A/N: I have some ideas for my next story and have already written out…dun da dun dun! The kiss scene. I've had it in my head for a while now, and didn't want to forget it. But, that's for another story, and not this one. I anticipate this story will end at about chapter thirty, maybe go as far as thirty-five.

Anyway, I just wanted to point out that I had the idea for her to kill Dumbledore before the sixth book came out. So I'm really not trying to copy anything with that. But I had previously had another ending for this situation, and have found a better one now. It'll probably be sometime…this chapter or the next.

Um…no, they have not had sex. If that was unclear. And…the last chapter didn't go at all how I planned it to be, but I liked the end result well enough...

OMG THIS CHAPTER JUST KEPT GOING AND GOING AND GOING. I wanted to end it at a certain point and still didn't get there after 13 pages of writing! So I just cut it at the best break possible. Next chapter will probably be shorter.

CHAPTER 23: Dumbledore Part 1

It was lucky, very lucky indeed, that Voldemort had sent them back immediately. Hermione fell to the wet grass staring blankly ahead and felt Draco fall to his knees beside her. Their thoughts washed over with one another and tangled in each other into an incomprehensive knot of disbelief, outrage, and outright revulsion at the idea of killing Dumbledore. They were unsure that even if they had been taking occlumency lessons as they were supposed to they would have been able to hide this mass of thought from the Dark Lord.

Draco, who had never fully supported Dumbledore even when he was agreeing to act as a spy, still found his thoughts spinning in tandem with Hermione's, probably even overlaid with Hermione's own, more forceful, ideas on this matter. "That was unfair. I am not going to kill him," she growled to the grass, and looked up sharply at him. He hadn't even realized that his voice had echoed hers.

"We have to tell him," one of them said.

"We can't tell him," the other responded.

Grey eyes met brown ones in the moonlight. They nodded together. The headmaster was expecting a report tonight on this. And they had until their Marks flared to make a decision….

He can help us.… Doubt washed over them, emanating mostly from Draco. Trust followed, from Hermione. They stood together and walked back to school, and they picked at their thoughts, laying to rest as many as they could, until there were only a few main threads.

"I'm going to tell him," Hermione said. Draco knew and disagreed. He began to protest, and she turned to him. "This mission was handed over to me. You can do as you'd like, but I'm going to tell him." You can't stop me, ricocheted in their minds, and there was no doubt who this came from.

"Should we tell him about this?" Draco asked, tapping her head.

"Yes," Hermione said automatically. "He may know what it's about, and maybe even tell us some more about it. I'm really curious about it, actually." Her grin in the darkness reminded of Xokos, and for an instant hated her. Draco tried to squish it, to cram that line of emotion into the small place in his head where his orders from the Dark Lord had been put, where Hermione couldn't find it.

It seemed to work, her face flickering with the pain his hatred wrought but was soon back to her normal self as he tucked the feeling away. He did not apologize, but carefully took her hand in his own. She understood.

At the edge of Hogwarts grounds, Draco drew Hermione under the cloak with him. She was soaking wet and that sogginess was transferred over to him. "I hope there aren't any teachers around," Draco muttered in her ear as they approached the doors.

"It'll be pretty hard to explain this," she agreed. "Then again," she murmured, pulling him off to a wall and turning around so that they stood front-to-front with another. "I'm sure we could make up some sort of excuse…" Draco shivered at her breath on his neck and leaned down to kiss her. I'm sure we could, they thought.

"It's certainly not an excuse they'll like…" Draco mumbled in her ear. But it's better than the truth, Hermione thought back. The two stood there for a while, Hermione's back against the wall and Draco leaning over her, and simply let their emotions flow. I'm scared, her thoughts whispered. I'll protect you, they thought, I don't want you to get hurt.

I love you. The thought was even quieter than the first, and Draco started. It had clearly come from Hermione. He leaned down and kissed her slowly, showing her that he loved her too. For now, she thought sadly, and Draco pulled on the expressionless mask he'd worn before meeting her. She would not see his pain at this.

"We should go," Draco said. The only chance he had at keeping his pain secret was to distract her.

Hermione nodded against his shoulder and reached out for what was wrong, but he backed up a bit. The cloak, she thought.

"Is pointless. We can just tell anyone we meet that we were doing business for Dumbledore and are going to report to him. It's the truth." Hermione nodded at that and Draco took off the cloak, bundling it up and tucking it under his school robes.

The couple met no one on their way to the Dumbledore's office. A thought fluttered at the edge of Hermione's awareness, but she found it to be out of her reach. "Canary cream," she told the gargoyles. They sprang aside, and she and Draco stepped onto the spiral staircase. At the door, though, Hermione showed her first signs of edginess. Reaching for the doorknob, she hesitated, and so it was Draco who knocked.

"Come in." Glancing over her shoulder to Draco, Hermione reached again for the knob, this time completing the motion. Albus Dumbledore sat behind his desk, looking not a bit tired.

"Ah, I was expecting you two sooner or later. Do come in," he said when he saw them pause at the door. "Tea?" he offered. Hermione nodded gratefully, and even Draco gave a grudging nod at the headmaster's thoughtfulness. "I hope you found no troubles on your way in and out?" Hermione shook her head. This was the faint thought that had been out of reach earlier. "Anything to report?" Dumbledore's eyes glittered oddly in the light, and Draco looked away. Hermione put her cloak against the back of a chair and seated herself cross-legged upon it in an attempt to preserve what little warmth she still had.

"There'll be a raid. I don't know when. I'm pretty sure it'll be in London," Hermione said. "But I've convinced them that it's best to keep the muggles as slaves instead of kill them all. And I don't think you should try to stop this, because then he'll know that I've double-crossed him. Or he'll think it was Draco. Anyway, neither of those situations are any good, so I don't know what to do and I'll trust your judgment," she let out in a rush and nervously took a large gulp of tea.

Before she could open her mouth to continue, Draco decided to try something. It was going to be like when he'd given her a smirk at the meeting. He leaned a bit closer to her and concentrated hard on her nervousness. Suddenly it was gone, and he felt it as acutely as if it were his own. He held onto it, careful not to let it spill into Hermione, and she continued her report calmly.

Containing her anxiety was not nearly as hard as Draco had expected. The only problem was that without her nervousness taking over her mind, he saw her getting more and more frightened. He wasn't sure that he could hold both emotions at the same time, so he had to leave it as it was and fidgeted in his seat.

"Um…there was also something else…he…" Hermione trailed off, and Draco felt her fear overflow and pool around him. "He wants me to kill you," she whispered.

"I see," Professor Dumbledore said. A wave of relief and uncertainty washed over the two teenagers. Assaulted with these two emotions, Draco found that trying to hold her nervousness was like trying to hold water in your hands: seeping out of your grasp no matter how hard you tried to contain it. Even so, he struggled to do so, biting his lip and shifting uncomfortably in his chair just as Hermione would have done if she had been the nervous one.

The two waited for him to respond. "What…should I do?" Hermione asked.

Dumbledore blinked, as if he hadn't even realized how uncertain she was about this. "Kill me, of course."

"WHAT?" Hermione and Draco yelled together. "You can't be serious," Hermione said.

The man looked at them from behind his spectacles. "I am. I shall just get my affairs in order, and then whenever you need to kill me, you can."

"But I don't…" Hermione began, trailing off.

"Understand," Draco finished for her. In the depths of his own emotions, he had forgotten to hold onto her anxiety. She fidgeted in her chair.

"I certainly have lived far longer than most, and I knew my time was approaching. But I must ask one thing of you: paint me a portrait."

"But I don't…" Hermione and Draco said, unable to separate their thoughts enough to speak independently.

"It's quite simple," Dumbledore told them. He glanced off at the portraits of past headmasters and mistresses of the school, and they all stared wide-eyed at what was occurring in the room. "Before you kill me I'll be sure to set everything up for you. All you'll have to do is paint."

This is absurd! We're not having this conversation.

"A five-year-old can paint better than me!" Hermione protested. Draco snickered and she pretended not to hear.

"I will tell you the secret to painting the portraits. I simply want you to do it. The portraits have already been made, see, but you have to do something special with them to make them…real. As you can see, all the past headmasters and mistresses can talk, relay ideas and thoughts. But pictures can only move. My portraits can move, but if you paint my thoughts onto them, then they will live even after I am dead," he explained simply.

"I…" Hermione began. Impossible. Absurd. Unreal.

"You did not believe pensieves were for the sole purpose of collecting memories, did you? They function perfectly well as that, but are hard enough to come by that there is another use for them. If you put enough of your thoughts in a pensive, and paint them over a portrait, then the portrait will absorb your thoughts. Most often, portraits are painted with the thoughts in the paint. However, it works all the same to put the thoughts on after." Dumbledore's eyes glittered behind his spectacles, without a trace of sadness.

"Was there anything else you wished to tell me?" He asked.

Hermione and Draco looked to one another, and their thoughts were disorganized, flowing into one another minds without cohesion. "No," they answered as one. "Oh, wait. We do," Draco said.

"There's something weird going on between…us. I don't know what's happened, but we can…"

"Well, it's like we know what the other is thinking," Draco continued when Hermione faltered.

"And feeling," she added. "Thanks for earlier, by the way," she said. "About the…"

"I know," Draco responded. No need to thank me. I wasn't doing anything. "Anyway, it was better for you to report without being nervous." Hermione nodded, and her thoughts seemed to wrap warm and fuzzy around him.

"I see," the headmaster murmured, and his eyes twinkled with amusement. "I wondered why you were fidgeting. I have never known you to fidget, Mr. Malfoy. Considering that it was Miss Granger's feeling, it makes more sense." He fell into silence, and Hermione and Draco quelled the confused thoughts about their earlier conversation and waited for him to continue. "I do not know of this to happen under normal circumstances, but it may have something to do with that book of yours. Or…"

Dumbledore stopped and looked at her neck, where she was sure Draco's tooth marks stood out against her pale skin. His gaze swept over to Draco, and she thought she saw the corners of his mouth deepen in amusement. "Miss Granger, have you read of Compassion Bindings?"

"Yes, but…oh. Yes, that makes sense," Hermione said blushing. "I guess we're done here." The headmaster seemed to be holding back laughter and Hermione jerkily stood. Draco's body wrenched upright in response, and he was sure he heard Dumbledore laughing as they left. "Bye," Hermione said, and Draco's voice echoed hers.

"What's Compassion Binding?" Draco asked her as they went back to the room of requirement.

"Um…" Hermione seemed reluctant to tell him. She shoved the tangled mass of thought on what had happened in the last couple hours into his mind and appeared to be thinking of a way to phrase her answer.

"You see…when two people…." Abruptly she threw her hands in the air and pulled her share of thoughts back into her mind. "I'll get you a book on it."

Very typical of you, Draco thought dryly, and her gaze flicked over to him. He couldn't tell if she was angry or amused with the thought as she opened up the door to the room. She sat on the bed, and he felt her exhaustion roll over her. Her motions slowed down and she sluggishly pulled off her shoes and robe and crawled into bed, wet clothing and all.

The blond did the same thing, feeling awkwardly in two positions as she lay in bed and he sat on the edge taking off his shoes. He could already feel Hermione plucking at their thoughts, trying to work out what had happened that night. When he finally clambered into bed, her shirt was cold against his bare chest, but he held her close.

They did not sleep for a long time, carefully sorting through their mutual thoughts and memories, working out what had happened.

The last thing they thought before nodding off was, We're going to kill Albus Dumbledore.


Albus sat back in his chair, looking thoughtfully at the portrait of Phineas on the wall. "Are you mad?" the portrait sputtered. "You're not even going to put up a fight?"

"You are exactly correct," Dumbledore told the old portrait. "Once, when I was a boy, I went to a small little town and had my fortune told. The only thing that the man would tell me was that I would die by the hand of someone I loved. Simply for her being at my school, I have loved this child, and through her brilliance, I have grown to love Miss Granger as if she were my own child. It makes sense."

"You are off your rocker. You have no idea what you are doing! Without you…you know what they say?" Phineas went off on a different thought. "They say that you're the only one that He Who Must Not Be Named has ever feared! Are you even thinking of the consequences of this?"

"I am. I am giving Harry a running chance in this game. After I am gone, just as you said, the only one that Voldemort has feared, then he will grow bolder, more public. You must admit that Harry has a better chance getting to him if he's brazen rather than overly cautious." He popped a lemon drop in his mouth.

"Fool!" Phineas hissed. "Mr. Potter has already lost everything that he holds dear except for the Weasleys and the Order. You wish to take yourself away from him too? That is folly." The man sat back in his portrait, his expression aghast. "To imagine, I used to praise your intelligence and admire you!"

"Oh, please, Phineas. Do stop being so dramatic, it's not helping anyone here." Dumbledore pulled some parchment out of his desk and began writing upon it. The only sounds in the room were Phineas's outraged huffing and the scratch of the quill on the parchment. "Now. Can you imagine? She set a Compassion Binding on him without even noticing. Or perhaps it was the other way around?"

"Absolutely hilarious," Phineas agreed dryly and left the frame to check on the other places where his portraits hung.


Harry woke up with a start before sinking back on his pillows. He had been dreaming of her again. Hermione, her hair blowing about in the wind had looked at him pleadingly, and for the umpteenth time begged him to listen, to understand. Of course, Harry would have none of it. She had betrayed them.

Inexplicably, sleep would have nothing to do with him. After what felt like a few hours, Harry forced himself out of bed. He pulled on some pants and then violently threw his curtains to the side. Ron looked over at him from his own bed. "She can't get out of your mind either?"

Harry shook his head. "It's just getting worse. It's almost like when Voldemort would get into my dreams. But these are more constant, and more…more…"

"Heartbreaking?" Ron supplied. Harry's breath whooshed out as he nodded. He sat back down on his bed but left his curtains open so he could converse with Ron. "But how could she do that to us? I know we were angry with her at first, and hurt, but…she went over…" He dared not finish that sentence with the other boys sleeping in the room.

"Exactly. And it's worse that she's with Malfoy now. Have you seen them smirk?"

"I know!" Ron bellowed indignantly.

"Shut it," howled Seamus from his bed, and there was a shout of assent from Dean.

"I know," Ron continued in a quieter voice. "Those smirks are so identical you want to smash their faces in. Oh, and did you see what they did to one another? I saw Malfoy take off his robe yesterday, and he had scratches all over his arm, and I could see where she'd bitten him all over his neck." He shivered in disgust.

"Did you see her, though?" Harry asked. When Ron shook his head, he continued, "Those bite marks on him were nothing in comparison to the ones on her." He paused as he heard Seamus and Dean get up and begin to dress. He and Ron didn't have any classes this morning, but they did. They fell silent and waited for the other two to leave.

After Seamus and Dean left twenty minutes later, they carried on their conversation as if there had been no pause. "I'd feel worse," Ron said, "If she hadn't started dating Malfoy."

"Did you see them yesterday?" Harry asked quietly, lying on his side so he could watch Ron's reaction.

"Yeah," the redhead added just as quietly. He stared at the ceiling. "They were scary. Maybe not apart, but together…"

"Intense," Harry murmured. Ron nodded in agreement and opened his mouth to say something when there was a knock on the door. When Ron didn't move, Harry got up and opened the door. "Yes?"

A second year stared up at him. "Professor McGonagall wants you and your friend," he peeped.

"Thanks. We'll be right down." The second year stood there for a minute, gaping at Harry, and then turned with a squeak and ran down the stairs. Ron was already pulling on a shirt and robes, and Harry did the same.

"Did we do something wrong?" Harry asked.

Ron shrugged. "Not that I remember. Maybe she wants to talk to us about our grades. Without Hermione, they've been…dropping," he said as he tied his shoe.

"I know," Harry agreed sadly. Without Hermione to goad them on, and then eventually "look over" their essays, their marks were getting lower and lower.

They stood and walked down the stairs together, each tangled in their own thoughts of the girl.

Professor McGonagall hovered impatiently around the stairs and looked relieved when they came down. "Hurry," she urged them, ushering them out of the portrait hole. The few people in the common room looked at them in sympathy as they passed. Everyone knew how much Hermione had meant to the two of them, and how much her betrayal (dating Malfoy) had cut them.

"Um…Professor?" Ron began. "Where are we going?"

"You two are going to see the headmaster," she replied tightly. Harry and Ron exchanged looks behind her back and they tried to make themselves more presentable and failing.

"Canary cream," she said primly at the gargoyles, but Harry noticed that her hands shook. The silence on the stairs seemed ominous, and when Ron tried to say something, McGonagall had turned and glared at them. The silence had stretched thin by the time they were at the door, and the professor's knocks seemed sharp and angry.

"Come in," Dumbledore called. "Thank you, Minerva," he told her as she hovered in the doorway. She opened her mouth to speak, and he gave her a grave stare behind his spectacles. With an audible snap of her jaw, the professor stepped back and shut the door.

"Mr. Potter, Mr. Weasley," Dumbledore greeted them. "I trust you both slept well?" The two exchanged another glance, knowing about their dreams, but nodded anyway to the headmaster. "Now, you two probably are wondering why I called you in…no, it's not because of your grades, though I do hope to see some improvement in those."

His eyes twinkled behind his spectacles, and Harry suppressed a sigh of relief. Ron turned his own sigh into a cough and visibly relaxed in his chair. "The topic I had in mind involved Miss Granger, actually."

Harry tried not to glance at Ron, but his gaze was pulled inevitably to the other boy's. Dumbledore saw this, and frowned. "Whatever you two are thinking about her is wrong."

"But she's—!" Ron began indignantly. Harry wished he could kick him, but he shut his mouth of his own accord.

"Yes, she's working for Voldemort." That certainly got their attention, and Harry's neck hurt from turning so fast. "And you turned away from her. I had hoped you would try to bring her back on your own, but I find now that my own time runs short. I want you to reconcile with her."

"How did you know?" Ron asked just as Harry said, "What do you mean by your 'own time runs short'?"

"To Mr. Weasley's question, I know because she's also working for me. And as for you, Mr. Potter, I should think the meaning of that is clear."

"But you can't die!" Harry shouted, leaping to his feet. "You're not…you're not…" mortal, he thought, but did not say.

Few times had Harry ever seen Dumbledore look alarmed. "Please, Harry, you must calm down," he said. "I have chosen this death. And please do not blame the one who kills me, it is not her fault at all. You must be reasonable. This is the best way I can think to deliver Voldemort at your feet. Without me, he'll feel more secure and, if all goes well, will stop being so cautious about everything. Without perceiving me as a threat anymore, he's halfway to killing you, or so he'll think. Trust Miss Granger. She's our queen in this chess match." Ron understood the look Dumbledore gave him.

"The sacrifice," he muttered, and Dumbledore beamed. "It's like our chess game in first year, remember that, Harry? I had to sacrifice myself so that you would win! It's what Dumbledore is doing now! He's sacrificing himself to distract them! Though," Ron sobered and turned back to the professor, "I don't agree with you about Hermione being of such high value."

Harry sank into his seat. Not Ron too! They were both crazy! His last bit sounded saner than the rest of that chess talk, but still…there was no way that he could be agreeing with Dumbledore's death.

"I had hoped you would take her back without needing my help, but I do find that this, among a few other important things, was one of my main thoughts when I found I was going to die. Miss Granger is our wild card in this game. You clearly don't know how much respect she commands from the Death Eaters, and Mr. Malfoy too, simply for being in love with her." The old wizard sighed, showing his years.

"Let me speak frankly with you two. Miss Granger is going to kill me. She and I have already discussed this together, and I have convinced her that this is the best option. I'm old, and have been waiting to die for many years, no matter how pleasant they have been. She will kill me, and Voldemort will trust her fully. You can use her as a tool.

"Since you have not been in contact, I would not expect you to know this. Nor would I even have expected her to tell you if that was untrue. Voldemort has taken her in as his daughter. His trust in her, hopefully was already strong. And when he can use his legilimency to see that she did, indeed, kill me, he will never doubt her, and therefore will not doubt Mr. Malfoy either."

"So I went and got a new father… I'm better than just one of them…" Hermione's words echoed in his ears, only now making sense.

Dumbledore smirked faintly at his plan. "Use them. They are more useful than you know, particularly as a pair. Find them, and use them. He trusts them, and with any luck you'll be able to kill him before the year is out. Do not let my death be in vain, and please heed my knowledge, on this if nothing else."

Harry and Ron didn't even notice the compulsions he put on them, and as they left, blandly nodding their assent, he breathed a sigh of relief. "I hope you know what you're doing," Phineas said tartly from his portrait. "Your trust in precious little Granger may be misplaced."

Dumbledore ignored the taunt, too amazed at the simplicity of it all to give it much thought. "I only hope," he said, "That Harry will succeed. For if he does not, then my whole life truly has been in waste." When the moment of melancholy passed, Dumbledore turned to address a headmistress gazing wide-eyed from her frame. "If you would please find me as much of the Order as you can and tell them there is to be a meeting at Grimmauld Place? Tonight. And apologize for the short notice." She nodded, still not over the shock of it all, and walked out of the frame, as did a few other headmasters and mistresses.

Sitting back in his chair, Fawkes came over. He stroked his old pet—companion, really—with a familiarity born of long years together. "Fawkes, if you would find the rest?" The phoenix gave a knowing blink, and Dumbledore made several copies of the letter he had originally written, explaining everything and saying that everyone was to convene at Hogwarts ASAP after his death before putting various charms and spells on the parchments so that they would not fall into the wrong hands or be read by the wrong eyes.

As he finished, they disappeared as Fawkes took hold of them. "Be safe," Dumbledore told him. The phoenix rubbed its silky head on his cheek and with a soft poof was gone.

"There is so much to do and so little time," Dumbledore told his almost-empty office. Two headmasters turned to each other and began whispering. Some headmistress shared some nervous looks. The current headmaster took his pensieve out of the cabinet and put some of his childhood memories into it. He would need everything else for the meeting tonight.


Hermione yawned awake and was surprised to find Draco beside her. "What are you doing here?" she asked. "You have class this morning…"

Draco opened a lazy eye in a look that said as much as his thoughts, I don't care.

There was a thick smack and Hermione and Draco jerked upright. Breathing a sigh of relief to see that it was only a book fallen on the floor, Hermione got out of bed and picked it up, glancing at the page as she did so. She must have frozen on the spot, because Draco looked up. "What is it?"

Hermione brought the book over to him with a shrug.

Compassion Bindings, it read at the top. Draco glanced up at Hermione, and saw her look was just as amazed as his—and a bit more amused. He read on.

Compassion: n. a feeling of deep sympathy and sorrow for another's suffering or misfortune, accompanied by a desire to alleviate the pain or remove its cause.

Compassion Bindings are formed when two people (or more: there have been reports of up to five people in a single Binding) feel compassion towards one another. They are often established after all parties have experienced severe trauma, either emotional or physical. To create such a bond, each person must receive (willingly) pain from all other Binding groups. Bindings have been known to work best when another type of pain than the type found in the original trauma is used in the Binding, however either is known to work.

While not exactly rare, the range of effects of such Bindings are very diverse, therefore usually making the symptoms overlooked as such. Possible effects are: feelings of hatred or love (sometimes both), an obsessive attachment to others in the Binding, the urge to cause yourself or Bond-mate pain (as was found in the process of the Binding), also an extreme awareness of the Bond-mate's physical situation, emotions or thoughts (or any pairing of the three).

With so many ways for Bindings to affect people, it is hard to pinpoint the length of effects. At times, such effects are permanent, and in other cases end quickly. Bonds can fade or grow stronger at distances; likewise, distance, can have no effect at all. They can be forged strong or weak in the beginning and have no effect on its later strength.

In moments of extreme stress, a Bond can be broken, and there are only two reports of a successful re-Binding to the original Bond-mate again. Breaking a Binding is potentially dangerous and has been known to cause insanity on some of the participants. At other times there has been absolutely no effect on anyone after a Binding is broken.

Bindings are highly unpredictable and they are not often noticed as Bindings that research on this magic is vague at best and there is nothing truly definitive on the subject.

Draco was left staring at the page, trying to soak it in. "But…" he began. Hermione sat down beside him and tapped his neck, hitting a place where she'd nipped him particularly hard. He didn't flinch but gave her a 'fine, you win' look. She smirked and leaned over to kiss him.

As always, you're right… his thought floated between them. Hermione gasped when he suddenly pushed her onto her back. The book fell from his lap and hit the floor with three solid thuds but neither of them cared as he leaned over to kiss her, slowly unbuttoning her shirt from the bottom up.

He loved her, and then, abruptly, Xokos shot between them. Hermione laid still and the quick bolt of hate shattered. Love replaced it again, and she shivered, squirming uncomfortably under him as he leaned over. I'm sorry, his thoughts whispered. She kissed him as a sign of forgiveness….

The door swung open and hit the wall behind it with a sharp crack. Hermione sat up before Draco could move, and her shoulder slammed into his jaw. He backed off from her with a grunt of pain, and she could feel his tongue throbbing where he'd bitten it. "Oh," she said to the two figures at the door. "Hello."

Harry made a noise of utmost disgust that conveyed the feeling better than any words could have. Ron "whispered" (loud enough for Hermione and Draco to hear, of course), "I think I'm gonna hurl." Hermione thought the situation would have been hilarious if they all had not been on such bad terms with one another already.


When the friends are gone

When the party's over

We will still belong to each other

—Shakira, "Underneath Your Clothes"