Harry had been stalled too long trying to convince Ron to come with him before going on alone. He heard her scream. The next thing he knew, he was on the monster's back with his wand … up its nose? He ignored the fact that Hermione's voice was so weak as she yelled, " Stupefy, Harry! Push forward and say Stupefy! Imagine it falling asleep!"

It worked. It worked, and the troll fell over. It probably broke something. It probably broke more than one something. But Hermione was saved. As Harry blacked out, he could pretend he was only imagining the dark pool beneath Hermione. It was just the light …

Her unseeing eyes haunted every moment of Harry's waking hours. Something had changed in him. He found himself heading to the Headmaster's office. He noticed the gargoyle flying off to the side, but barely. He'd dreamed in the hospital wing about someone named Peverell. Peverell had promised him he could take it back. He could save Hermione.

Every word Hermione had ever said to him seemed to be coming back to him. How to wave Expelliarmus while shouting it at the headmaster. How to Accio the contents of the back of the drawer of Dumbledore's desk.

He would need the enemies out of the way. He headed down to the dungeon. He vaguely recalled remembering Reducto, and lo and behold, Professor Snape's wand was powder. A Stupefy put him down, but the Draught of Living Death would keep him there. He took another one with him for luck. With that thought, his Peverell voice told him to search the cabinet by Snape's desk. The gold potion he drank down. Out of the corner of his eye, he spotted a worn potions book. On a whim, he opened to the entry on the Draught. A certain charm combined with the Draught could keep the semblance of life in one newly killed. He didn't even question the Peverell about why he would need to do that.

Dumbledore's fear of Harry grew. First, Harry opened the Chamber of Secrets and carried her down the stairs, then sealed it up. He emerged later when people were wondering if he'd ever be seen again. He wasn't seen, but his results were. He'd found a cursed knife down there, and Quirinus Quirrel was missing his hands and his tongue the next morning.

Harry Potter became a sort of Ghost of Hogwarts. Shaken by what he'd seen Harry do, fearful he seemed to place some of the blame on him, and unable to enter the Chamber, Dumbledore decided it was best to let sleeping dogs lie. Quirrel had, after all, brought the troll into Hogwarts. Harry probably wouldn't leave Hermione's side to cause further trouble. The troll, and another one located in a corridor on the third floor, had been found torn to pieces with Bombardas.

Professor McGonagall told Hermione's parents everything. They wished with all their shattered hearts that Hermione had never even heard of magic. But what was left in their chests reached out for a boy who had, apparently, abandoned his life to sit in vigil next to their daughter's body in a grim fairytale setting. According to a boy who claimed to be Harry's best friend, Harry had shown no signs of obsessing on Hermione until that night. But others claimed the one time Harry had seen Ron he'd glared at him with such hatred that Ron was a bad source of information. Others told them Harry had become something of a cross between the Gray Lady and the Bloody Baron. Mr Granger, however, pondered the fact that, unlike those ghosts, Harry was still alive. Mrs Granger worried Harry had already taken his own life. They had read about how much Hermione liked him in one of her letters home, and, apparently, unbeknownst to her, the feeling had been more than mutual.

Quirrel died, though his injuries should not have killed him, Snape got a new wand, and Dumbledore returned to his old one. Ron Weasley wasn't popular, but his other brothers prevented him from being bullied. Life went on, Dumbledore seemed to take a great interest in Neville Longbottom. A girl named Luna Lovegood became the most bullied girl at Hogwarts. She was the only person to see Harry Potter in over a year. He even invited her into the Chamber of Secrets. The only being Harry had to talk to was, apparently, a very large snake. Hermione was under a glass case on a bier. When the snake went out to hunt, it avoided Harry and Hermione's side of the cave. Luna thought it was frightened. Harry had learned magic from the serpent, and he taught Luna several spells that would protect her from her fellow Ravenclaws.

Harry didn't tell Luna how he got food, or how he eliminated his waste, though Luna decided it was probably a simple Evanesco. She didn't pass on that she suspected the Hogwarts elves were helping Harry out. One good turn deserved another. He really did sit beside Hermione, all the time, she said. He occasionally exercised there, and he often talked to Hermione. He mostly said he was sorry.

No one but Harry was there the day after it had been one year since Harry brought Hermione down to the Chamber. Harry was familiar with ghosts, especially Helena Ravenclaw and her lover and killer. Thus, it was with more joy than fear that he saw Hermione approach him.

"Who's been sitting by my grave for so long?" She asked. At first, it seemed as if she couldn't see Harry, and couldn't remember him. "Who has brought me back from the land which never answers the living?"

Hermione stared at Harry for a long time. He'd learned patience and quiet, sitting down there staring at the body of a girl he somehow loved, even though he scarcely knew her.

At last, Hermione spoke. "Why don't you let me sleep, Harry Potter? What do you want? Why do you refuse to live, as if it were you, and not I, that has perished?"

"I love you, Hermione," Harry replied.

"Then, if it is meant to be, when you are at your end, let you seek me out, and we will have all of time to work out what is and is not between us. You don't honour my life by throwing away your own."

"We never kissed, Hermione," Harry said, after a long, long pause.

"I never did many things, Harry. Of all the things, a kiss? If you kiss me, will you leave me in peace?"

Harry nodded, reluctantly. Hermione waved at her body, in its glass case.

"Please yourself, Harry. Lift the glass, Kiss your princess."

When Harry started to rise, the ghost was suddenly between him and Hermione's body.

"A warning, Harry Potter. Hesitate, hesitate. My lips are whole, but cold. My breath - well, find out for yourself."

Harry lifted the glass. From Hermione's bier came the air of a dusty tomb. As he bent closer to her, she smelled mildewed and mouldy.

"If you truly love me, Harry," she added, "then one kiss from your loved but chained dead, and you will begin to waste away. Another year will see us together, indeed."

Harry stared at her.

"Close the glass, Harry," she said. After a bit, she added, "you look as if you want something to do. Have you watered our Moly plant with your tears?" Neville Longbottom had helped them when Pomona Sprout assigned them to work together, but the Moly plant had been all Harry and Hermione. Now, it was a withered and dry stalk. Like Harry's life.

"When you… it ..." Harry began.

"If it has been dead all this time, Harry, it will not return. Nothing will."

Harry would have given anything to have Hermione nag him again. Her sudden sing-song chant wasn't that.

"Water from a desert

"Blood from a stone

"Breast-milk from a virgin

"All these things bring."

Hermione began to fade.

"When will I see you again, Hermione!" Harry cried.

"When the dead leaves that fell turn green and are back on the tree, Harry. Then, and only then, shall we meet again."

It was another year before Harry found himself in the Department of Mysteries. In a pouch over his heart was a lock of Hermione's hair. When Harry dragged her spirit out of the chamber, she had told him he would have his answers when they arrived in the room of Time.

Water from an oasis had done nothing when Harry poured it on her lips. Neither had morning dew from a dune. But when he collected both of them again, his tears fell in them, and they ended up being enough to have Hermione's eyes open and track him. Both the Philosopher's Stone and the Resurrection Stone had eagerly accepted his blood. Harry had demanded that Madam Pomfrey spell Hermione's troll-shed blood into a vial, and it turned out the Resurrection Stone drank her blood just as readily.

The serpent had told Harry where to find ritual books in the Chamber. Applying that knowledge to the Philosopher's Stone led it to dispense the blood of the Flamels and of Harry and Hermione. It filled her case, and after a month, receded. Hermione looked alive, and completely uninjured.

Luna Lovegood had agreed to bear Harry's child without love-making, and she had come down to the Chamber to nurse Hermione back to health. But Hermione told them she was not all the way alive, and that her connection to the living was like a single slender thread. She never rose from her bier, and her ghost still followed Harry around. But they did have a proper kiss.

"Here, Harry, this one." Hermione pointed at a time turner. "This would have been mine."

Harry picked it up carefully. He had already, at Hermione's urging, worn the cloak, put on the Resurrection Stone, and taken up the Elder Wand.

"Break it, Harry Potter," Hermione said. "Breathe it in. Through your nose, your mouth, your eyes and ears. Let it fill you."

Harry didn't know it, but as he did so, Professor Snape and a being inhabiting Rowena Ravenclaw's diadem both perished. The deaths would eventually spread to everyone who bore the Mark. The Boy-Who-Lived had saved this time despite not caring at all.

"I think she heard you, Ron," he heard himself saying. He took off at a run, caught her before she could hide herself away, and kissed her soundly.

"If you don't have friends, Hermione, we'll make sure you make some," he said, holding her tightly. "And I, for one, love you dearly."

Pomona Sprout found out the next day that all the plants in the greenhouses that had died that week were alive again. When she asked Hagrid about it, the same thing had happened in the Forbidden Forest. It was a Herbology mystery, to be sure. She decided to ask the Longbottom boy to help investigate it. He had a good head on his shoulders, and a child's perspective just might be the key, for all she knew.

One day, after they had married, Harry finally told her what had happened. Luna Lovegood, who had been staying with them along with her child (whose father's name she would never say), had made herself scarce with her usual awareness and sensitivity.

At first, Hermione's reaction was joyful. Then, Harry noticed the telltale signs that Hermione was a little upset. "What is it?" he asked.

"Well, I don't want to be ungrateful, you understand. But I was dead for two years, and you were there at Hogwarts, right?"

Harry nodded.

"And you never even took any NOTES?"