sitting on. "What have you done?"

"I haven't done anything," he said angrily. "We've been over that, remember? And anyway, I don't much fancy staying with your parents, either."

"Oh, but it's worse than just that, don't you understand? They're muggles! I mean, if they were wizards then they might understand at least a little – certainly not entirely, nobody understands entirely – but they're still not entirely comfortable with magic, and... I can't ask them to do that!"

"Do you have a choice?"

She groaned. "This trip could possibly be the most important thing I've ever done in my life, and I'm not exaggerating. It's literally a life or death situation. But my parents...

"I can't go."

"You just said it's a life or death situation."

"Well, yes, but they're my parents. You don't seem to understand –"

"What, are you afraid I'm going to go on a mass killing spree or something?" he asked sarcastically, but Hermione detected a bit of irony in his voice.

"As a matter of fact, I haven't the slightest what you're capable of, and I don't much trust strangers with the lives of the people who raised me."

Ouch. Another death glare. Really, if he kept doing that, his face was going to get stuck that way! "You know, if you keep doing that, your face is going to get stuck that way."

"Doing what?"

"That whole death glare thing you do. I assure you, looks cannot kill, else I would be dead several times over by now." Another one. "And yet, I live."

Really, he had no sense of humour whatsoever.

"I'm done," she announced.

"I'm glad; I was getting quite tired of your voice."

She rolled her eyes. "I can't concentrate on packing with your failed attempts at snark shooting past me like poorly aimed curses all the time.

"I'm going to Harry's place. You're going to stay here, obviously. And I'm putting up wards, so no magic." He was visibly enraged. Good.

She left.

Hermione walked into Grimmauld Place without knocking; Harry had, after all, instructed her to do so and it kept Mrs. Black significantly quieter, besides. She climbed up onto the first story and entered a large sitting room, where she found a somewhat clean chair and promptly collapsed.

"What am I going to do?"

"I'd start with sitting up straight; it's horrible for your posture to slouch like that."

She nearly jumped. "Professor Lupin –"

"Hush, Hermione, I haven't been your teacher for years now! Now what seems to be the problem?"

"Well, it's quite strange, really. I woke up this morning, and there was this – this person, standing in my doorway, who I've never seen before in my life!"

"That certainly is strange."

"That's not even the half of it! I called Harry and Luna Lovegood over to my house, to make sure I wasn't hallucinating, you know, and Luna saw him perfectly fine, she was talking to him and everything, but Harry said that he couldn't see him at all! And then I told him – he said his name was Tom, I believe – to get out of my house – he's a right pain in the you-know-what, sir, arrogant like you wouldn't believe – and he couldn't!"

Remus looked at her suspiciously. "What do you mean, he couldn't?"

"Just that, Prof-sorry. I mean, he couldn't get through the doorway, it's actually quite amusing now that I think about it, but we're leaving tomorrow, you know, and I really don't want him living in my parents' house, especially since I'm not going to be there!"

The door swung open with a loud creak, and Alastor "Mad-Eye" Moody stepped in. "Remus, there's a huge – Hermione, what're you doing here?"

"She was explaining something very odd to me, actually. Continue, please."

"What? Oh yes, that. That portrait of Mrs. Black – bloody irritating thing, I say – is whinging on about some 'unpure mudblooded filth' – no offense, of course – wandering down the street. Of course, any wizard with half a brain would have gotten the message to leave by the sparks that damn painting's shooting off… I've never seen the likes of it!"

Hermione audibly groaned. It couldn't be. "It can't be…" she said as she sped down the stairs and past the screaming portrait. She swung open the door completely and nearly screamed before running back inside the house.

"What is he doing here!"

Remus and Alastor weren't too terribly far behind her, though they hadn't sprinted downstairs with quite as much motive as she. "Who?"

"Oh, it's him again, sir, that arrogant... person who showed up at my house this morning, only he said he couldn't leave, sir, and I saw him try, and he couldn't, and now he's here, and..."

Lupin grabbed ahold of her, as she was near tears. "Calm down, deary, it's okay. You say it's him outside, the one who was at your house?"

She nodded pathetically, as she didn't trust herself to speak without breaking down and crying. It was all so damn stressful.

"Well, I think we need to have a word with him, what d'you say?"

She looked positively horrified at the thought, and shook her head fervently. It was quite obvious that, if it were up to her, she would simply leave him outside forever, become a hermit, and never see him again.

Remus gestured to Alastor, who was standing with a mystified look on his face, watching the pair, to go outside and let the young man in. So he walked out the door as quietly as he could manage, reaching into his pocket and calling for Dobby, who – as he had proved his allegiance many times – had been made Secret-Keeper for Grimmauld Place. A few fought against it, but Hermione had stood strong in her opinion that house-elves were just as, if not more, trustworthy as humans.

The door closed as softly as it could, but it creaked slightly and clicked when it shut. The way Hermione's nerves were by that point, though, they might as well have stood behind her and started screaming; after all, her terrified shriek woke up Mrs. Black just the same.

She turned around, took one look at his face, and was almost sick. "You!" she screamed as if he were some type of apparition – which, admittedly, he was, having appeared out of thin air just that morning – and she lunged.

Tom would owe Remus Lupin his life for the grip he kept on Hermione.

An hour and a half later, Hermione was sitting upstairs in the bedroom she had previously shared with Ginny Weasley, recovering with help from whatever Order member could be spared. She had basically recovered – she was hardly shaking at all now – but Remus Lupin, who was overseeing her recovery, wasn't sure if he should let her downstairs and risk another breakdown.

After another good twenty minutes of her assuring him in a steadily more firm voice that she was, of course, perfectly fine, and he was being simply ridiculous, he hesitantly allowed her to leave, walking her to the kitchen where Tom was being kept.

Upon seeing him there, in the flesh, once again, Hermione nearly turned around and walked straight back to the bedroom, but she remembered how arrogant, smug, and just plain annoying he had been earlier that day and decided to not give him the satisfaction.

Instead, she walked up behind him and gave him a firm smack in the back of his head. After all, he deserved it.

Remus almost carted Hermione back upstairs, but she looked like she felt so much better now that he decided to let her be. Tom, of course, was busy rubbing the back of his head.

"What was that for?" he demanded.

"Invading my life," she said simply and sweetly.

"Children?" he asked in a stern tone, holding back a spurt of laughter. "Are we quite done?" As if it had been her fault!

"Yes sir," she said, reprimanded.

"Good. Now we have some things to discuss, I believe..."

They spent the next hour going over the details of this morning, and it was an hour well wasted. Hermione nearly choked Tom more than once, as he made it out to be some... misunderstanding that was completely her fault, and Remus had to physically restrain her from smacking him again for his pure cheek. In all, it was great fun – for Hermione, at least.

However much fun it might've been, though, it did none of them any good; they were still as clueless as they had ever been on the subject, though Hermione was slightly closer to despair as even Remus Lupin, a former teacher, had no answers for her.

The only thing that they had been able to decide upon, actually, was that none of them had ever heard of such an occurrence. That was most disheartening, at least to Hermione. She was of the opinion that almost everything in the world that was possible had to have happened at least once by now. Alas, it was not so.

Alastor Moody, who had been occupied with checking the security on Grimmauld Place before the night's festivities, came in to check on how the three were doing, apparently satisfied (for now) with the precautions that had been placed.

"Tom, you said you couldn't leave the Granger's when you first tried?" Tom nodded, rolling his eyes; they had been over this point many times before. Moody growled at the act of disrespect but basically ignored it, turning his attention to Remus, instead. "Doesn't that remind you of a… a binding charm, almost?"

"Well, sort of. But he wasn't pulled with her when she left, and I haven't been able to find any type of a line between the two of them. That was my first guess, though."

"I didn't say it had to be a straightforward binding charm, Remus. But something close to it's my guess." He turned to Tom again. "When were you able to exit the household?"

"I left about twenty minutes after she did. Got dreadfully bored, I must confess, and I thought I'd wander around for a bit."

Alastor and Remus, at something like the same time, muttered what sounded vaguely like "subliminal", though that made no sense.

"Pardon?" asked Hermione, not wanting to be left out.

It was Lupin that answered. "An intuitive binding charm, perhaps."

"De Rigueur?" asked Moody.

"But – that hasn't been seen since the days of Grindelwald, when the French accidentally – what?"

"Did you just say Grindelwald?"

"Yes. He was a Dark Wizard in the 1940's, defeated by Al- the late Albus D-"

"I know who he is!" said Tom in a voice that was quite frankly louder than necessary. "I've seen him, kind of."

"Kind of?"

"Well, I saw his army demolishing Hogsmeade last term, while I was doing Astronomy work."

Nobody spoke for a moment, then: "He was defeated over fifty years ago, son," said Alastor. "That's almost three times your age. You couldn't have seen him. Even I was just beginning my training when he was about."

At last, they had determined something. Whatever the spell was that had brought him into Hermione's life – not to mention her bedroom – had brought him forward fifty-some years in the process.

And I thought old-fashioned was supposed to be a good thing, she thought. Guess I was wrong.

She volunteered to go into the library and look up binding charms, specifically intuitive binding charms, and even more specifically the De Rigueur intuitive binding charm.

Binding charms are charms designed to bind one object to another, usually to prevent one from becoming lost or stolen. When a binding charm is in place, it is physically impossible to cause the two objects from being farther apart than the distance determined by the charm.

There are two types of binding charms – physical binding charms (see page 264) and intuitive binding charms (see page 283). Binding charms can range from the simplest affixing spell (see page 265) to dangerous – and illegal – obsession charms (see page 285).

Thank you, Merlin¸ she thought. She had hoped that the large, gloomy text she had chosen would have been more helpful than Miranda Goshawk's Standard Book of Spells, Grade 4.

Intuitive binding charms – also known as subliminal or subconscious binding charms – are similar to traditional binding charms in function, though more complex in method. Intuitive binding charms can only be put upon living creatures, as they require a functioning subconscious to work.

An intuitive binding charm causes the bearer to become almost instantly miserable when they are apart from the object they are linked to. Intuitive binding charms can be dangerous if performed incorrectly – and, in some cases, if performed correctly – and the stronger ones tend to be illegal.

That was a bit more informative. But it didn't seem to match her predicament, exactly. Perhaps something more could be found in the section on the De Rigueur charm.

The De Rigueur charm is a binding charm (see page 260) that works as both an intuitive binding charm (see page 283) and a traditional, physical binding charm (see page 264).

It is different from all other known binding charms in that there is no set distance at which the objects become uncomfortable – the farther apart the two creatures are, the more miserable they become. A subset of that distinction is that the two creatures must never be entirely enclosed in an area without the other.

De Rigueur is similar, though not identical, to the De Sol Rigueur charm (see page 301).

Though her original itinerary had been to get information on binding charms, intuitive binding charms, and De Rigueur, she knew she had to find out more about the De Sol Rigueur. Though this spell seemed likely, it wasn't an exact match. Perhaps this was the answer.

De Sol Rigueur is one of the most complex binding charms in existence. Though it is a close relation to the De Rigueur charm (see page 300), there is one distinct difference.

In most binding charms, the two objects or creatures are both bound together, equally; neither can be apart from the other without severe discomfort. However, in the case of De Sol Rigueur, only one of the objects is bound. The creature that is under the spell cannot bear to be without the other, known as the Determiner, as per the restrictions of the more common De Rigueur charm. The Determiner, however, feels few if any averse effects of separation.

Due to the fact that only one of the enchanted creatures feels the effects of the spell, the effects felt are often much stronger than in other cases, as the misery of both objects are compounded into one single target.

Objects of De Sol Rigueur, as in most other spells, are often not aware that they are enchanted.

Creatures with unusually strong wills – such as most cats, and some humans – feel the effects less strongly than those with weaker wills.

It is illegal to cast De Sol Rigueur without the consent of the individuals involved.

"Professor Lupin, I think I've found it!" she said five minutes later, having written down the information and put the book back carefully where she had gotten it from, and rushed into the kitchen where she found him and Alastor "Mad-Eye" Moody sitting and having a conversation (that looked suspiciously like an interrogation on Moody's part) with Tom.

"What is it, girl?" Moody growled.

"De Sol Rigueur," she answered. "I found it in Charms of the Ages. Here." She excitedly thrust her handwritten copy in between the two of them, and glared at Tom with something like smugness.

He rolled his eyes dismissively.

She stuck out her tongue at him.

He made a face.

She made a meaner one.

He shot her a death glare.

She quickly adopted an exaggerated, pained look before putting her hand to her forehead – in the traditionally stereotypical manner of a woman about to faint – and leaned back in her chair.

She fell.

He stuck his tongue out at her.

"That is quite enough, children!" said Lupin in an unusually stern voice. Hermione and Tom blushed, having forgotten the adult presence in the room.

"Yes, sir," they answered strangely in unison. Hermione had never wanted to say anything in unison with this… person, she supposed he was. However distasteful she found him.

Hermione was, to say the least, not pleased with the outcome of the conversation that ensued.

One morning – not even three hours – with him had brought her to the verge of an emotional breakdown. A few hours more, and she was behaving like a seven year-old. She was supposed to save the world like that?

She decided that, when they failed because she had started laughing hysterically at how strangely contorted Harry's face had become in concentration as they attempted to destroy the final material horcrux, thus giving them away to the Dark Lord and his minions, she was going to blame Remus Lupin, Alastor Moody, and – of course – Tom. Whatever his last name might be.

She sighed, brushing her hair in preparation for the nights going-away party. She was most decidedly not looking forward to announcing to Harry and Ron that their party of three would have an addition.

She groaned, remembering that Harry couldn't even see him, and what if Ron were the same way?

Oh, how she wished that it were somebody else's problem.