The next couple weeks seemed like a whirlwind of monotony. Most of their days were spent planning the break-in, and Hermione had added Bellatrix to the Polyjuice Potion list, as she'd found a hair stuck to the jacket she'd been wearing to Malfoy Manor when she finally picked it up to put it back in her bag (she hadn't touched it since). Though turning into Bellatrix had its own set of consequences, they had to consider every option.

"Are you sure that's her hair, Hermione?" Ron has asked.

"Positive. I saw it fall," she insisted as she slid it into a vial that Harry was holding out for her. "Believe me, I'd get rid of it if I wasn't sure. I'm going to go put it in the tent."

"How's she doing?" Ron asked as soon as she was out of the room.

"Why, does your mum want another update?" Harry asked with a chuckle as he gathered their notes together. They didn't like to keep them spread out too much when they weren't working just to be safe.

"No, I do," Ron smiled honestly, sitting down on the side of the bed. "I mean, I know she doesn't like to tell anyone when she's struggling, but I feel like she might tell you of all people. Especially now."

"She's all right. Some days are harder than others, but she's really dedicated to… er… healing."

Ron crossed his arms and raised an eyebrow. "That sounded… incredibly awkward."

Harry huffed. "I thought you didn't want to hear about it."

"Oh, I don't. I just… I dunno, it's weird."

"What's weird? Me and Hermione?" Harry set the notes (in order, or Hermione would kill him) on the corner of the dresser and sat down on the bed next to Ron.

"Not necessarily, just… I know we didn't get to talk much about this kind of thing like the other blokes did. And before you say anything, I don't… it's still kind of uncomfortable to talk about since it's you and Hermione, I know. I just want to make sure you two are happy, mate."

"Yeah, we are… I mean, as much as we can be, I guess, considering the circumstances."

"Can you really feel the bond and all that?"

"Yeah, we can." Harry scooted back a little, crossing his legs on the bed. "We're still trying to figure out how it works. Have you told anyone?"

"Course not," Ron assured him. "Not unless you want me to. Mum might have a cow."

Harry laughed. "Oh, she definitely would. And she wouldn't want to leave me alone, war or not. Have you heard anything else from Ginny?"

"No, not lately. She's still okay though, right?"

Harry nodded. "I check on her before I go to bed just to make sure she's still in the dorms. Or if she's not, to know where she is."

"Maybe… maybe we can talk to Phineas?"

"Really, Ron? You think he won't give us away now?"

"Well, hear me out. So… Griphook said Snape took the sword from Bellatrix's vault, right? And… and how else would we have gotten it if he hadn't given it to us? With Snape as Headmaster, he's got Phineas in there and he can travel between portraits."

"Are you saying he's known where we were the whole time?"

Ron shrugged. "I dunno, just a thought. I know we don't trust Snape, so it doesn't make sense."

"No, I don't. I don't care if he gave us the sword or not. He still killed Dumbledore. All of this shit is still his fault. I'm not forgiving Snape for that."

"Not saying to. Just… maybe that Phineas might not be as bad as you think. Maybe he's on our side and he only tells us what we want to know when it won't be bad for us."

"But he's got to obey the Headmaster. That's part of their laws." Harry sighed, running a hand through his hair. "If Snape's telling him to spy on us, he will. And it's not like he'll listen to Hermione - he barely listens to anything I tell him."

"Just saying. I've been trying to put the pieces together and none of it makes sense."

"Tell me about it."

It wasn't much longer before Hermione came back with her "bond notebook", as she called it, tight in her arms.

"Sorry it took so long. I was checking up on the potions and… reading through the journal." She looked at Ron and cleared her throat. "We've been writing down how we're feeling in relation to each other to see what… differences our bond has depending on, erm… what our daily activities consist of," Hermione explained.

Ron snorted out a laugh. "You don't need to beat around the bush, Hermione, really. I know what activities you two are doing, so talk about whatever you want. I suppose I should get used to it. Just… no details, please."

"Right." Hermione took a deep breath and sat on the bed next to Harry, opening the book in her lap. "So, you know we've been doing a lot of… kind of… emotion sharing, right? Like you can feel mine and I can feel yours. Which is great, obviously, since it's been mostly good or helpful for us to feed off of each other. But I was wondering if… the irritability I'm experiencing isn't… coming from me."

Harry's eyebrows furrowed. "Not coming from you? You mean it's external?"

"I don't know, Harry. That's what's confusing me. But it's not hormonal and it's not something Fleur's aware of with the healing potions." Hermione paused, tightening her grip on the book. She wasn't sure if she needed to even share this, but if it was right, it could mean a lot of things. "I did read something in the Dark Arts book that I got from Bathilda's that…" she put a piece of hair behind her ear, "sometimes Dark items can create… intrusive thoughts and emotional distress just because of the intention behind the object or the spell. Just like how the locket made us more emotionally unstable when we wore it."

"You think it was the dagger?"

Hermione was silent for a moment too long. "Harry, I… I think it might be you."

Harry's eyes widened. "What? How is that possible?"

"Well, Dumbledore told you that You Know Who left some of himself in you when he tried to kill you the first time. And how easy it was for him to get into your head in fifth year and with the visions you've been having this year… I think… some of that might have transferred to me through our bond."

"But I'm still not… consciously feeling that."

"Emotions aren't always conscious, Harry. You've been living with it for years, so you're used to it. It's normal for you. And… the stronger our bond gets, the… more I'm affected. Which is why I've only really noticed it more recently."

"Bloody hell," Ron muttered.

Harry closed his eyes and took a breath before opening them again. "How do we fix it?"

"Fix it? What do you mean?"

"I don't want you to have to deal with that. It's bad enough for me. You don't need him in your head, too."

"He's not," Hermione promised. "He's only in yours. I'm just getting the after-effects, if you will."

His fingers slipped between his and he squeezed her hand comfortingly. "I'll figure it out."

"I… I don't mind, necessarily. It's… insightful to know how it makes you feel."

"Only you would say that my dark feelings are insightful."

"Well, they are!" Hermione teased. "The more I can do to understand you, Harry, the faster we can figure out what's going on. Look, you know I don't enjoy the Dark aspects of all this, but… when in Rome?"

Harry laughed a little, while Ron just looked confused. "I don't get it."

"I suppose it's more of a Muggle saying," Hermione explained. "When in Rome, do as the Romans do. It means if you're somewhere new, follow the customs of the people who know what they're doing. Like when we were in the Ministry."

"Oh! Yeah, that makes sense. Now that you can sense Harry's feelings, you might as well analyze them as an outsider when they're not affecting you." Harry and Hermione exchanged a glance.

"Yes, that's… exactly what I meant."

"Look, I can be smart sometimes, okay, Hermione? Don't look at me like that. I know how your brain works." Hermione raised an eyebrow. "Okay, most of the time," Ron clarified.

"Right, well, there are a couple other things we wanted to try-"

"With me or without me?" Ron asked, then frowned. "Actually, that still doesn't make it less weird…"

" Not sex, Ronald."

"Please never say that word to me again."

Hermione rolled her eyes. "I want to practice sort of a magic transfer. I found a book that might have something about it, but like Ollivander said, and as we know at Hogwarts, bonds aren't something that are well-studied. Maybe in the Department of Mysteries, but there's no need for us to go back to the Ministry."

"Which is why we're doing our own research," Harry clarified.

"Right. Which is great. I'm not complaining at all."

"Gross."

" Anyway , I think we might be able to transfer magic to each other," Hermione continued. "But I'm not sure how. So that's our next step, I think. It'll help no matter what we're doing or who we're fighting, it'll make us stronger. Maybe I can look into Spellman's again for some runes. There has to be something there that makes sense."

An hour later, Hermione had a dozen books spread out over the table in the tent while Harry and Ron sat on the loveseat, waiting. Every time they tried to suggest something, she'd shush them, so they caught on quickly. Ron was practicing twirling his wand around his fingers, trying not to curse every time he dropped it, and Harry was desperately trying not to nod off in the silence.

He almost jumped as Hermione groaned, her forehead planting itself on the table. Ron looked at Harry hesitantly, who finally spoke up. "Is everything all right?"

"Yes," she muttered into the wood. "I was just afraid of this…" Hermione picked her head up and fixed her hair, her eyes on Harry. "Since this is all so subjective and new, there's… there's no definitive way to know what pieces of the rune are going to take effect with a bond… in order to make sure you're getting the right thing is…" she huffed, and Harry waited expectantly, "meditation."

"Okay?"

"Harry, you know I hate all that. Now I'm even reconsidering trying."

"Hermione, if all you have to do is some meditation and draw some runes to transfer magic, wouldn't it be worth it?"

"Yes," she groaned, "but I don't like it. It's too much like Divination."

Harry finally stood up and moved to sit across from her, eyes scanning over the books she had laid out and trying to make sense of any of it. "You know, I think you may have enjoyed it more with a different professor."

"I doubt it."

"Well, you liked Astrology, right? It's not much different."

"Stars are very different from tea leaves, Harry. And what we learned in class is practical. Infusing objects with magic and drawing more power for charms and spells, not… people."

"You know what I mean. Though… Trelawny kept seeing a big black dog and then… Sirius, you know… and she made that prediction about You Know Who."

"Look, I'm not going to argue about this with you, Harry. You know how I feel about that subject. I don't think meditating is going to help us fight better. But if that's part of the real use of runes, what's to say any of those will work either? I feel like I'm questioning everything now…"

"Hermione…" Harry reached to take her hand, "you've been doing all kinds of things you're uncomfortable with this past year, right?" She nodded. "What's one more? You're not going to hurt anything. You're not going to lose your intelligence by trying something new. Even if you don't believe it, someone does, right? Someone somewhere believes this might do something. If it does, you'll learn something new, and if it doesn't, we can't say we didn't try."

Hermione sighed. "How is it you always know what to say, Harry?"

"Because I know you. And I know how you think. And I know how to be… convincing."

A small smirk appeared on Hermione's face as Harry's thumb traced over her knuckles until Ron cleared his throat. "Still here, you know."

"I know you're still here, Ron. I can't forget," she teased, leaning over her notes and the table to kiss Harry softly before sitting back down. "Will you do it with me, then? Meditate," Hermione quickly added before Ron could say anything.

"Of course," Harry answered at once. "What do we need to do?"

She flipped through a few pages. "Well, we need to figure out which runes we want to work on first, so I've laid out what I can remember here."

"This is way too much like school," Ron commented, but Hermione shook her head and ushered him over.

"You should probably know this stuff, too, Ron. Just in case. Or if you have any input. I'm giving you a quick review of the basics, don't worry. Pay attention, please."

Ron groaned, but moved over to sit next to Hermione. It turned out that she made a pretty good teacher - at least she tried to make things interesting and relatable. Of course, Harry found himself trying much harder to pay attention than Ron just because he was going to be involved, but since it was always the same time as Divination, and he'd always taken the latter, he never really got into runes like Hermione did.

"So I think what we're supposed to do is meditate on them with our wands, practice drawing in the air, and then… this is the only bit I can't find much about… we have to inscript them on each other, I think, in the right spot that correlates to what we're wanting from them." She looked up to Harry's face, which wasn't hiding how lost he'd just gotten. "Okay, for example… take Ingwaz. All of these resonate a lot of different things, depending on what you need it for. We used it for writing in class, and I know how to create runes on paper and stuff, but doing readings or creating non-physical inscriptions with them isn't something I'm familiar with.

"Anyway, so Ingwaz can represent things like, erm, male fertility," she glanced up at Harry quickly, "which we don't want, or family love and being free from anxiety. So, if I'm understanding this correctly, if we were to use it for fertility, I'd inscript it on your groin, but for family love, it would be over the heart. Make sense?"

"I suppose," Harry answered. "This… this won't leave a mark or anything, will it?" he asked, suddenly worried about any kind of wandwork near his groin.

"It shouldn't."

" Shouldn't? "

"Well, this is new to me, Harry. Believe me, I don't want anything going wrong, either," she crossed her arms over her chest. "And I'm the one doing all the studying, if you haven't noticed."

Harry took a deep breath. "Sorry."

"I can promise that your genitals will be fine, though," she quickly corrected. "I don't plan on getting my wand anywhere close."

"Good."

She opened her mouth to say something else, but then looked to Ron and figured she shouldn't.

"Thank you," he grinned, looking over the runes again as well as her notes. "So groin, heart, and head, right?" Hermione nodded. "But some of them will be multiple, yeah? If you want different things."

"That's the confusing part, too. I'm not sure if we can do the same rune twice in a session, or how long we have to wait if we want to do it again. We might just have to choose the most important for now and start with that one. And there's all kinds of variations if they're inverted, too. Some of them can't be, but in combination with others, it gets complicated. But, if we can 'meditate' on it and 'set our intentions', we should be fine." She rolled her eyes at her own words. "It's… I'm trying to remember as much of the textbook as I can, but I wish I had it here for cross-reference…"

"What about Ehwaz? Partnership - that's what we're looking for," Harry suggested. "I'd think that one would be on the heart."

Hermione blushed. "These are only shorthand notes, but that's… a possibility…"

"What else does it mean?" he asked, hearing Hermione's hesitance.

"Well, it can get close to the soul bonding that Ollivander was talking about. It can sometimes cause a sort of... loss of self and an absorption of the other. It just might be a bit much, you know?"

"Yeah… yeah, I guess. You're right."

Hermione couldn't read Harry's emotions, bond or otherwise, but she suddenly felt uncomfortable for some reason. "I'll think about it, okay? It's not that I don't want that with you, of course, it's just-"

"Too soon. I get it. What were you thinking?" But he wasn't making eye contact, and she knew it was a conversation they'd need to have later. Privately.

She pushed her hair back. "Gebo, I think, would work well. Gifts and exchanges, you know. That would be the most literal sense. It's also big on trust and symbolizes the relationship between partners. Sealing a promise you want to make to each other. I just… there's not much I learned about inscribing them on people."

"So you've said."

Hermione looked down at her lap. "We don't have to do this if you don't want to, Harry. I just thought you were on board."

"I was when I thought you knew what we were doing."

Ron let out a low whistle.

"I know the basics," Hermione explained softly. "But… Hogwarts hates this stuff. They don't want us to know any of it. They don't even have sex ed or anything, much less anything about magical bonds." She was getting frustrated, too. "This is all just speculation - everything we're about to do. And I didn't even bring any books about Divination even if I did want to look into some of it."

"You're scared one of us will get too attached."

"No, that's not-"

"It is," he argued. "You're all about using this bond for practical use when it comes to our magic and spells and making us stronger, but you're uncomfortable with anything that might cause us to be somehow connected for… the rest of our lives? After the hell we've been through, I'd expect us to be anyway, Hermione. And what is it that's so bad about that? About being with me? You love me, don't you?"

"Of course I do, Harry."

"Then what are you scared of?!"

"I… I don't know."

"That's bullshit." Hermione bit her lip. "I know it is." Harry stood up, his fists clenching at his sides as he tried to keep himself from getting angrier. But Hermione's anxious aura wasn't helping him, either, almost as if he was feeding off of her. "I don't want to do any of this unless you can be honest with me, Hermione," he finally got out. "I'm going for a walk. Alone, please," he added as Hermione looked up at him, nodding and wiping her eyes quickly to prevent the tears from falling.

Ron watched with wide eyes as Harry left, and he looked back to Hermione with confusion. "Why'd you let him leave? You said yourself you don't want to break up. So what is it that you're worried about? Isn't being bonded to him forever what you want?"

Hermione sighed, shaking her head before looking up at Ron. "It is. I mean, as far as I can say at the moment. I just think there's more to this bond that we don't know about. Ollivander made it out to be this beautiful thing, which it can be, but… it's also kind of scary. The dark emotion transfer… I don't want that to get any worse. I'm worried if we strengthen it too much, You Know Who will be able to get to me, too, and we don't need both of us affected. And… Ron, if… if we don't make it through this war… if Harry dies…"

Ron's shoulders slumped. "You think he will."

"I don't know," she whispered, so faint that Ron could barely hear her.

"You want to protect yourself."

"Please don't tell him."

"I won't," Ron promised, wrapping an arm around her and pulling her into a hug.

Outside the tent, listening in, Harry wasn't surprised. Of course it made sense. But it didn't make him upset. If anything, he was happy she was so worried about losing him. He didn't remember anyone who had ever loved him like that. He let out a breath, running a hand through his hair. He just needed to find a way to make sure they won.