Don't forget I'm doing 2 chapters per post and accidentally miss ch19!

Rita Skeeter huffed as she entered the Three Broomsticks for their scheduled evening check in. Her sharp eyes scanned the mostly empty bar, zeroing in on an unremarkable witch sitting alone at a table in the back corner. The witch was sipping on a glass of something, an untouched drink sitting opposite of her as if she were expecting company. The drink looked to be a fruity concoction and had a bright pink cocktail umbrella resting on the rim. That was the sign she was looking for.

"Ah, there you are." She grumbled quietly to herself and closed the door behind her as she walked in fully.

Hermione was sitting in a secluded corner of the Three Broomsticks with a mug of butterbeer. She had illusioned herself to take on the appearance of an unassuming, exceptionally ordinary, mousy-looking middle-aged witch. Nothing about her appearance stood out and the other patrons in the bar just ignored her or passed by without a second glance. It was perfect.

She heard the door chimes tinkling as someone new entered and she looked up to see who it was. She rolled her eyes when she saw Rita enter, her chin tilted high into the air in a haughty manner as she made her way through the bar.

In their early meetings, it became clear that the snooty reporter did not like coming here and made her displeasure known, stating that places like this were beneath her. Hermione had reminded her that enduring 20 minutes in the pub was worth avoiding a trip to Azkaban and the unregistered Animagus showed up every third day at 7 without fail.

Rita had also adopted a disguise for the evening. Unlike Hermione, she did not alter her physical appearance, just changed her clothes into something unexpected. She was wearing a drab set of baggy grey robes, which was a stark contrast from her normally vibrant green tailored suits. A cream colored shawl hung around her shoulders and was wrapped over her hair and partially concealed her mouth. She had darkened the lenses of her horn-rimmed glasses to conceal her eyes.

"Miss Skeeter, you look lovely this evening, did you do something with your hair?" Hermione taunted the other witch. She cast a quick silencing spell with her hand, disguised by the motion of pushing the drink to the other woman. Fleur had been teaching her how to do some wandless magic to go along with her nonverbal spellcasting. Both skills were incredibly useful to have, especially when one was trying to be inconspicuous.

"Stop patronizing me. This is necessary! It's bad enough that a 12 year old girl got the better of me! What would people think if they knew I was coming here regularly, too? They would think I'm just a shady barfly!" The blonde replied stiffly, pointedly ignoring the offered drink.

This is how all of their meetings started, with a quick snitty exchange. Hermione just rolled her eyes at the older woman. She found it ironic that one who made a career out of besmirching the reputations of others would be so concerned with her maintaining her own. But after a month of meeting with the bleached-blonde, she knew to let the other woman vent her frustration for exactly 45 seconds. Then they would get on with the meeting.

"Any update?" Hermione casually sipped her drink.

"He does a lot of pacing…"

Hermione raised an eyebrow, daring the older witch to try her patience.

"Fine. Each night at exactly 10:15, he sits at his desk and takes off his metal leg. Then he checks his face in the looking glass on his desk for an exceptionally long time, at least 30 minutes a night. Whatever he's doing it's clearly not helping because the man is still hideous. All those scars! Took one too many hexes to the face if you ask me. And that eye!"

"Focus, Skeeter." Hermione warned and took another sip of her butterbeer.

After that he drinks far too much from his flask and goes to bed. That man really has a drinking problem! Honestly, drinking yourself into a stupor each night!" The reporter finished her critique of what she perceived as a case of alcoholism.

Hermione chuckled internally. She knew that it was Polyjuice Potion, not alcohol that was being consumed. But she didn't tell that to Skeeter.

"So a normal few days then?"

"I wouldn't say that…" The Animagus curled her lips into a smug smirk.

Hermione fixed her with an unamused stare, pursing her lips as she waited for the reporter to get over being pleased with herself and finish giving her the information.

"Last night he was doing his normal evening routine. While he was inspecting his face, I heard him start mumbling into the looking glass, so I tried to get in closer for a better look. At first I thought he was just talking to himself. And then I heard a voice coming out of the mirror…"

Hermione sat forward, her interest piqued. "And?"

"It was hard to hear from my spot. I couldn't get closer without revealing my presence so I couldn't make out the full conversation." Skeeter shuddered at the memory "There was something about the other voice. It was weak and raspy but somehow it still sounded dangerous… it chilled me to the bone."

"That's fine, something is better than nothing. Now tell me what was said!" Hermione huffed, getting increasingly impatient, eager to finally have some news.

"I heard something about a Portkey, graveyard, gathering the faithful after the resurrection, and bringing the sacrifice. What have you dragged me into, Miss Granger?"

"Ah, ah, ah… no questions asked, remember?"

"Fine…" Skeeter glared at her for a moment before a sly smirk spread across her lips "So I've been considering my little situation. I've done everything you've asked so far and I think there should be a little more give and take, so to speak. Aside from not being sent to Azkaban, surely there is something you can offer me in return for my unwavering services?" Rita crossed her arms over her chest.

"My dear woman, this is not the time for negotiations. However, I promise you that if all goes according to plan, you will find yourself waist deep in the biggest story to hit the shelves this decade."

The blonde looked extremely pleased by that, her lips curling up in a devilish grin, already wondering what juicy gossip she was going to get out of the bargain. "Anything else?"

"No, that is all for now. Thank you."

With a huff, Skeeter rose from her seat and all but ran out of the bar.

Hermione sat back and finished her drink before grabbing the extra one. No point in letting it go to waste, after all. She had a lot to think about. While Rita's information wasn't complete, the beetle had heard enough to confirm that the Death Eaters were going along with the same plan they had from the original timeline. She had suspected it would be similar this time around, there were only so many resurrection spells after all, but she had to be sure. It wasn't worth taking a chance on assuming and being wrong. Now that they had confirmation, everything else would fall into place.

Hermione could see very few options and none seemed particularly good to her. She needed to talk to Fleur soon and planned to do so the next evening.

The next evening, Hermione and Fleur were in the Room of Requirement together. The next evening, Hermione and Fleur were in the Room of Requirement together, quietly enjoying each other's company and taking care of a few small tasks. Hermione had wanted to keep it casual so she could ease Fleur into what she was about to propose.

As time progressed, it had become harder and harder for them to meet like this. Between juggling classes and homework, hanging out with friends to maintain the expectations others had of their younger selves, building their actual relationship, helping Harry prepare for the Tournament, Fleur's scheduled Tournament practice, preparing for the actual crisis at hand, and dealing with the random things that came up last minute, their free time together was very limited. Most days they didn't see each other outside of mealtimes and class and had to use their enchanted marbles to say good night.

At least they had their 'tutoring sessions' to work on preparing for the Third Task and all that entailed, so things were making slow and steady progress on that front. They had been working primarily on two-person projects, like improving their dueling and practicing their Occlumency and Legilimency skills as Dumbledore had suggested. The rest could be done more or less individually whenever time allowed. Though having company always made things better.

Fleur was sitting at the table writing a letter to her family requesting assistance in the acquisition of a few rare herbs for Hermione's side projects. Hermione was sitting opposite of her, quietly reading a book on potions, researching brewing theory. She had actually stopped reading several minutes earlier as she tried to think of the best way to bring up her idea for the Third Task.

Deciding it was best to go for it, she sighed and set her book down. "Fleur… can we talk for a moment?"

Fleur hummed and looked up from her letter. She furrowed her brow in concern when she saw Hermione worrying at her lip, her soft brown eyes were shifting nervously "Oui, ma belle."

"You're not going to like what I have to say. Can you try to keep an open mind about it?"

"Of course, ma belle." Fleur put her quill in the inkwell and folded her hands, giving Hermione her full attention.

"As much as I hate to say it, I think we need to let things play out. That we allow Voldemort to rise again on June 24."

"WHAT?" Fleur screeched loudly "Wasn't the point of us coming back in time to stop his rise to power?"

"It was and it still is of course! But I've been thinking that now is not the time for us to strike. Fleur, I know you're not happy about this either but just hear me out, please."

Fleur raised her eyebrow, looking doubtful but didn't say anything else.

"Even if we stop him from returning in a few months, we are just prolonging the inevitable. Those blasted Horcruxes are still out there harboring bits of his black and twisted soul, just waiting to be used to bring him back. That's why he made them in the first place. Someone in the future might find a different one and resurrect him again. Then he will show up somewhere else, at some other time that we aren't expecting, and we won't have a clue as to what is coming! What if another 50 years goes by? 100? Remember Dumbledore's message...'Dark times lie ahead of us and there will be a time when we must choose between what is easy and what is right.' It would be easy to 'kill' him now but is that the right choice? I can't damn someone else to experience what we endured just so we have some peace. It wouldn't be right and I know neither of us could live with ourselves."

"Why don't we just get the Horcruxes and destroy them now? We know where they all are, right?" Fleur shrugged "Then we can kill him in the graveyard. Problem solved."

"Unfortunately no. Two are missing. Dumbledore found the Gaunt ring, but since he hasn't experienced that in this timeline, we don't know where that is. The other one is his snake, Nagini. She is in hiding and won't come out until he summons her back."

"Well, why don't we just destroy the ones we can get now so we have less to deal with later?"

"Because Voldemort can feel them get destroyed, so we need to destroy them all at once. Otherwise we will alert him to our plan and spook him or have him go on the defensive. We know that Voldemort is at his most dangerous when he feels threatened. We need to lull him into a false sense of security, make him feel like he's in control. Only when he thinks he's won will he let down his guard and be vulnerable for us to strike him and end him once and for all."

Fleur sighed and rubbed her temples.

"And there's something else you should know…"

"This keeps getting better and better" the blonde Veela groaned sarcastically.

"Harry is also a Horcrux. One made accidentally the night Voldemort murdered his parents."

Fleur paled at that.

"I need to find a way to extract the bit of Voldemort's soul from him so he doesn't have to die." Hermione clenched her jaw and looked to the ceiling to try to keep her composure and prevent tears from falling. "I can't lose him, again."

Fleur was silent for a very long time, leaned forward on her elbows with her face in her hands, as she thought through everything. Eventually the Frenchwoman let out a long defeated sigh.

"I do not like this, but I think you are right. Voldemort must come back. So once he comes back, what then?"

"I'm not sure, I haven't figured that out yet. I mean, the Battle at the Ministry is always an option I guess, assuming things work out the same way with the prophecy and all. I mean, we can always use the prophecy to draw him out, too. We know he is too paranoid to let something that could harm him exist. He'll want to destroy it." Hermione sighed with relief that Fleur agreed with her. "Whatever happens, at least we know he won't strike right away."

"How do we know that?"

"Voldemort won't act until he's feeling confident. It took him over a year just to come out of hiding last time. He will want to operate in secrecy, getting his pawns ready and rebuilding his power, biding his time until the moment is right. Besides, it's hard to plan world dominion when the Ministry is up your arse looking for you. If Voldemort is one thing, it's patient."

"Hmph, I was going to say pure fucking evil."

"Well, I won't argue that." Hermione grimaced slightly "He will only strike when he thinks victory is certain."

"Fine. So that brings us back to the Third Task."

"Right… about that. Well, the winner obviously can't be you, Krum, or Cedric, they'll kill you instantly if you show up in the graveyard. I mean, look at what they did to Cedric last time!" Hermione closed her eyes and shuddered at the thought "As much as I hate to say it, it has to be Harry in the graveyard… He has to win the Tournament. But how can we keep him safe? I mean, we've been training him and he's a lot stronger than last time, but there's no guarantee he gets out of it this time."

Fleur held up her hand to stop Hermione from her oncoming rambling, "'Ermione, you are overthinking again. The solution is obvious."

"And what might that be?" Hermione folded her arms across her chest.

"I will go with Harry."

"No, Fleur! I can't let you do that. I can't have you both risking yourselves!"

"It is the only way and you know it." Fleur reached across the table and took Hermione's hand, lifting it to her lips and kissing her knuckles softly "This is my choice, ma belle. It is my duty as a member of the Order of the Phoenix. I made an oath to protect and I must honor my promise."

Hermione opened her mouth to retort but the reality struck her deep. Fleur was the only one who could be there for Harry and she was his best chance. She stared at their joined hands resting on the table in the space between them. When she spoke again her voice was barely audible. "You're important to me too. I can't lose you."

Fleur smiled sadly but tried to sound confident "You won't. I am stronger and know what is coming. They won't suspect a thing. And I believe Harry is selfless enough to accept my suggestion for a tie. I will protect him, I promise, ma belle."

Hermione sighed, knowing it was a lost cause to argue further. Fleur was right and she needed to believe in her. She needed to believe this would all turn out in the end. They had a plan and they needed to stick to it. Fleur and Harry would travel to the graveyard together.

"Okay then… Use the marbles to find each other. I'm not sure if Krum will be bewitched again or not, so it will be better if you can go through the maze together. Watch each other's backs and all."

"Oui, that is an excellent plan. I was going to suggest patronus but it would draw too much attention." Fleur smiled reassuringly, her thumb stroking the back of Hermione's hand. "Do not worry ma belle. This will work."

As the Third Task approached, Fleur was whisked away by Madame Maxime for 'extra training' each weekday evening. Ironically, the spells that she and Hermione were working on together were far more advanced than the relatively basic spells that Maxime insisted she 'learn.' But Fleur had to keep up her image as the Beauxbatons Champion and all that entailed.

Hermione spent her evenings to continue her potion brewing projects that she had started in January. With Fleur's help, she was able to get her hands on some of the rarer items, like bicorn horn and boomslang skin to make some trickier potions. She had to admit, there were definitely some extra benefits to dating the heiress.

By the end of April, the Golden Girl was finally satisfied with her impressive array of carefully labeled vials and flasks. She had everything from Sleeping Draughts and Confusion Concoctions to Quick Heals and Pepper-Up Potions. She even had a few flasks of Polyjuice Potion on hand should the situation arise. Fleur laughed at her and said she looked like she was trying to take Snape's job.

Once Hermione finished brewing all of her 'essential potions,' the Gryffindor embarked on her next potion-related task. She categorized this one in the "good to have but not immediately essential" pile.

Fleur was standing in the middle of the abandoned girls' lavatory on the second floor, her arms folded tightly across her chest and scowling deeply as she looked around. It was nearly midnight and she was already in a bad mood from being exhausted from the day. To make matters worse, upon arrival she had asked Hermione why the bathroom was unused. When Hermione simply responded "Moaning Myrtle," she made the apparently grievous mistake of asking "who is Moaning Myrtle?"

That simple question prompted the ghost of a young student to pop out of the toilet and fly into her personal space. The ghost girl then went off on a tirade that would have made her original 17-year-old self proud.

Fleur stood there shocked and mouth open while Myrtle thoroughly scolded her for being insensitive to her feelings and for making fun of her lack of friends. When she tried to apologize, the ghost just zipped away through the wall, screaming loudly. The experience had left a very bad taste in her mouth and she wanted to be anywhere but here, just in case the whiny ghost returned.

Fleur turned to face Hermione, still in a bad mood but the brunette's presence was starting to soothe her wounded pride, "So you're telling me that this place" she gestured in a wide sweeping motion with her arm "is the entrance to the Hall of Secrets or whatever you called it?"

"The Chamber of Secrets." Hermione corrected as she wandered over to one of the porcelain sinks that made up one of the sides of a large octagonal column in the center of the room. "And no, not this whole place, just this."

"A sink? It looks like all the other sinks." Fleur walked around the structure to confirm that the sides all looked identical, each had a porcelain sink and mirror. "Are we going down the drain or something?"

"It's a special sink" Hermione grinned mischievously "and that's exactly what we will be doing."

"How? I don't think either of us will fit in that tiny hole." Fleur raised her eyebrow as she approached the brunette and inspected the sink more closely. It looked like a normal sink and she couldn't feel any unique magical energy around it. "I feel nothing special about it."

All magical and enchanted items, especially powerful ones, had a kind of magical signature. There were a number of determining factors but it was primarily based on the spell's intended effect, the intent with which the spell had been cast, the spell's intensity, and the time that had elapsed since the casting. Of course, if the spell caster was skilled enough, they could cloak or manipulate the signature to appear stronger or weaker to attract or dissuade people from interacting with the object.

Being a part-magical creature herself, Fleur was naturally more in tune with the magic in the world. It was likely a Veela defense mechanism to help them avoid danger from magical sources. As a result, she was subconsciously aware of magic around her, always feeling it like a dull humming energy, pulsing around her. More often than not she just tuned it out, otherwise it would probably have driven her insane by now. When she was near powerful or Dark objects, the thrumming would intensify and instantly put her on alert.

After years of practice she had started to develop the skill to 'read' or sense the signatures more actively. It would take even more skill to be able to hone in and separate specific magical signatures from others, which she did not have yet. But even at their current level, her abilities had proven to be exceptionally useful. When she was a curse-breaker for Gringotts, she would be able to sense when there were Dark objects compared to just powerful objects. So she at least knew what she could safely touch and what would likely curse her.

However, sensing for magic was especially tricky to do in a place like Hogwarts where practically everything was magical.

Hermione didn't respond to Fleur's comment about the lack of a magical signature coming from the sink. Instead the bookworm stared intently at the faucet and started making a series of long, low hissing noises.

Fleur opened her mouth to question her mate when there was a loud crack and groaning sound, like stone grinding against stone. The Veela hissed in fright and jumped back, grabbing her mate's arm to pull her to safety, crouched defensively in front of the brunette to shield her from any danger.

She watched with wide eyes as the walls of the structure split apart and moved outward and then dropped into the floor, revealing a gaping hole where the eight sinks once stood. The room went deathly silent once the stone walls had slid into their final places.

Hermione looked over at Fleur, her face bright and beaming, clearly proud of what she had just done.

Fleur stared at the curly haired witch "What did you do? What language was that? It sounded… I don't know. It set my teeth on edge just hearing it."

"I used Parseltongue to open the Chamber. And now that I think about it, your comment about how you felt makes perfect sense. Birds and snakes don't necessarily get along, do they?" Hermione responded simply as she leaned over the edge to look down the hole.

Fleur kept a firm grip on Hermione's arm. Everything felt bad, strong magic was suddenly pulsing around her, it felt dark and sinister. She recognized it as evil intent. Her Veela was thrashing wildly, begging her to leave this cursed place. "How do you know that language? Why did you have to speak it to open this door? What is this place? This is not what I was expecting when you said let's go to the Chamber of Secrets tonight."

"Whoa, slow down… I learned it from Harry a while back, right before the Second Task. The Chamber was built by Salazar Slytherin during the founding of Hogwarts. Unlike the other Founders, he thought that only the pure deserved to study magic here. Since Slytherin was the original Parseltongue, he made it so that only snake language can unlock it. Because only the descendants of his 'most worthy' bloodline are born with the gift of snake-speech, they would be the only ones to be able to access the Chamber."

"Ah, that explains why I could not sense the magic then when it was closed. Such a powerful wizard surely would know how to conceal their work. Wait, how does Harry know it? Is he a descendant of Slytherin?"

"First, I'm very jealous of that ability… second, it's not really my secret to tell, not yet, and third what were you expecting?"

Fleur nodded, understanding that was Hermione's polite way of telling her not to poke her nose in Harry's business. She tilted her chin to look at the hole, still very unsure about the situation "I don't know, not something that appears to be a tunnel to the Underrealm… What is worth going through all this trouble? What is down there that you need so badly?"

"A basilisk."

"WHAT!?" Fleur screeched and pulled Hermione away from the ledge.

"Don't worry, it's dead. Harry killed it in our second year. Didn't I tell you?"

Fleur raised her eyebrows "Non. But knowing you two, somehow I am not surprised that you would find yourselves facing a basilisk. You have a real knack for finding trouble."

Hermione looked sheepish, "Well, I think trouble has a real knack for finding us, actually. And I didn't face it, I was too busy being petrified in the hospital wing."

"Why do you need a basilisk then?"

"To destroy the Horcruxes."

Fleur huffed, right, the Horcruxes... the next big item on their save-the-world to-do list. Assuming she lived through their plan for the Third Task.

"In the original timeline, when Ron and I entered the Chamber during the Battle, only the skeleton was left. Everything else had decomposed, so we only had the fangs to use, which meant we only had three uses. Since only two years have passed in the new timeline, I think there should still be skin and tissue available. Maybe even marrow in the bones!" Hermione continued. It was surprising and slightly worrying how excited she was about what they were about to do.

"You are lucky you are my mate. I would not throw myself down a hole in the ground and go wading through rotten basilisk flesh for just anybody."

Hermione grinned and leaned up to kiss Fleur on the cheek. The unexpected contact made the blonde blush slightly. "I know, you are so wonderful I don't deserve you."

"Yes you do and I hope to always be worthy of you in return. So once we have this… stuff, what do you plan on doing next?" Fleur wrinkled her nose in disgust, still displeased by the idea of being close to a mortal enemy of her species, even if it was dead.

"I plan on salvaging whatever parts haven't decomposed yet and render a potion. If it is successful I think I shall call it 'Basilisk Broth: Destroyer of Horcruxes.' Any other questions?"

"May I have another kiss?"

Hermione laughed and kissed her cheek again, pulling away with a grin "Shall we?"

Fleur gulped and mustered her courage, gripping tight to her mate's hand for support. Everything inside her screamed to run but she nodded slowly "Together?"

"Together."