Disclaimer: I am not J.K.Rowling, and everything in here that you recognize is NOT mine.

A/N: Hello all! As i'm sure you've realized...i've been gone for awhile. Getting ready for school...the whole moving out of the house issue...well, all i can say is i'm terribly sorry. However, i promise that i will be updating and not to worry, because i'm not going anywhere! Hope this chapter doesn't suck horribly, but i have to get back into it...plus i want to know what you think should happen! I love hearing reviews from all of you, and it makes me happy! Lol.

A/N: So...there will be no replies in this chapter. There's been rumor that fanfiction is not letting us reply anymore to our reviewers. Now, i'm not sure if that is exactly one hundred and fifty percent true or not, but i'd rather be safe than sorry. Feel free to send me your emails so i can write back to you if you want!

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"Hermione!" the sound came from a male voice, "Hermione, wait up!" Harry was running towards her, his robes flying behind him. "Hermione, you have to….stop!" He was out of breath and leaned up against a wall. After he caught his breath he slightly glared at her, "Why didn't you stop right away?"

"Oh, you just expect everyone to stop for you, eh Potter?" Malfoy drawled and leaned back on his feet, "I mean, really, what is about you that makes you think everybody has to follow your commands? Yeah, you've bested He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named, and you're at least mildly intelligent, and O.K., you ARE Captain of the Gryffindor Quidditch team, but that's really not saying much after all, is it…"

"Stop it!" Hermione yelled at Draco, "You shut up…your just crabby because I wouldn't give you any of my treats in my bag. Sorry Harry," she turned to him, "I was spacing and didn't hear right away. So what is it?"

Harry, whose face had turned bright red at Malfoy, ruffled his hair in a way to say, 'I'm really not going to enjoy this.' He sighed and rubbed his face, "Hermione have you talked to Ron since you left him on the Quidditch pitch?"

Hermione's face turned sour at hearing Ron's name. Still a tad bit upset, she answered, "No Harry…I've been with Draco. We have news on the book we found," she held it out and pushed it towards Harry, "now, it's not in a language that we can read but…"

Harry interrupted her, "Hermione, stop. Ron is really upset about today; he sulked all the way to the Common Room. I even let him win at Wizard's Chess, but he blew up at me and threw the knight. Hit me on the forehead, it did. Got a nasty scar too…."

"Well there's a surprise" Draco mumbled.

Glaring, Harry continued, but not without fixing his bangs over his newly formed 'war scar.' "Anyway, then Ginny called him "Lump," to cheer him up you know…"

"Ron hates that nickname!" Hermione scolded Harry, "You really need to tell her that it hurts Ron's feelings. It's not his fault that he doesn't, you know…fit normally. I'm sure Fred and George have the same problem."

Looking slightly disgusted Harry closed his eyes, "That was definitely something I didn't want to know." Behind her, Hermione could hear Draco mumble, "Jesus, Hermione…"

She became embarrassed that she had slipped that information into the air, in front of Draco nonetheless. Shaking her head, she tapped her foot, "please, continue Harry."

"She called him…Lump," he gulped and cleared his throat, "but he just went off on a rampage. Something about, "if Hermione doesn't come back soon, I'm staying in my room for the rest of the year." Now," he said, "you know as well as I do that he's nothing but wind and steam, but please come back to the Common Room and talk to him."

Draco sighed and rolled his eyes, "Fine, fine. Hermione, you go with Potter here to calm down "Hurricane Ron" and his peccadilloes, and I'll go to the library." Without another word, Draco just took the book, turned around and walked away.

Hermione and Harry were silent as they made the journey back to the Gryffindor Common Room. There were slight rustlings as they walked and an occasional meow from Mrs. Norris, but otherwise, all was still.

"Umm…Hermione," Harry asked, "I have a question for you." He looked amused with his hands behind his back in a mysterious way. "How did you find out about, well, for lack of a better word, the lump?"

Hermione choked on nothing in particular and turned bright red. "Well I mean…Ron and me, our….well. You see Harry, we've been going out for awhile and…I mean. Oh," she now sounded furious, "I'm sure you've never done any of that with Ginny."

"What do you mean Hermione, any of what?"

Hermione seethed under her teeth, "You know perfectly well what I mean Harry." She looked at her friend who was grinning from ear to ear. "You've done stuff haven't you" he accused.

"Well I never…"Hermione started, "What gives you the right to ask me about that. What Ron and I do in his room is between him and me! Oh…" she said.

"I knew it!" Harry yelled, skipping around her in an undoubtedly annoying fashion, "I knew it! So what have you guys done?"

"Oh no Harry Potter," Hermione said, "You are not going to make me tell you that. That is," she said mischievously to his saddened face, "not unless you tell me stuff too."

Harry was wide-eyed and gapped for a second. Hermione found this tremendously funny and stood with her hands on her hips, "What? Are you going to try and tell me that you wouldn't "let loose" your information? And I thought we were friends Harry."

Minutes later, they reached the portrait to the Common Room, laughing the entire way, "That's what he told you he said to me?" Hermione nearly died with laughter and had to hold herself up by a wall, "We've been going out for a long time, and I believe I'm comfortable enough around you?" What a load of rubbish!" She snorted and held her stomach, "It was more like, "Hermione…if you really want to try out for Beater…you have to practice someway!""

Harry's eyes popped out and he started clutching his stomach so hard he was crying. "Oh Merlin," he said, "We cannot tell Ginny or Ron what we've just talked about."

"What have you guys just talked about?"

"Ginny!" Harry gasped, looking at his favorite redhead who had just shown up, "Nothing…we were talking about nothing!" His face turned that awful red color that Hermione was so beginning to hate and shuffled his feet.

"Don't you lie to me Harry Potter!" she scolded, sounding an uncanny amount like the Mrs. Weasley Hermione knew too well, "I can tell when you're not telling me the truth, so out with it!"

"Harry, really," said Hermione, "there was no reason to lie to Ginny when all we were talking about was how much you love her!" Harry's face went from scared, to confused, to finally understanding.

"Well," he said, rubbing the back of his head, "it's just so personal…and I wasn't sure if you would like me telling Hermione, Ginny…I'm sorry." He looked sadly into her eyes and made an apologetic whimper, "Oh this is pathetic," sighed Hermione, "I'm going to bed."

She crawled through the portrait hole and started walking to the stairs of her dormitory. "Hermione, hold up!" Ron yelled, running towards the stairs, "I can't come up there so please don't leave me. I'm sorry, really I am…I was being a little bit of an ass."

"Of course you weren't being a little ass, you were being a huge ass."

Ron shuffled, "Well yeah, but I'm sorry okay! It's just that you can't blame me for being jealous around Draco, you're just so beautiful, I'm surprised more people haven't been trying to hook up with you."

Hermione smiled and went down to him; she put a hand on Ron's shoulder and looked up towards him. "You know we're only friends because I've told you. I know that you have to get used to it Ron, but right now I need you to be more mature than ever. Dean's in trouble and I'm going to work with Draco to understand why. You have to just trust me that we're not doing anything, and I don't want to do anything with anybody else."

"You don't?" Ron asked, he gulped and looked at Hermione.

"No," she said, "I just want to be with you." She wrapped her arms around his waist and sighed into his chest, feeling his strong arms around her. "You know you're everything to me, don't you?" He asked.

She kissed him on the nose, "I know," she smiled, "I'm like your Chudley Cannon's poster." He pushed her back and with mock seriousness he answered, "Well, I wouldn't go that far."

Laughing, she hit him on the shoulder, "Sod off."

"So," Ron asked as he led her to the couch in front of the fireplace, "What did you find out about the book thing?"

"That book thing, as you call it, we actually believe to be a dark book. Be quiet and listen Ron," she said to him, covering his opening maw with her hand, "Draco has seen the writing before and he's going to check it out. I'll just leave him to that tonight, and help tomorrow though. Anyway," she continued, "This rock I found," she showed him, "I think is part of the key, what do you reckon?"

Ron took the rock and tossed it recklessly from one hand to the other, weighing it, "Well," he said, "I suppose it could be you're usually right anyway. Whoops." He said as he dropped the hot purple rock onto the floor with a thud. As soon as the rock hit the rug, it began to glow and low buzz emitted from it's inside. Hermione looked around as the lights began to flicker on and off.

The curtains by the big window began to ruffle, as if some unknown wind was seeping into the room. Hermione went to go close the window, but found that it already was shut. She began to get scared and ran towards Ron on the opposite side of the room when there was a loud boom.

Screaming, Hermione dove into Ron's arms as the walls shook and the flames from the fireplace surged sky high into a dark shade of purple. Then, right when they thought something terrible was going to happen, all went still.

Trembling, Hermione knelt down and looked at the rock. She pondered for a moment, and without warning, touched the rock. It was ice cold.

She gasped and motioned for Ron to do the same, his eyes got wide when his fingers grasped the object and he looked at her with concern on his face.

"Bloody Hell," he said, "it looks like we've got something here."

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