While Hermione was sitting comfortably reading on one of those sofas in front of the fireplace in the Gryffindor common room, she felt a hand on her shoulder. A hand belonging to a person she didn't expect to see: Harry Potter.

"oh Harry, good to see you..." she said gently closing her book.

"I have to ask you a question." Harry sat down next to Hermione staring at the fire. "Why didn't you tell us?"

"What?" Hermione hoped it wasn't what she thought it was even if a little (not so little actually) part of her knew from the moment Harry arrived with that look in his eyes what was he going to say.

"When I fell from the broom, and I was unconsious in the infirmary, Megan told me everything in a dream... You are dying, aren't you?" Harry asked with a tone that not even Hermione had ever heard before from him. Saddness and resigned despair clear in his voice. He had used that tone only twice in his life: in that moment, and when he himself was consciously on death's door knocking alone. Hermione nodded slowly ostinately looking at the floor.

"What can we do?" He asked disheartened.

"...When I was in the Hospital wing, McGonagall told me that the Dragonlear's ring could heal me, but we don't even know where it is." Said Hermione sadly.

"Don't worry, we'll find it. If I didn't die after being persecuted for seventeen years by Lord Voldemort, you won't die of a stupid poison."

For the first time from when Harry started talking of her death Hermione looked up from the floor shifting her eyes till they met Harry's green ones. "I missed you Harry..." she breathed out once she got close enough to close her arms around her friend hugging him tightly.

"Me too, Hermione... Oh, and just to let you know: you were right... again."

"On what?"

"Draco is no longer that bad person we have always known and hated... today, while we were up there, he stood in front of me, and got hit instead of me; never in a thousand years i would have thought he would do that." Harry said, still surprised by what he was saying.

"I told you! But don't worry, it's still the same: always so sarcastic and... so twitchy little ferret! But is no more that foul loathsome, evil little cockroach; you could try to get know him, you could even appreciate it." Hermione mumbled taking her book and getting up when Ron entered the common room.

"ehm... see if you can do something also with eh... Ron." She whispered as Harry got up too.

"Oh Harry, Hermione, how's going? Beautiful night isn't it?" Ron said smiling. He walked over to the two guys and hugged them, leaving them surprised. Him and Hermione weren't talking to each other directly since Christmas.

"So, when are we going back in time? I forgot it."

"We... we haven't said that yet." Hermione said doubtfully.

"Oh, okay, just let me know." He added lost in his thoughts.

"You... You don't remember our meeting on April third?" she asked disappointed.

"Oh, yeah yeah right, I forgot it, I don't know what's happening to my memory this days. Night, guys." He stammered going up the stairs.

"That was... weird." Hermione commented as Harry nodded still quite shocked.

"Thank you for everything, Harry. Night." She was already leaving when the same hand as before, grabbed her wrist making her stom and turn around. "I promise that I will do my best to help you find the ring."

Hermione smiled lightly and started to walk away towards the stairs to her dormitory. "Thanks Harry. Good night."

"Hey Hermione," Ginny's voice called from inside the dorm when Hermione entered. "Did you know? I think Ron and Pansy are together! I saw them from the window a while ago!"

Hermione approached the window and looked down. She saw Pansy and Ron walking hand in hand back to the castle.

But hadn't she seen Ron a while ago in the common room?!

She decided to walk over and achieve that thought in her mind, so that she could pick them out at the right moment; but she had a strange idea.

"Oh dear, you're behind: Morgan and Blaise are together!" she exclaimed to a far to exited Ginny.

/

The morning of April 12 had come quickly after the tragic quidditch game of the previous Sunday. After the lessons of that day, they all found themselves at the secret passage of the mirror at five; Pansy would also come, since she didn't seem so bad.

"I think you all know why we are here. We found the ring of truth, which Harry has already separated from the brooch; but we must also find the other if we want to prevent the ring of hope from exploding." Hermione explained as soon as they all arrived. Great way to start a meeting. threatening the whole team with global catastophe.

"But first..." she said throwing a newspaper on the table.

"What is this?" Ron asked.

"Read." She replayed. Everyone approached to see. -ATTACK AT ILVERMORNY- was the title one the first page.

"They must have come to know about the ring." Morgan said reading one of the titles on first page.

"-Mass-escape from Azcaban. The dementors have betrayed us.-" Neville read from under the bigger title about Ilvermorny.

"As if we didn't know death eaters are no longer in Azcaban!" Harry said with a quick glance at Draco. they surely remembered that funny visit at the game.

"Anyway, they are free now, and we aren't safe anymore. We need to find that ring; maybe they know about it." Hermione said.

Harry stood up next to her and started speaking. "We know that the second ring owned by the Slytherins must have ended up in the other branch of the Gaunt family, the one from which Voldemort descends. And in this regard... I don't know how much weight to give this, but while I was in coma after falling from the broom, someone whispered the names Riddle and Dumbledore. So if the voice told the truth, the ring must have reached Tom Riddle, but somehow Dumbledore intervened; probably when Tom still didn't know he was the Slytherin heir... maybe at the orphanage?" said Harry.

"But can we give weight to a voice that you heard in your head while you were in a coma?" asked Pansy skeptically.

"Believe me, they have never been wrong." Ron replied.

"We'll go..." Harry started again, but he was brutally interrupted by poke in the ribs by Hermione. "Shhh, stop! Don't say anything! They're listening to us! I remembered now. Is there anyone who can stay out to see that nobody is there?" She asked.

"I'll go." Pansy replied exiting the room. When she exited she talked to anyone was in the passage: "I'm not one of those in there with a heart big enough to decide not to kill you, you don't want to deal with me. Don't show yourself here ever again." Was there really someone?

"It doesn't costs anything. I say to go and see if there is a scene in the space-time about Voldemort's orphanage, perhaps Dumbledore could have taken it when he went to get him, then he found out what it was, and he kept it. He said it in the letter he left us, that he had done something, but he didn't want to say it... maybe it's this." Harry said.

"Couldn't we use the pensieve?" Ron asked.

"I don't think I would be able to find that exact memory in the midst of all those vials, and then we would have to rearrange a diversion to keep everyone away, it would take too much time." Harry replied.

"When are we going then?" Luna asked.

"Is May 17 okay for you? we will have to go through two hard weeks in preparation to our N.E.W.T.s and I don't think we could find time for a quick trip in the space time in the between." Proposed Morgan. The others nodded. It was worth a try, after all Ron was right, the voices in Harry's head were never wrong.

/

That evening Hermione had to do the round, she had to check that there was no one else around the school, someone like her Ron and Harry in all their years before.

She was going out in the park to get some air before going back to the dorm; however, she saw something she didn't expected to see on that quiet spring evening: Draco Malfoy was walking towards Hogwarts' gates. Why?

"What are you doing here, Draco?" Hermione shouted about twenty meters from him.

"Nothing." he replied emotionless.

"hmf It's not true. Let me rephrase. Where are you going?"

"Away."

"And why are you going away?" Asked Hermione, not understanding.

"Granger, I thought you were smarter. I'm going away, I'm going back to the Death Eaters." He answered resigned.

"Why?! You said you didn't want to! That you would have fought! I'm here, I can help you!" Hermione was now close enough to stop shouting and could speak normally. (just a bit louder that usual)

"You can't help me, nobody can help me!" Draco was going mad.

"Why do you have to go? Just Why!?" busted out Hermione. She was going crazy too.

"You idiot! I have to go because if I don't they will kill you! They will kill you, Potter, Weasel, Weaslette, Loony... I can't let them to do this." Draco said, turning around.

"They can't do it. I'm not afraid. I'm coming with you!"

"You can't come with me where I'm going!"

"Then don't go there!"

"Please Hermione... forgive me..."

"What do I have to forgive you for!?"

"For having had the courage to love you." Hermione took her hands to mouth.

"And now let me go." he sighed sadly.

"Never." she replyed firmly.

"Why?! I told you it's dangerous for everyone!"

"Because I love you too, Draco!"

After a moment of silence where Draco just stood there trying to take the news he spoke again. "Then- Then stop loving me."

"Don't go please..." she whispered with a single tear that streaked her face, her voice breaking like her eyes.

"You don't understand! You don't really love me. You deserve better. I'm not like the man you think I am, you will never be happy with me. I'm a mess, an idiot, and an horrible person, I am not even capable of loving! I will never be kind or sweet, or capable of doing things like walking in a park and just talk under the sun with the birds singing like in a stupid fairytale with prince and princesses where all ends with a satisfying -happy ever after-. There's no happy ever after for me! And you must go on. You have to understand it, I can't become what I am not, I will always be like this, so surly, moody, rude, despicable, insensitive, horrible ferret!"

"Enough! Maybe it's true that you are moody and rude, but you are also an extraordinary person, and I really don't understand you! And I like it. You are strange, introverted, mysterious. I love your passion for books and seeing you concentrated on something; I love the fact that you don't constantly talk about the same things, that you speak my same language and you understand when I speak; and above all I love that you don't always agree with me. At the game when the Death Eaters attacked us, you stood in front of Harry so he wouldn't get hit; you are not evil; you are changing, you are becoming a better person!"

"Stop! Forgive me Hermione, but I have to go. I wish I could let you love me, and let me love you. But it's impossible. I have to do this. I have to protect you. Forgive me... OBLIV/"

"No! I don't want to forget you! I will fight with you. together..." she waited for that only word. the only word that she wanted to hear in responce. "Forever" he said after that endless moment. Just a kiss, anger and tears; under those stars illuminating a fatal, terrible, wonderfully chaotic night.

Hermione broke apart from the kiss and leaned her forehead against his, both catching their breath."Let's go back to the castle." Hermione said after a bit taking the boy's hand, and walking towards the castle.

"We'll go through this storms, even if it will be difficult. Tomorrow will be a better day." She said.

"God help me, I think I'm in love with the enemy." he sighed to himself in a low voice so that no one could hear, not even Hermione. they walked under the stars and the cool wind of that dream of a midspring night.

They weren't the only ones outside, however, that night. Lucius Malfoy waited for his son to join him with two other Death Eaters outside the barrier: Nancy Cohen and Simon Blenvis; but his son didn't arrive. In his place a skinny blonde girl stood before them with a satisfied look.

"Why are you here Megan? Wasn't the appointment next week?" Nancy asked suspiciously.

"Only good news, only good news. On May 17th they will enter the space-time for the last time." saif the spy.

"Why last time?" asked Simon in his usual dumb voice.

"I think they understood how to find the last ring." replayed Megan.

"So how do we get into space-time?" Lucius asked calmly, in a rather disturbing tone of voice.

"I have a plan... . Just keep Weasley number six away from them that day. In any case, you will have to pass through the secret passage of the dungeons, from a statue of Merlin, it works like the passage of the one-eyed witch; the password is ascendio. It passes under the lake and arrives at a small cave on the edge of the black forest near the north side of Hogsmeade." Megan told of the secret passage she had recently discovered.

"well, then on April 17th we will come to Hogwarts with a disillusionment spell and go to the hidden room, where you will wait for us to tell us if they are gone. The rest is up to you." Lucius warned her threateningly before disappearing into the dark and silent night.