CHAPTER 04:

"They're just something else, you know Bella," Edward spoke happily with his girlfriend. "That little boy, barely seventeen now, did not even bat his eyes yet agreed to help us against the newborn army; and they're still in the middle of their own war. I'm really impressed by their bravery."

"Oh and the two witches! You just need to be with them to be stunned into speechlessness. The younger one is wise beyond her years and the elder one… she's just something else, kind of like their mother hen I think. And the things she knows, she's so intelligent and smart and…" Edward shook his head, "I'm boring you, aren't I?"

"No. No, I think it's cute when you're boyfriend rambles on about other girls," Bella said stiltedly.

"You know it's nothing like that. They are helping me to keep you safe, that means the world to me and I will be forever indebted to them for that, is all."

"Just remember that I love you." With those words Bella pulled Edward into his own house, smiling shyly at his family who she knew had heard her declaration of love.

The Cullens were in their hall, four of their guests, three youngsters and one tiny man-like creature they had identified as a goblin between them.

Harry, the boy with the shaggy hair and scar was questioning the goblin about something that sounded very close to ways of robbing a bank. His best friend, the red headed boy, Ron, was standing just a step behind Harry, looking intimidating with his arms folded in front of his chest and his tall body pulled taut to look more scary than he could, while Harry interrogated the goblin. Hermione was standing by the large glass windows that made up one wall of the room and from her reflection Bella could make out she was playing with a locket on the chain she was wearing around her neck.

Suddenly the said girl's sure voice cut through Bella's reverie. "The only way they'll let us to her vault is if she is with us. We need her hair and her wand and then it's done." Hermione did not turn to face the room.

"The girl is right," Griphook said. "I can help but only with a few basics beyond which you are alone."

"I bet her wand was from Olivander's. So may be he could replicate it?" Ron mused.

"And how do you reckon we get her hair?" Harry asked.

"May be Dobby could help again?" Hermione turned then and looked questioningly at her two best friends.

"Well if he is going back to the manor anyway, may be he could pick her wand too then?" Ron snickered.

"Oh don't be dense Ron! She won't miss a few hairs from her brush but she will know her wand's gone," Hermione rolled her eyes.

"Do you have any Polyjuice in your nifty little bag?" That was Harry again.

"Of course! I told you I packed all the essentials, didn't I?" Hermione was a tad affronted.

Harry and Ron hid their smiles as coughs. "Oh, shove it." Hermione muttered under her breath. "Harry get Dobby on the hair and Ron you speak to Mr. Olivander. Send Luna down when you get there. The lesser she knows the better."

Nodding, both Harry and Ron left for their work. Hermione then looked Griphook straight in the eye. "What's your price?"

"I'll get you in the vault safe for the Sword of Godric Gryffindor," Griphook bargained without a second's lapse. "It's only fair since it's one of the very few goblin made weapons still in existence."

Hermione faltered just for a bit, knowing that they would need the sword for killing the horcrux after obtaining it but she also understood that getting into Gringotts rested solely on the goblin's good will. "Deal," she finally agreed.

Nodding, Griphook stood from his perch on the sofa and made his way back to their room.

"You aren't happy with the deal," Jasper noted as soon as Griphook was out of ear shot. "You also don't particularly trust the little thing."

"We really need the sword for more important purposes than merely to decorate our homes. And no, I don't trust him. What's more, he knows it. Goblins and wizards co-exist only because we have to. They are meticulous but selfish. I'm pretty sure he will cross us, the only question is of how and when," Hermione replied. Then slumped down tiredly on the empty spot closest to her that just happened to be beside Edward. "There's just so much at stake. We can't afford any mistakes. Not now, after all we've been through."

"What is it that you've been through?" Bella asked with a disdainfully raised eyebrow. "You're only seventeen. I refuse to believe you are at the center of a war and the fate of your world is in your hands. I really think you all are a bunch of teenagers eager for their two minutes of fame."

Hermione looked up then and smiled amusedly. "Ignorance really is bliss, isn't it? I really hope Bella that you never have to go through what we have faced," she said with all the goodness she possessed in every fiber of her being.

"What do you know about me to judge me and call me an ignorant?" Bella bellowed. "I am a child of divorce. I am a human in love with a vampire who left me for my own good. It sent me into an abyss of darkness. I jumped through a cliff to see him one more time and then flew half way around the world to save him from killing himself."

Hermione stared at the young girl, then turned to Edward and raised one eyebrow in the most chastising manner he had ever seen, before he averted his gaze. Then turning back to Bella, Hermione smiled yet again. "If only my problems were a divorce between my parents and a forbidden love…"

"Don't! Just don't!" Bella stood up in her anger and flexed her fists. "You don't know how it feels to be in love and then hurt," she said taking Edward on yet another guilt trip. "I needed the pain, it assured me that he was real."

"I know what a broken heart feels like Bella," Hermione spoke with patience again. Her calm nature really confused the others about who was the more mature one amongst the two girls. "The boy I loved left me too. The only difference between us is that I didn't mope around. I stood by my best friend and we continued forward."

"Really, so you're judging me on my depression too? You may live in a body of a teenager, but you do have an old man's head on your shoulders. You sound just like my father! 'Bella' he would tell me, 'life goes on. I hate to see you hurt. Don't do this to yourself. It all boiled down to just this – I love Edward with all my heart and prefer death over a separation from him."

"You hurt your father? For him?" Hermione asked pointing a finger at Edward while looking at Bella, suddenly furious, "A vampire, you met, what, a year or so ago?"

"Now you've got wisdom on something about parental love too?"

"Yes! As a matter of fact I do. While I am pretty much tolerant, even I draw a line at mistreating one's parents. You are lucky you have your father with you, who cares so much about you. You can see him, talk to him every day. See Harry? Now he has been an orphan since he was a little more than a year old. He has had to live the life of a servant at his aunt's house for the first eleven years of his life. Luna lost her mother when she was just a child. You can literally feel the pain every time you see Luna with her dad, even after so many years they miss her mother so much. Ron's entire family is fighting in this war. The poor chap goes crazy with worry every time they announce the deaths and disappearances on the wizarding radio. Imagine that – not knowing if you'll ever see your family again, if it ever will be whole when you see them all? And what's worse, they'll probably all meet only in the battlefield now."

Hermione finished her tirade with an angry glare focused solely on Bella. Though Jasper, with his empathic abilities realized there was more to it all than met their eye. "What about you?" he asked softly. "You didn't mention anything about your parents."

"Miss Perfect here obviously has the perfect family so she only highlighted her friends' problems Jasper," Bella snorted.

Hermione flipped! "You are right," Hermione spat out the words. "I am a perfectionist and yes I had the perfect family. My parents loved me, doted on me and being an only child I was the center of their world. Nothing, not even the divide caused by my magic got between us; but the war caught on. Being the chosen ones best friend comes with a price and I paid it. I am a target and by extension so were my parents. So last year, just before running off with Harry and Ron for our mission, I modified their memories. I removed myself from their memories and gave them an urge to sell everything off and go make a new life on a whole new continent. If and when this all settles, I'll get them back but till then they have the safety afforded to them by their new identities and should I die in this war, they are at the very least spared the grief of lamenting for their only child because without me to remove the oblivion spell, they will never remember that they even have a daughter."

"So, I tell you again Bella. Do not squander your blessings. You are lucky to be safe and between your friends and family, treat them with the love and respect they deserve."

And with that final statement, Hermione walked up the stair to check on her friends and to find out why Ron hadn't sent Luna down the way she had instructed. She'd already lost her parents in a way, she'd be damned if she gave up on her friends too.