A/N: Merry Christmas, everyone! Hope you have a wonderful season whatever your celebrations may be.

Finally, the last day of term arrived, and with it the Hogwarts Express back to London.

After saying goodbye to Fleur with promises to owl her over the summer, and then saying goodbye to Krum as well, Harry and Hermione followed the rest of the crowds down to where the carriages were waiting for them. But upon arriving at the horseless carriages, Harry saw that they were horseless no more.

Staring at the strange horse-like, dragon-headed, bat-winged, skeleton-ish beasts, Harry grabbed Hermione's arm to stop her, and pointing at the creatures asked, "What are those creepy things pulling the carriages?"

Hermione looked at where her boyfriend was pointing, before turning to look at the serious, and slightly creeped out look on his face, and then back to where he was pointing again, convinced he wasn't trying to pull some kind of prank on her — it wasn't really the kind of thing he would do, anyway.

"Umm, Harry? I can't see anything. The carriages look as horseless to me as they have every time I've seen them. What do you see?"

Harry described the creatures to her in great detail, including the harnesses attaching the carriages to them. So with a look of curiosity, Hermione slowly stepped forward to the carriage shafts, and hesitantly reached out towards where Harry said the creatures were. Suddenly, she jerked her hand back.

"Well, there's definitely something solid there, and really leathery and weird feeling, but I still can't see a thing," she said, looking back around at Harry.

"I can see them pulling every carriage, and there's definitely one right where you touched it," replied Harry.

"Okay then, so we know they're real, and not some kind of magic making you see something that isn't really there, but since everyone else is walking past them like there's nothing, or at least nothing unusual, I'm guessing they can't see them either. Which means it's unlikely that there's some magic affecting only me that's keeping me from seeing them, either," said Hermione, going into her lecture mode as she and Harry climbed into the carriage they were standing at, so they wouldn't be left behind as the carriages in front of them started moving off down the road towards the Hogsmeade train station.

Once they were comfortably seated in the carriage, Hermione continued on, "But I'm not a magizoology expert by any means, and while I've read several books on the subject, I can't think off the top of my head of anything these creatures could possibly be, that you can see for the first time now and most other people, myself included, still can't see them. I'll go through all my books again when I get home, but I'm thinking I'm going to have to get by Flourish and Blotts and find some more books to figure out what it is you're seeing that I can't, and why that's so."

Reassured by his girlfriend's belief of him, and her determination to find out what it was that he was seeing, and of course the fact she could clearly touch them even if she couldn't see them, Harry didn't feel like he was going crazy like he might have otherwise. He was still very puzzled by the creatures, and why they had either just started pulling the carriages or he could only just now see them, and also why everyone else couldn't see them, but he simply wondered what the answers were and how long it would take his girlfriend to find out the answers, not whether he was starting to hallucinate and crack from all the stress he'd been through in the graveyard after the third task.

Boarding the train once they arrived at the Hogsmeade station, Harry and Hermione easily found a compartment all to themselves, as still no one wanted to be anywhere near them, and certainly not locked in the same compartment as them, even after Dumbledore had told everyone at the Leaving Feast the night before that it was Voldemort who had killed Cedric, and not Harry. And Harry was more than thankful for this. He preferred being alone with Hermione anyway, who's constant presence in the week since the third task had helped him keep his mind off of everything that had occurred in the graveyard, and who had helped him begin to process some of what had taken place when he did feel up to talking about it all again.

So for once since he'd started attending Hogwarts, the castle's routine shunning of him was turning out to be more of a blessing than otherwise.

~HP~

As the train started rolling a little while later, Harry saw Hermione pull out the morning's Daily Prophet, which she hadn't had time to read at breakfast.

"How long you do you think till Rita publishes something about the third task?" he asked curiously. "I'm surprised she hasn't already. No way Fudge can keep her quiet on a story like this, like he can the Prophet."

"Actually...I don't think that's going to be a problem for him," replied Hermione, setting the paper down on the empty seat on the other side of her, and turning in her seat to face her boyfriend directly. "He obviously has a heavy hand at the Daily Prophet, and controls what they do and do not publish. Which means they won't buy any story from Rita, or anyone else, contradicting the narrative Fudge wants to write. Which in this case is that everything is perfectly normal and Voldemort definitely isn't back, despite any nasty rumors Dumbledore might be trying to spread to undermine the authority of the Ministry.

"And as there isn't any other news outlet in wizarding Britain — Witch Weekly, the other periodical she published in this year, of course having no interest in publishing anything that isn't celebrity scandals — and certainly not any news outlet that could pay Rita as much for a story as the Daily Prophet can pay her not to write any stories, Rita's not going to have any incentive to try to publish any story Fudge disapproves of. All she really cares about is money — not upsetting the status quo like she likes to portray, and certainly not truth — and Fudge is easily the highest bidder here. So she'll gladly do whatever he wants so long as he keeps giving her enough money."

"Oh."

Harry sat there looking at his girlfriend sitting next to him, taking in everything she'd said.

"Guess I didn't think of all that," he finally said. "But it does make sense now that you've said it. Which means the truth is never going to get published, is it?"

"Never say never, bigger miracles have happened, but it doesn't look like it will be spread anytime soon," replied Hermione with a sigh, before shrugging. "But maybe Dumbledore and his allies he sent off are working on something to alert the masses to Voldemort's return, and just haven't done it yet. Who knows?"

Harry and Hermione spent the next hour discussing possible things Dumbledore and the others who knew that Voldemort was back could be doing to alert the people that Voldemort was alive and strong again, capture or kill the Death Eaters still walking free, and otherwise fight the war against Voldemort that had started with Harry's defeat of the Dark Lord in their duel in the graveyard.

~HP~

After lunch, Harry and Hermione were both reading, when the compartment door slid open uninvited. And there stood Draco, Crabbe, and Goyle, looking even more insufferable and arrogant than ever before.

"So…" Draco drawled slowly, walking into the compartment like he thought he owned the place, looking at the couple with a smirk. "Potter's Dumbledore's favorite boy again."

"Was there exactly some point at which he wasn't?" asked Hermione politely, actually rather curious.

She couldn't think of any time since Harry had stepped through the doors of Hogwarts that her boyfriend hadn't clearly been Dumbledore's favorite, and so had no clue what Draco thought he was talking about by saying that Harry was Dumbledore's favorite again. Even when Harry's name had come out of the goblet, the headmaster had automatically believed Harry when he said he didn't enter himself or have anyone do it for him, so it's not like Harry had lost his favoritism then even for a few days or a week.

But Draco ignored her, instead looking mostly at Harry, but also a little at her, and saying softly, "Trying not to think about it, are we? Trying to pretend it hasn't happened?"

"Pretend what didn't happen? That Voldemort didn't return from whatever half-life state he was in before?" questioned Harry calmly. "Uh…no — not really. Voldemort's back, I've told all the adults in positions of authority that I can, and there's nothing else for me to do about it right now. So no, I wouldn't say I'm pretending it didn't happen — there's just nothing a fourteen year old me can do about it at the moment, now that I successfully beat your master in a one-on-one duel. After all, Priori Incantatem went in my direction, not his."

Draco clearly didn't expect this kind of response from Harry, despite the fact he hadn't gotten a single rise out of Harry all year any of the times he'd tried to rile him up (or at least not since Harry and Hermione had started spending all their time with each other, and especially since they'd started dating), and once again it took him several seconds to regain his normal arrogance.

When he finally did, he sneered, "You've picked the losing side, Potter. I warned you — I told you you ought to choose your company more carefully, remember? When we met on the train, first day at Hogwarts? I told you not to hang around with riffraff like that mudblood!" Here he jerked his head at where Hermione sat leaning back against Harry's side, Harry's arm wrapped around her shoulder, a look of complete and utter boredom on her face as she looked at the Slytherin scum taking up space in their compartment. "Too late now, Potter! She'll be the first to go, now the Dark Lord's back. Mudbloods first. Well — second — Diggory was the first."

"Which really, when you actually stop and think about it, doesn't really make all that much sense, though," commented Hermione conversationally. "Cedric was a pureblood, and yet Voldemort had Pettigrew kill him immediately just because he was there. So the whole purebloods, or at least those not actively opposing Voldemort — because Cedric wasn't 'on our side' as you so eloquently put it, as to the best of my knowledge Cedric never did a single thing in his entire life to try to stop Voldemort from returning — but the idea of purebloods being safe, or at least safer, from Voldemort, doesn't really hold any water. For all Voldemort knew, had Cedric been given an opportunity to become a Death Eater, he gladly would have. But Voldemort had Pettigrew kill him without a second's hesitation, never giving Cedric a chance to bow his knee to him once the tyrant had returned to a body.

"And Voldemort very easily could have, you know. Had Pettigrew bind Cedric like he did Harry, and waited until after he'd regained a body to see which side Cedric chose, and then killed the Hogwarts champion if he refused to bow. But despite Cedric's purebloodedness, he didn't. He just offed him without caring."

"And also," followed up Harry before the Snake could even wrap his mind around everything Hermione had said, "Do any of us here seriously believe that if I'd befriended you on the train ride up here, that I'd be any safer? That Voldemort would have let me, the boy who destroyed his power as a baby, join the Death Eaters? Please — give me a break. There was no winning side for me here, Draco, and you know it. I befriend you, and once Voldemort regained his body, he'd just come over to your house one day when I'm visiting and kill me there; or I don't befriend you, and he tries to kill me first, second, and fourth years like actually happened. The only thing that was never an option, is where he lets me live."

Before Draco could even try to begin to reply to that, there came a cool voice from the corridor outside. "Are you bothering our friends?"

Draco turned and found the twins standing behind him and his cronies. Outnumbered and out-yeared, Draco wisely just gave Harry and Hermione one last contemptuous sneer, before heading back out of the compartment and to whatever hole he'd slithered out of, brushing roughly into the twins as he passed, Crabbe and Goyle following in his wake.

Once they were gone, the twins stepped into the compartment and closed the door behind them, sitting down across from Harry and Hermione.

"Causing you much trouble?" asked Fred.

"Nothing we couldn't handle," said Hermione. "So what brings you two to our humble compartment on this fine afternoon?"

"Bored, and wanted to come see if you'd care for a few games of exploding snaps," answered George. "And also just to make sure Harry was still holding up okay."

For the rest of the afternoon, the four of them amicably passed the time by playing exploding snaps and chatting, Harry and Hermione happy to have company that didn't believe Harry to be the next dark wizard, worth more fear than He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named himself.

And as the conversation drifted into the TriWizard tournament in the midst of their chatting, Harry said, "You know, I think the oddest thing about this entire tournament, at least that we haven't figured out yet, is why Bagman was so interested in trying to get me to win. And then never even congratulated me after I did — in fact, I never even saw him again after I entered the maze."

"You know, we can actually help you with that one," replied Fred gloomily.

"Turns out, Bagman owed a lot of money to the goblins, and in order to pay it off, placed a bet on you winning the tournament," continued George.

"And we found this all out because Bagman payed our Quidditch World Cup bet in leprechaun gold, and then refused to cough up, or even just return the money we'd bet, after said gold disappeared," added Fred.

"But the goblins are as dirty as him, and claim that you drew instead of winning outright, so Bagman pulled a runner right after the third task, taking all hopes of us ever recovering our gold with him," finished George.

"That's terrible!" exclaimed Harry. "I'm so sorry. That was all your savings, and he just up and stole it. Too bad the Ministry doesn't seem to have an actual police force to report crimes like that to."

But Hermione had suddenly had an idea. Leaning over, she whispered into Harry's ear, "You still don't want your TriWizard money, do you?" When Harry shook his head, she continued, "Give it to them. Let them use it to start their joke business. You can't fix what Bagman did, but you can help them out."

So Harry immediately jumped up and dug around in his trunk, until he found the sack of gold Mr Crouch had thrown at him before storming out of the hospital wing following the events of the third task. Turning to the twins, he held it out.

"Take it. I don't want it, I have far more than I'll ever use in my vault in Gringotts, and I really didn't deserve this in the first place," he said. "Consider it start-up money for your joke shop, four years worth of Christmas and birthday presents, whatever you have to to take it, I don't care. Just take the money."

Fred and George stared at him in disbelief for several seconds, before George hesitantly reached out to take it.

"You're sure?" he said in awe.

"More than," answered Harry. "I just can't believe I didn't think of it sooner — or think of it at all, as you actually have Hermione to thank for suggesting the idea."

"Thank you. And thank you," said Fred first to Harry, and then to Hermione.

"Just glad we can help make the world a little brighter place," replied Hermione with a smile.

~HP~

When the Hogwarts Express pulled into Kings Cross Station, Harry and Hermione hung back in their compartment for a while, to let everyone else deboard first.

They had made it this far avoiding most of the crowds who, despite Dumbledore's speech at the Leaving Feast, still seemed to be rather distrustful of Harry, like he might murder them at any moment to further his fame. And Harry and Hermione saw no reason to push their luck now that they'd finally made it back to London and were almost free of all their fellow students for two months. They would of course have to face them all again after a summer of Fudge denying Voldemort's return, but they would deal with that when the time came. Additionally, it was their last chance to snog for a while, and they weren't about to waste that opportunity.

But eventually they had to exit the train themselves, and return to the muggle world from whence they came. Walking though the platform barrier, they found Mr Dursley waiting for Harry, along with Hermione's parents waiting on her a little further along the platform. As Harry stopped in front of his uncle, Hermione drew him in for one final hug and kiss before parting ways for the summer.

Letting him go, she waved over her shoulder as she walked off towards her parents, saying, "See you, Harry."

~The End~

A/N: I know I've said this on both of my last two long HP stories, but I really am working on a sequel to this for 5th Year. And I'm actually close to having the summer written. I'm thinking right now I'll publish the summer as one story (it's currently 32k words not entirely finished), and the school year as a separate story since both sections will be plenty long enough on their own, and so it won't be six months before the sequel to this comes out, or I get distracted and never finish it.

A/N 2: Also, for anyone who's said this story is too much just rewriting the book and not changing it enough (and yet still made it to this point to read this note), that's definitely not the case in the summer between 4th-5th years — it changes a lot from canon due to Harry/Hermione being in a relationship. But also, also, they still go back to Hogwarts, because I'm not creative enough to completely write an entirely original story of them transferring to Beauxbatons or America like a few people have wanted — if you want that story, you're going to have to write it yourself, I'm not that good.