A/N: Hi all, huge thanks for all the Favs, Follows and reviews so far! I've really appreciated them.

This chapter may be a bit rambly but I hope you see that I'm trying to tie in some canon events and personal struggles for our characters. There were lots of budding relationships and feelings to address in their sixth year. I also want to say that I'm rewriting some of the next chapter so it may be a few more days before that goes up but, for now, hope you enjoy!

- x -

Chapter Three - Ancient Charms Are No Laughing Matter

9th February 1997 – Gryffindor Girl's Dorm

Hermione hated Valentine's day with a vengeance. Not only did it seem shallow and commercialised that affection could so easily be equated to a box of chocolates, it also made fools of everyone. She'd seen it in muggle films and TV series for sure, but in the magical world – the world of charms, fantastical confectionery and love potions – it was so much worse.

This Valentine's day, however, was particularly grave. It wasn't just that she liked a boy and that boy was totally oblivious, it was that she had Lavender Brown sniffing around that same boy. Lavender. As in silly, giggly, boy-obsessed, hair-twirling, poofy-skirted Lavender with the big boobs.

Hermione had curves by now – she was seventeen after all – but they were a modest 32B to Lavender's 34D. And she kept them well hidden under her uniform and layers of knitwear rather than on show, so she never quite got the attention that Lavender did from all the boys. But she didn't want attention from all the boys.

Just one boy. Ron.

Hermione jolted at the sound of a raucous giggle behind her in their dorm, realising that she hadn't been reading the Potions book she had in front of her.

Since when was she the kind to get distracted from work by a boy? It wasn't urgent work or anything, just some extra reading that Professor Slughorn had recommended (since she was two weeks ahead on homework), but still, she shouldn't get distracted by inane thoughts.

The giggle erupted again and none other than Lavender came running in with a small paper package.

"It's here!" She clutched it to her chest, "I'm so happy my cousin managed to find it and send it in time."

"What's in it, Lav?" Padma asked, ever the obliging friend. Hermione could only roll her eyes at the unwanted encouragement.

"It's a book of my Great Aunt Imelda's best charms. She was amazing, especially at glamour charms. She worked for that French designer in Paris – Amelie Felice."

Parvati gasped. "Her robes were always so classy!"

"I know!" Lavender squealed, "My great aunt did make-up and hair for all the models in her fashion shows, but what I really wanted this book for was…" Lavender flicked through the pages. "This!"

"True Love's Love Letter," Padma read, and thankfully it sounded like she had got her senses back because Hermione could hear the scepticism in her voice.

"You write a letter," Lavender explained, standing as if addressing some loyal subjects, "To your true love – obviously – and then you charm it so that the contents of the love letter only appear when your true love gets hold of it. Otherwise it's just remains blank to everyone else! It's like a secret letter to your lover."

Hermione snorted into her long forgotten book, blushing furiously and hoping that no one noticed her outburst.

"What?" Lavender screeched in her direction. Much to her dismay.

Hermione turned grudgingly and shifted the book from her lap. "It's nothing Lavender. I'm sorry, it's just I don't think you can expect a charm to be able to identify your true love. I mean, what does 'true love' even mean? Is there only one perso –"

She scoffed inelegantly at Hermione, crossed her arms. "It's a very powerful charm, Hermione."

"I know but – "

"I think we should do it!" Lavender announced, her eyes shifting between the Patil twins for back up. Honestly, they didn't look all that convinced either, and Hermione hadn't even begun to explain the limitations to such a charm. Not to mention that they were unlikely to be skilled enough to cast it successfully without much practice or opportunity to check its efficacy.

Annoyingly, Parvati agreed with Lavender, which meant that Padma was compelled to do much the same.

"Good. I'm giving mine to Ron!" Lavender grinned.

It made Hermione's stomach clench at the thought that Lavender could be his true love. Whatever that actually meant. From what she had heard of their dalliances (and she had heard far too much, from both Ron and Lavender about them), they had only been kissing and feeling each other up around the castle – typical hormonal teenager stuff. She hadn't even considered it would ever be something as serious as love or true love. She hadn't imagined it would last…

"I think you should write a letter with us, Hermione, since you're so sceptical. You can see for yourself if it works." Lavender's voice was a challenge that she refused to rise to.

She would not be goaded into something so silly.

"Er, no…" Hermione replied.

"Fine," she rolled her eyes and quickly lost interest, ordering Parvati to get pieces of parchment to write their letters on and then lying on her front, feet waving in the air as she wrote.

She thought it was the end of that until Ginny came in, weary and damp from her Quidditch practice in the rain, and threw the door shut with such a tremendous rattle that Lavender shrieked about jogging her handwriting.

Ginny obviously couldn't have cared less.

Hermione looked up from her notes and walked over. "What's wrong, Gin?"

"Quidditch." She slumped back on her bed in exhaustion. "It's shit. And Harry's got us training every day for the match against Malfoy next week."

"You mean Slytherin."

"No, I meant Malfoy." She rolled to her side to look at Hermione, "It's all Harry and Ron talk about, how to take Malfoy down… Can't they see he's already down?"

"Really? He's won the last two matches for Slytherin – got the snitch in five minutes against Ravenclaw." Hermione didn't really like Quidditch talk, but having Harry, Ron and Ginny in the Gryffindor team this year made it hard to avoid conversations about it and it was not her style to be uninformed.

"No, he's still in good shape…" Ginny said.

Yes. Hermione was very much aware what good shape he was in. She had thought it was his Quidditch gear grabbing him in all the 'right areas' – it certainly did some favours for Ron – but no, she'd noticed his rear and athletically lean torso one too many times in class as well. Even under his jumper and robes.

"…he just seems deflated. Like he's lost his spirit and doesn't really care about winning," Ginny continued. "He hasn't said anything obnoxious to us in training for ages."

"Oh – " That was concerning, she supposed. If Malfoy was being anything but an arse it worried her greatly.

"Oh well, s'pose that may make it slightly easier for Harry to throttle him." Ginny flashed a grin and started gathering up her clothes for a shower before she stopped at the door and turned back to the three girls that had been silently writing their letters.

"What are you three up to?"

"We're writing charmed love letters," Padma grinned. "Do you want to try?"

Hermione stifled a laugh when she saw Ginny manage to raise her eyebrow, roll her eyes and snort all at the same time. "No, I imagine if I wrote a letter to Dean at the moment it wouldn't really be very loving."

Oh. So this was one of those times when Ginny and Dean were 'off.' That explained the mood.

They had such a volatile relationship – 'on' one day and 'off' the next – that Hermione rarely managed to keep up with it. Lately she had stopped even trying and just hoped they'd both realise they were better apart.

"That's not how it works," Lavender replied to Ginny, looking up from her parchment. Goodness, she'd written an essay for a letter! It rivalled the Transfiguration homework on Lavender's desk. "It's actually charmed so only your true love can read the letter," she explained to Ginny.

"Really?" Ginny dragged it out slowly, flashing Hermione a wolfish grin.

Lavender obviously missed the mocking tone because she instantly perked up. "Yeh. Do you want to try?"

Ginny shrugged and dumped her stuff on the floor. "Go on then."

Hermione flashed her quizzical look.

"What?" She asked Hermione, "It's just a little fun. Aren't you curious?"

She supposed she was a little curious…

And that was how Hermione found herself writing a love letter a few minutes later to an unidentified recipient (although she couldn't help herself writing of their 'relationship so far,' making her realise that she was actually writing it to a very specific, certain ginger person).

She had, to her chagrin, overthought this entire thing by writing and rewriting the letter (she was never good with expressing her feelings). She had peaked over at Ginny's hoping for some ideas only to get an 'oi,' with a mock frown, and be branded a cheat for the first time in her life.

After several versions, she finally settled on something short, hoping to get the point across whilst injecting a healthy dose of scepticism towards the charm, and (she hoped) not coming across so romantic so as to scare off Ro– the reader.

To whoever you are,

If you are reading this then, according to an ancient charm, we are destined for each other. You may not love me now, you may not think our relationship so far lends itself to romantic love, but if you are open to the chance of loving me then I promise to be open to the chance of loving you.

Hermione

"Are we all done?" Ginny moaned. She had finished her letter within about thirty seconds (Merlin knew what she had written) and was now finding out just how seriously Lavender and the Patils were taking this.

"Yes," Lavender said, signing the bottom with a flourish and folding the parchment up. "Right, wands out."

Everyone drew them out of their pockets and sleeves, poised with their letters in their other hands.

"The book says we cast the charm 'amarium misit,' then kiss the paper and say 'signatum in osculo.'"

Sealed with a kiss. Hermione could have scoffed again but she thought to refrain.

There was a faint murmur as they attempted the charm. It failed to work for Padma and Ginny at first, but then Hermione saw Lavender smiling at her now blank piece of paper.

She looked at her own and recited, "amarium misit," then touched her wand to the page. When she kissed it, she felt an odd warmth on her lips, before she said "signatum in osculo," with a final touch of her wand.

For a long second, nothing seemed to happen until the ink of the letter started to run across the page, twirling into shapes of branches, birds and hearts towards the edge of the paper, before disappearing to leave the page blank. It had apparently worked.

"Right, I suppose I better plant this on Dean then," Ginny said matter-of-factly while she gathered her things again for a shower.

"I need to decide how to give this to Ron!" Lavender ran off out of the dorm.

That's what Hermione had to do too…

- x -

It was fair to say that the charmed love letters did not bring much joy over the next weeks. Ginny had given hers straight to Dean with a shameless, 'here, hold this,' and then simply shrugged when nothing happened, leaving him rather confused when she grabbed the blank parchment and waltzed off.

She doubted Ginny had any great faith in the charmed letter either but, nevertheless, she had made the decision to break up with Dean a few days later, and it seemed it was going to stay like that. Perhaps this letter was what was needed for her to realise how un-invested she really was in the relationship. Surely if it really meant anything to her then she should not have been so indifferent to the outcome of this charmed letter experiment.

Parvati had been very disappointed when she had delivered hers to Seamus only for nothing to happen, and Padma had cried a little when she had finally snuck hers to Dean (behind Ginny's back) and the page stayed blank. They had both given theirs to an unsuspecting Harry (because who wouldn't want to be loved by the famous Boy Wonder) and then tried to get some more people to pick them up in their various classes. When nothing happened, they seemed to accept that either the charm hadn't worked or they didn't yet know their true loves.

Lavender, on the other hand, hadn't been quite so cool about it all. So confident was she that Ron was her true love, she had enclosed her letter and given it to him along with a box of his favourite chocolates on Valentine's Day itself. She had accosted Ron while he was working with Hermione in the common room, insisting that he opened the present and letter right here and then.

Hermione had hated having to be around while this all happened. She didn't want to sit there like a lemon and have her heart broken when Lavender's love letter appeared for Ron, but it would have been suspicious to run away. So she watched, with a mixture of rapt attention and dread as he slowly ripped the wrapping paper off the box of chocolates.

"Oh, Lav. Thanks!" He smiled goofily. "These are my favourite."

"I know," she grinned, "Now open the letter."

Ron, confused at her eagerness, still obliged and tore open the envelope to pull out the parchment. He unfolded it, stared at it and then flipped it over, furrowing his brows.

Lavender gasped in disbelief.

"Lav?" He started to chuckle, "Why have you given me a plain piece of parchment? I've got a load of this stuff – "

She sobbed loudly.

Typical clueless Ron was delayed in realising that this was not a laughing matter for her. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing!" She cried, snatching the paper and pushing her way through people to the dorms.

Ron turned to Hermione with an incredulous look on his face. "Girls are mad!"

"Yes, Ronald, we're all bona fide nuts!" Hermione rolled her eyes, despite the flood of relief she felt at seeing that nothing had happened to Lavender's letter.

"What? Don't tell me that all made sense to you?" He asked, pointing over his shoulder. Lavender had left a trail of disordered people in their common room, all wondering what the new drama was about.

She shrugged and got back to writing her Charms essay. She was positively beaming inside.

- x -

22nd February 1997 – Gryffindor Common Room

After Lavender's heart break, Hermione still hadn't dared to test her own letter on Ron. The first few days, afterall, were about calming Lavender down and dragging her out of the 'great depression' she had fallen into when she found out that Ron was not her true love. Then, as the days passed and that excuse seemed less convincing, it was evident that Hermione simply couldn't muster enough of that Gryffindor courage and open herself up to the same disappointment as Lavender.

A week passed before she found herself in the common room again. Ron huddled with Harry, talking Quidditch formations and mumbling in a failed whisper.

"No, like this," he said and then pulled a piece of parchment towards him to draw something for Harry. Hermione, from the corner of her eye, saw him flick his quill a few times before announcing, "What's wrong with the bloody parchment? It keeps soaking up the ink – "

Her head snapped up to see him scratching desperately. It was her charmed letter, now distinctly folded and crumpled.

Her heart fell, but then pulsed madly as she reached across and grabbed it from Ron.

"Oh, that's mine." She tried to sound calm but it was definitely suspicious.

Harry furrowed his brows at her odd possessiveness. "O-kay… what is it?"

"Just a Charms experiment I was trying but it didn't work and I was hoping to ask Flitwick what went wrong. He'll need the parchment to inspect." It was shameful how good she had gotten at half-truths and twisted lies over the past few years.

Ron and Harry stared at her a little dumbstruck, but neither had any reason to doubt the explanation. Nor were they interested enough to question her further on the matter – there was Quidditch to be talking about – but they still looked at her shocked.

When she excused herself to the bathroom a few minutes later, she allowed her tears to finally spill out onto the sleeve of her jumper. Ron had been holding her charmed love letter for ages and nothing happened.

She cried for what felt like a good half hour. It was a waste of time, she knew, to cry over a boy for so long when she had mountains of work and when she wasn't even sure that the charm worked.

She hiccupped to herself in realisation. None of the letters had worked so far.

Maybe that meant the charm was truly nonsense? Yes, it simply must be that. And so she tricked herself into thinking there was still a chance that somewhere along the line she and Ron would sort it out.

It would be over two months later, when no one ever expected, that she would be forced to face up to the truth.

- x -

25th April 1997 – Hogwart's Library

They sat in the library, well into night. The table she shared with Ron, Harry and Ginny was a total mess with half written Defence Against the Dark Art essays scattered amongst Ancient Rune books, but Hermione wasn't in the mood to lecture about tidiness.

Suddenly she heard Harry snigger to himself, breaking the tense, silent atmosphere. Interrupting her train of thought.

"Ginny," he asked between his chuckling. "What on earth is this?"

Hermione bothered to look up to see Harry holding a piece of parchment with a few lines of writing on it, a cheeky grin on his face while Ginny's eyes widened at him.

On closer inspection, Hermione saw it was a letter. Ginny's love letter.

"It's nothing," Ginny explained, although from the way her face flared up he would have to be an idiot to believe her. "It's – It must be an old note I wrote to – to Dean." She took it from him, awkwardly thanking him and too embarrassed to realise that Harry looked crestfallen at the mention of Ginny's ex. Hermione wasn't blind to the fact that Harry had clearly developed some feelings for Ginny over the last few months, feelings that Ginny wasn't quite aware of yet.

They settled back into writing for a minute before Ginny whispered over her books to her. "Erm, Hermione. Could you show me the Transfiguration textbook you said was helpful last year?" Her head jerked to the book shelves behind her, eyes wide with meaning.

"Sure," she replied, in that long dragged out way. They both cast eyes over to the boys to see if their little charade was working but it was obvious they didn't care.

Hermione led her to a far off corner of the library, turned and started at Ginny.

"Your charmed letter appeared."

"Yes." Ginny replied in a sort of haze.

"For Harry." She was stating the obvious, she knew, but she was shocked.

"Yes."

Hermione burst out laughing, eliciting a distant shush from beyond the shelves. "That's brilliant," she whispered, finding the whole thing quite amusing. She wouldn't tell Ginny about the feelings she suspected Harry had for her – it was not her place – but she couldn't help feeling a little giddy. "Do you even like him?"

Ginny shrugged. "Well… you know I had a massive crush on him until… fourth year."

"No! I didn't know it was for that long! But you're only in fifth year now which means – So you only stopped liking him this year? When you started dating Dean?"

Ginny shrugged again. Hermione had never seen her so unsure of herself so she didn't want to push her further and ask if she ever really stopped fancying Harry. Maybe that was the real reason she and Dean had been so bad together.

"I still can't believe the charm worked…" Hermione scoffed and reached for the letter. "What did you write?"

Ginny rolled her eyes and handed her the parchment grudgingly.

"Dear Prick," Hermione read, her eyebrow raising, "Stop being such a prick. Love Ginny." She held it up to her with a wry smile, understanding why Harry would snigger at such a random note found amongst his Potions work. "This is your idea of a love letter?"

"I did sign it with 'love,'" she huffed. "I thought I was writing it for Dean and we were fighting then!" She whined helplessly, her words spilling out almost incoherently. "I didn't think the spell would actually work, just assumed it would reveal itself to whomever you were dating at the time or something… It was all meant to be a little bit of fun but – I don't know." She huffed again. "Now I'm really glad it wasn't a proper love letter, imagine if Harry had got that?"

They nodded at each other, standing in silence as the reality dawned on them both. It wasn't so ridiculous that Ginny and Harry would be true loves. They enjoyed each other's company, teased and play fought, they played Quidditch together and had the same sense of humour. Add to that the fact that Harry seemed attracted to Ginny, and her to him (if only she would admit it)…

It was possible that the charm – ridiculous though the idea was – could have worked. It may be real.

But if it was right about Ginny and Harry then it meant that she and Ron weren't…

No. The logical part of Hermione's mind told her that one piece of data was not enough to draw a trend; you can't conclude anything based on one result. Besides, Ginny and Harry had yet to prove they were truly meant for each other.

- x -

Nothing changed after that. Ginny and Harry didn't seem to get closer and Hermione had honestly completely forgotten about their little charms experiment. They were trying too hard to figure out the identity of this supposed 'Half Blood Prince' and digging for information on these so called 'Horcruxes.' In between a full timetable of schoolwork, of course.

And then there was Ron.

Things hadn't changed between them, as such, but there was a feeling that they were progressing. Lavender had hung around him even after the disappointment of Valentine's Day (she was obviously doubting the charm as well) but everyone saw how Ron had been pushing her away. Then there was the poisoned Firewhiskey incident and he had, in semi-consciousness, mentioned Hermione's name rather than Lavender's. Hermione didn't know if that was meant to be significant in any way but it was the proverbial nail in the coffin for Lavender – she stopped chasing him. As perverse as it sounded, Hermione had never been so grateful for one of her best friends to be injured.

So the letter was forgotten. She didn't care about what some worthless charm thought of them and she couldn't remember for the life of her where she had kept the bloody thing. It was probably serving as a bookmark for one her textbooks. She would just carry on, as she was meant to.

- x -

7th May – The Dungeons, Left Viaduct Tower – Sixth Year Potions Class

"Hermione, how many Sopophorous Beans are you putting in?" Ron asked from behind her.

"Eight, at least that's what the book says." She realised that she may have given a more snarky reply if anyone else had asked the question and interrupted her potion making groove.

"I know, it's just Harry's only put six…"

She glared over at Harry. It was irritating her that Harry had his hands on this 'Half Blood Prince's' textbook, irritating that he still used it.

Slughorn liked to pose challenges each lesson: the best brewed potion would get some sort of reward. Sometimes the reward was a significant one, like a vial of Felix Felicis, other times it was a galleon worth of chocolate. The reward didn't matter. She just hated that she was being outdone by a cheater, and that cheater was Harry. He had won the challenges every time this year except once, and she'd been oddly happy when Draco Malfoy brewed a slightly better Vomit-Inducing Potion, because at least he hadn't cheated. She didn't think.

"Well then, maybe we should both just put six," she smiled at Ron, "He's obviously figured out something from that darned textbook."

Ron gave a crooked smile and sauntered back to his cauldron while she gently added her six Sopophorus Beans.

At the end, Professor Slughorn tested all of their Confusing Concoction and she got a 'Very good Miss Granger… but I'm afraid the award must go to Mr. Potter again." In other words, it was another slap in the face.

At the end of class she hurriedly got her things together, loading piles of parchment atop her books and not bothering to put it all in her bag. She probably shouldn't be so annoyed about Harry but it always niggled in her mind and today it was definitely surfacing. She didn't want an argument right now.

As she swung open the classroom door, several of her loose pieces of parchment flew off her books and scattered on the floor around her. She groaned in exasperation, gathered them up and made to leave down the corridor before she heard someone call her.

"Granger." It was a stern and tired sounding voice.

She turned with a deep-set scowl on her face. Oh, it was Malfoy.

He looked terrible. Well no, he still looked worthy of a muggle underwear advert (why specifically she thought of an underwear model, she did not know) but the skin under his eyes was bruised with exhaustion and he wasn't smirking or leering or whatever he usually did. He looked drained.

Except his eyes, there was still something there, a glint of life amongst their darkness.

She realised they had spent the last few seconds just standing in the corridor and looking at each other, which was rather odd, so she spoke.

"What do you want, Malfoy?" She asked coolly.

"I um," he crouched down for a piece of parchment that had floated off to the side, "I just thought you'd dropped this."

Just as she was thinking of how unusually helpful he was being, her jaw dropped open at the parchment in his hand. Tendrils of black ink plumed across the page from the points of each of his fingers, swirling into patterns before beginning to form words –

"Granger," he prompted more harshly, "Is it yours - ?"

Her mouth still hung open and he seemed to suddenly look down at the parchment that had her so fascinated. The words, 'To whoever you are,' started to curl across the page in her handwriting.

"What the bloody he – "

She tore it from his grasp, crumpled it into her pocket and started to walk – run – away.

His hand flew up and gripped her firmly around her upper arm, forcing her to look back at him. Forcing her face and body to come within inches of his. There was something completely wild about the look he gave her, he looked anxious about something.

Malfoy didn't seem to care about anything else that was going on around them, like the fact that their classmates were now gathering around in the corridor and wondering what was going on.

"What is it?" He seethed lowly.

"Get your hands off me, Malfoy."

She tried to shake him off but he didn't budge, his glare only got more murderous. "What do you know?"

She frowned in total confusion. What did she know? About what?

Suddenly a manicured hand clasped over his shoulder. "Draco, darling. Why are you letting the little Mudblood aggravate you?" Pansy's smug pug-face appeared from behind his shoulder, her body almost draping across him. Gosh, someone's desperate.

A moment later a ginger head popped round shouting, "Oi, Malfoy, get your hands off Hermione!" It warmed her heart a little to see him try.

Pansy rolled her eyes. "Come on, Draco. Just let her go back to Potter and... her unfortunate friend. We've got much better things to do with our time," Parkinson purred in his ear.

He huffed heavily, a waft of cinnamon flooding to Hermione's nose, and then released her arm grudgingly. But he still looked into her eyes with a piercing intensity, set his jaw.

Hermione decided to walk away, because he didn't seem like he was going to. Her heels clacked as she tore between Harry and Ron with her robes flapping behind her.

"What was that about, Hermione?" Ron asked quietly. He and Harry were both practically running to keep pace with her despite being several inches taller.

"Just Malfoy being Malfoy," she replied shortly. But she secretly clutched the balled up letter in her pocket and wondered what on earth she was supposed to think about all of it.

- x -

A/N: So firstly, I hope it wasn't dull but Hermione is all about the logic and she would find every reason not to trust the charm so I had to corner her into believing the result (or as close to believing as possible). Plus it was important to me to get across how anxious and down Draco was that year with his mission (to kill Dumbledore).

Secondly, while I'm trying to weave canon events in I did have to shift the timescale for the purposes of getting this all to start around Valentine's Day (in the books Ron/Lavender are together over Christmas and never get to V-day) but please forgive me ;)

Once again, let me know what you thought with your reviews including possible improvements :) I welcome it all.