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After laying in the dark tunnel for most of the day and then dropping their knives on Minerva's desk when she knew she'd be teaching, Hermione had gone to bed and flatly refused to get out again. For the first time in as long as anyone could recall, Hermione Granger did not go to class when she could have. Instead, she had remained in bed for two whole days before Ginny dropped down heavily beside her.

"Harry said Dumbledore wanted to see you."

"I don't particularly care, I don't want to see him."

"Apparently," Ginny said conspiratorially. "Dumbledore reckoned you might say that and told Harry to tell you that it was important." Hermione sighed. "Perhaps it's to do with the -"

"GINNY!"

"I wasn't going to say it, was I," Ginny scoffed. "But anyway. Get up, get a shower. He wants you there after dinner. And you are coming to dinner. You need to eat something other than cheese and pickle sandwiches. You're starting to smell funny."

"Gin -"

"Seriously. Get up. You need to stop moping."

"I'm not moping."

"Uh," Ginny scoffed at her. "Yeah yah are. Get up. We're going down in about 15 minutes. That's enough time. Don't dawdle."

Hermione growled at her as she skipped from the room and groaned as she got up. She could not deny she was a bit sick of the sandwiches the Elves brought her but she hadn't felt like doing anything at all since the weekend. It was testament to how Minerva and even the Headmaster were dealing with it that nobody came looking for her. Evidently, they all checked in with Harry and left her to it.

The shower was nice, and she'd spent the time thinking about the conversation they'd had in the room of Requirement the night before.

They'd all slipped inside, smiling at the room it had granted them; resplendent in soft burgundy colours and cushiony carpets where they could sprawl out and take in the information as it was given. It had been a lot to take in too, even for her. She would do her best to help Harry in every way she could, but she would need the others as well. Harry had told them most of what the Headmaster had told him and the implications of filling some of the gaps she had in her own theories felt almost never-ending.

She finished washing her hair and got out, but she was sure she looked awful by the time she'd managed to get dressed and put her hair in what she hoped would pass as a messy bun. She already had an idea about what Dumbledore was going to do with them and it hurt to think about. It hurt to think that Minerva didn't want anything to do with her ever again but a small part was gratified at least that Dumbeldore was taking over. And that he was involving Harry. Both of them seemed much happier of late and it was only slightly amusing to her, in a rather dark sense, that while her life had become worse, somehow she'd been a small part in making their lives better. Ginny screamed her name from the door. She rolled her eyes and pulled on her jumper. It wasn't standard uniform practice to wear it, though dinner was an informal affair, but she pulled the hood over her head and the sleeves down over her hands and decided she quite liked the little barrier it made between herself and the rest of the world.

"I'm coming, keep your hair on."

Harry gave her a big hug when he saw her. He'd left her mostly alone while she'd been in bed, sending Ginny up to check on her now and then. Ron joined in after Ginny called for a group hug and she laughed, even though she had to wipe her eye at the same time.

"Thanks guys," she muttered.

"Come on then," Ron almost yelled. "It's roast beef today!"

She couldn't help but giggle at his enthusiasm and wandered down with them to take their seats at the very back of the hall. She steadfastly refused to look up the table towards the Teacher's seats but she felt those eyes on her. She pulled her hood closer and picked at a bread roll until the notices were read out. It was nice to be amongst it again even though she felt like she had a spotlight on her. She ate quietly, listening to Ginny and Harry and Ron talk quidditch like there wasn't a war on; like there weren't people who wanted to kill them before they were even grown. Like she hadn't magically assaulted her parents and ruined one of the best friendships of her life.

She shook her head and soaked up the gravy with her bread and sat quietly until pudding. A small crane landed in front of her and she frowned at it as it came to rest. It was plain enough paper for it to be from anyone but she had some idea of where it had come from. She sighed and opened it, reading over the familiar handwriting.

"Dumbledore wants us in his office at nine," Hermione muttered, ignoring the postscript at the bottom of the note. She didn't want to know that she was missed. She doubted anyone of note was missing her.

"Good," Harry grinned, making her laugh despite herself. "That means I can have another bowl."

"That's probably exactly why he said 9, as well," Hermione quipped.

They ate up and were some of the last to leave the hall. Hermione, having become attuned to Professor McGonagall's footfalls very early on in her schooling, heard them coming and got up before they could reach the end of the table. She dipped out of the hall and ran up to the bathrooms where she wasn't ashamed to acknowledge that she hid until she felt it was late enough that Minerva would have returned to her rooms so she could make her way up to the Stone Gargoyle and request entry.

"Miss Granger," it grumbled. "You may go straight up."

She hadn't been to the Headmaster's office, hardly at all. It was full of curios and bizarre little machines that seemed to show perpetual motion that always fascinated her. She blinked as she looked around, finding Harry and Professor Dumbledore watching her.

"Sorry." She shook her head and pulled her sleeves over her hands again. "I didn't mean to be late."

"You aren't, my dear. I was just saying to Harry here that it is unusual that the two of us, especially, are early today."

Hermione managed a smile and sat next to Harry on the sofa.

"Now," Dumbledore said cheerily. "I am going to be taking over your training for a while and Harry, I have realised how remiss it has been of me to assume Miss Granger should take care of teaching you what -" he paused. "She is learning."

Hermione frowned but didn't interrupt.

"That is not to say that you aren't an excellent teacher, Miss Granger, only that I perhaps should have been paying more attention to Harry's furthering education."

"Hermione," she said a little sternly. "If you can manage Harry, you can manage Hermione."

"Quite right," he smiled. "Now. I understand that you, Hermione, have been teaching him Occlumency?"

"After -"

"Yes," he said quickly. "After that."

"Then yes. But we didn't get very far, only as much as I happen to have some sort of natural block. So it was easy to practise on me, as an example of how they should be formed and what to do when encountering one."

"Do you really?" Dumbledore blinked. "How fascinating. Perhaps you might allow me to look later?"

"Sure," Hermione nodded. "Anyway. He got good enough to block out the dreams but," she shrugged. "We haven't really done much after that, have we?"

She nodded for Harry to take over. She desperately wanted this to be predominantly about Harry and not her.

"Sometimes, when I'm really asleep, I'll get flashes of things but I know not to trust them anymore."

"What do you see?" Dumbledore asked, sitting forward.

"Nothing recently. At the beginning of term, there was something. He wasn't upset, but something bothered him. I don't think he even knew what but I felt something." His forehead creased like it did when he was worried. "But I don't know what it was. I'm almost positive he didn't either. But whatever it was, it was big enough for me to notice."

"When was this?" Dumbledore asked.

"Um." She watched as Harry tried to remember. "First or second day of term maybe? Oh," he said, making Hermione jump with the change of volume. "No. The third day. Cos I remember they cancelled Quidditch so I went to bed early."

Dumbledore had gone quite pale and he sat thinking for a very long time before he realised they were both still there.

"I'm so sorry," he blinked. "I quite got lost in my mind, then."

"This has something to do with the -" she stopped and looked up at the gallery of Portraits watching over them. Dumbledore waved his wand lazily and all of them turned black.

"You may speak freely, Hermione," he smiled. "Though none of them is able to break the confidence of their presence in this room, you are right to be cautious."

"You think Harry's dream, that one specifically, had something to do with a Horcrux?"

"I do," he nodded. "As I destroyed one that week. On that day precisely and if Tom has even an inkling that they are in danger he may move them and they might be lost forever."

Hermione tucked that information away in the back of her mind as the reason he looked so awful when he returned but she did not comment on it.

"Are they not lost now?" Hermione asked after a moment. "Is that not the issue?"

"To a point," he smiled. "But they are lost to us, in places that he thought of when he was a student here, barely into adulthood. Not much older than you are. That is when I know him best, where I have, at least some, insight into what he might have done with them."

"What was the first one?"

Dumbledore looked at Harry and then at Hermione before sitting back.

"Get comfortable, we may be a while," he smiled and looked back at her. "There is parchment and a quill if you need it."

Despite it all, she smiled that he remembered and she nodded. She pulled the little pile closer and got ready to listen.

What followed was a tale of Tom Riddle the child, and how he had come about and the way he had been brought up and Hermione, even though she would never say it out loud, could not help but see a small parallel with Harry. Where Tom Riddle had been left to stew in his own thoughts, Harry had been at least part of something - even if they had not really treated him kindly, they weren't an orphanage. She jotted down the notes from the tale of his parents, about love potions and unrequited love, despicable actions and family jewels and crests. One thing she found most interesting, was that Voldemort - the madman bent on blood purity - was a half-blood like Harry. Like Minerva, even. She shook her head of those thoughts and continued taking notes. By the time Dumbledore fell silent, her hand was aching and her brain spinning.

"So," Hermione started, before looking at Harry. "Oh, sorry. Okay?"

"Yeah," he nodded, looking a little overwhelmed. "Go for it."

"So," she said again, turning to face Dumbledore properly. "The diary really was a dark object. That's why it felt sticky?"

He looked at her shrewdly.

"Did you feel the same, Harry?"

"No," he muttered. "No, I could feel something, but it wasn't particularly bad as such. But then," he mused absently. "I didn't know much back then. It was just weird magic."

"Quite," Dumbledore nodded. Hermione watched something flash over his eyes but she didn't draw attention to it. They, evidently, were not being told everything.

"Okay, so the diary," she listed. "The ring that he killed his father for?"

"Yes."

Hermione considered the rest of what he'd told her.

"And you must kill someone to make one, that's what you're not saying explicitly?"

"Yes," he sighed. "There are obviously other steps, you must have a significant amount of power and understanding but yes, there must also be a murder.'

"Has he not killed a great many people?" she asked, frowning at her page.

"Surprisingly, not personally. He has Death Eaters for that, I suppose. And I imagine that even if he did, the spell and procedure that is required would not be prudent at every killing."

"So the Horcruxes are items to do with him, aren't they? Things that hold value to him." She considered the two that they knew about. "Perhaps, only to him?"

"I believe so, yes. I found the information about the ring after visiting his mother's brother in Azkaban before he died. He was framed for the murder of Tom's father. That murder created the Horcrux in the ring. Which I then destroyed."

"And furthering on that, could we work on who he's killed?"

"It is possible," Dumbledore nodded. "Though again, it still requires us to find the records of those people and that would not, I don't think, point us in the direction of the Horcruxes either; what they are or where they are."

"Good point," she nodded, biting her lip. "How do we go about it then?"

Dumbledore stared at her and sat back with a groan.

"I have some leads but I wondered what you could both come up with."

"Why now?" Hermione asked, cutting into Harry's half-formed sentence. "Why tell us now?"

Dumbledore regarded her for a long time before he nodded and steepled his fingers.

"Because someone has reminded me, relatively often, that I cannot do this alone. I have tried and I very nearly failed."

"Umbridge?" Hermione asked, wondering just how much he missed from last year."

"Yes," he nodded. "Had she managed to attack Hagrid, or," he went pale again, "Minerva, for that matter. I would not be able to live with myself. I cannot, I will not do that again." He stared at her carefully. "I believe I have you to thank for keeping her safe. She has never said explicitly but I believe it to be true."

"I just told her to get lost," Hermione said, picking at the thread on her sleeve.

"Pfft," Harry snorted. "You stood in front of her and screamed at her that you'd kill her if she touched the PRofessor. That's not telling someone to get lost. I'm pretty sure there were sparks flying from your hands," Harry laughed.

Hermione blushed and didn't meet the Headmaster's eyes.

"Then I am doubly indebted to you, young lady."

"Anyway," she coughed. All the attention, especially to do with Minerva, was uncomfortable. "You told Min -" she swallowed the rest of her thought as she looked up at him. "She knows?"

"I -"

"It's okay," Hermione waved him off. "I know she does. The Wednesday we were supposed to meet and I went to bed instead. You told her then."

"Hermione," he said, glancing at Harry.

"He already knows most of what concerns him, even if, on paper, it may seem like none of his business. I would suggest this is all of his business if he's the one that needs to help find them?"

"You will both be invaluable," he soothed. "But yes," he huffed. "Seeing as you are asking. Minerva knows most of what you know."

Hermione didn't know how she knew that, but it just made sense in her mind. She pushed it to the back and got on with the business of working out the rest.

"Going back to the problem?" He nodded. "How many do you think he made?"

"I do not know," Albus muttered. "Which is where Harry may have to come in."

"What do I need to do, sir," he asked genuinely. Hermione sighed at his loyalty. He would walk across burning coals for the Headmaster with very little thought about his own safety.

"Harry," she said gently. "Whatever it is, we'll do it together."

"I'm afraid that it may have to be Harry alone," Dumbledore said. "The reason for your new Potions master, this term, is because Horace -" He got up and paced in front of the fire. "Horace collects things."

"Okay," Harry frowned. "What do you mean?"

"Horace collects people. He has a peculiar want for people who are, in his own words, special." He held up his hand as Hermione's outrage showed plainly on her face. "Not like that," Dumbledore scoffed. "I am not a monster to bring him here like that."

"That is still weird," she said.

"It is unusual," Dumbledore muttered. "However. Tom was a most peculiar child and Horace has a habit of running his mouth. Added to that, Tom was one of the most manipulative people I have ever met. I don't doubt that with very little pushing, Horace may have given Tom all the information he needed in order to make many Horcruxes."

"Sir," Harry whispered. "How many do you think he made?"

"I cannot be certain, but as we already know of two, I believe, according to the books on the subject, that any more than 6 would be too dangerous. It would not leave enough soul to remain stable."

The silence in the room was punctuated only by the crackling fire and the whirring of the little machines on his shelves.

"Six," Hermione whispered. "That's. How are we even going to find them?"

"I am fairly certain that I know what the location of one of them is -" he met their eyes in turn. "When I was," he frowned. "Interacting with the ring, it showed me a vision of a cave. Surrounded by angry waves. Cold and dark. One of them is there, but I do not know where that might be. I have much to learn yet, but if we start there, we may yet figure out where the others are."

"What do you want me to do?" Harry asked again.

"I need you to retrieve the memory of the night that Horace Slughorn told Tom Riddle of the Horcruxes. We will study it in the Pensieve once you have them."

"A Pensieve?" Hermione asked, looking up at him. "I've read about them but I don't recall -"

"A memory bank, as it were. Well, a viewer. Memories may be extracted from a person and poured into the pool, where you may watch them at your leisure from a separate point of view."

"Whoa," Hermione blinked. "You have one?"

"I do," he smiled. "It is over there in that cabinet."

"May I?"

He nodded and she got up and opened the door, stepping back and watching as it drew out of the wall and stood proudly on the plinth.

"Can I touch it?"

"You may," he said absently. "There should not be anything in it."

She trailed her fingers through the liquid and blinked as a black-and-white scene flashed to the surface. Of Minerva, tired and upset, and laying back in her bed. She stepped back and almost tripped on Dumbledore's foot as he joined her.

"Ah," he muttered, steadying her. "I apologise, that was not supposed to be in there."

She watched as he drew the memory from the pool with his wand and popped it in a small glass bottle and placed it lovingly on a shelf full of little glass bottles. Memories, her brain supplied. They stood quietly for a moment before she could not hold her tongue any longer.

"Is she okay?" she finally gave in.

"She is angry." Hermione dropped her head but soft fingers under her chin brought her gaze back to his. "She is angry at herself, mostly. For not realising. But as she takes on my work, I fear she takes on my faults as well. It is me that must beg your forgiveness, Hermione. For not realising, for not paying more attention. I should have. And I did not. And for that, I truly am sorry that you felt you had no other option but that."

"It's okay," she whispered. "I did spend most of the holiday trying to convince them to go. It truly was a last resort and if I did not have any hope of persuading them, what were either of you going to do?"

"Well," he muttered. "Even so. I am sorry that I did not remember," he cupped her cheek. "Sometimes I look at you and see Minerva thirty years ago."

She blushed and grinned up at him.

"I dunno that I'm quite as stubborn."

"Whatever," Harry snorted from the sofa where he was laying looking at the ceiling.

Dumbledore chuckled and she took his hand, watching as his shoulders dropped at the contact.

"I don't hold either of you responsible," she muttered. "I am sad that she's angry with me, but I'm sadder that I feel like I have damaged our friendship beyond repair. I enjoyed her company. It was," she felt the sudden need to choose her words carefully. "It was right, I guess. I don't have another word for it. We fit. I just really enjoyed being her friend."

"As do I, dear heart," he chuckled. "As do I."

Just as she was about to ask after her properly, the fire flared green and Minerva McGonagall herself spun out of the grate. Everyone froze as Minerva stared at the three of them and opened her mouth to speak but seemed to lose the words.

"Min," Dumbledore said eventually. "Please. Come in."

"No, I -"

Hermione ducked a little as Albus quickly locked the fireplace and Minerva turned back to him looking like thunder.

"Albus."

"I know it is not ideal, Tabby, but we need to put this behind us. Hermione, Harry and I have spent the evening talking about Tom Riddle's escapades."

Minerva actually spat on the rug in disgust and then seemed to realise what she'd done. Hermione didn't dare release the laugh that she wanted to.

"Quite," Albus chuckled as Minerva looked up at him in shock. "Come in."

"I came to show you these," she said, flatly ignoring Hermione and Harry. "They were left on my desk."

There was a little unasked question in the tone and Hermione shrugged as she went back to the sofa.

"I gave you my word," she muttered. "I didn't think you'd appreciate the conversation."

Minerva made a face but walked further into the room and spread them on the desk.

"They are as Hermione," she paused. "Miss Granger said." Hermione tried not to let that stab of pain show on her face. "They feel desperate, somehow. Not despicable."

"Mine gets warm when I hold it," Harry offered, now hanging off the end of the sofa, watching them upside down. Apparently, he was more comfortable relaxing in the Headmaster's office than she was. "Dunno if that helps."

It made Hermione grin.

"Hermione?"

She blinked and turned back. She agreed without really knowing what she was agreeing to and then just as she was looking away, she saw the truth of it in Minerva's eyes.

"You touched yours, didn't you?"

Minerva looked up at her with a guarded expression, but Dumbledore saw right through her.

"Your thoughts, my dear?"

"The same," she eventually huffed. "Warm. Not hot. Happy."

"I do not think it wise for me to touch," Dumbledore said quietly. He looked at Hermione. "But with your permission, I would like to run a series of spells on them?"

"Of course," she nodded. "But I would like you to touch, as bizarre as that sounds. So you can see that it is not as you think. I saw you, Mi -" she swallowed. "Professor McGonagall, the other day, with mine. On Professor Flitwick's birthday. I understand now."

"You didn't tell them?"

"I must, Minerva. They are a part of it." Minerva's face, which was already unimpressed, was positively thunderous now. "Do not look at me like that, you know the stakes."

Hermione stepped past the headmaster and picked up her knife, narrowly avoiding Minerva's hand as she tried to stop her.

"Hermione!"

"He would not hurt us and these knives would not let him," she said, holding it out of Minerva's reach, as sure of the facts as she was her own name as she turned to the Headmaster. "Please. I offer it to you freely."

She held out the knife by the blade without any fear at all. She could feel Harry's eyes on her and, bizarrely, could feel the trepidation coming off Minerva in waves.

"I trust you, Headmaster. You are not the sum of your past."

"What?"

Hermione blinked. She shook her head and looked down at the knife and then back at the Headmaster.

"I take it that makes sense to you?"

"Albus this is folly. What if -"

Hermione offered the butt of the knife again, where the second emerald jewel sat and she stared at him.

"It's alright," she whispered. "Let it go."

Her body hummed in anticipation to the point where, when Dumbledore's hand eventually did rise, it was almost anticlimactic. Nothing at all happened as his fingers caressed the leather grip, but Hermione offered it further, pressing it in his open palm and closing his fingers around it.

"Those words were not yours, Hermione," Dumbledore muttered as she stepped back. He turned it over in his hand and inspected it closely. "That is cause enough for caution, but I thank you for your trust."

"I don't know why that was important, sir," she whispered, stepping back up to him and easily taking it back off him. "But it was. And I am glad to have done it."

She turned back and placed the blade, lovingly, in its place before looking up at Minerva. They stared for a long time before she finally gave in and nodded.

"Let's go, Harry," she muttered.

She picked up her reams of parchment as Harry stood up and ran her eyes over them one more time before dropping them in the fire.

"'Night," she muttered. Harry was yawning as they went down the spiral staircase but just before the door closed, she heard Minerva's voice.

"What in the hell was all that?"

She chuckled sadly as they made their way back to the Common room and she pushed Harry towards his dorm before going back to hers. There was far too much going through her mind to concentrate on any one thing and so she let it percolate while she dozed, occasionally jerking awake at a particularly strong thought but just before sunrise, fell deep asleep for the first time in days.