DISCLAIMER. None of the characters used are a creation of mine. They belong solely to JK Rowling.

Several dusty looking tomes thudded onto the top of the table as Hermione chimed in, 'Merry Christmas, Harry!'

Harry chuckled, removing his gloves and petting his cane gently before hugging her briefly and wishing her the same.

'What's with the cane, anyway?' Hermione wondered.

'Oh, it's a Henry thing, I suppose. I just never quit the habit.' He laughed lightly as he added, 'Besides, it gives me character.'

'You do realise you are Henry?'

Harry shrugged, sitting down and peering at the books she had just carried in. 'Yes but I'm also not.. not really.'

Hermione nodded in understanding and poured some warm cocoa for the both of them, perching onto the arm of Harry's chair.

'I know what you mean,' she said, 'but I guess since I've been in here for so long it doesn't really make it a lot different for me somehow.'

Harry put a comforting hand on her shoulder, 'A name doesn't change who you are.'

Hermione clapped her hands together, biting into the glorious cake Harry's elf Dari had baked the previous night. 'How was the meeting with Dumbledore, then?'

'He's still not entirely sure,' Harry jumped at the change of the conversation, 'We're at a stalemate. But we do seem to have reached an understanding. We will help with each other's missions as far as possible without divulging to each other the prime goal of the organisation as well as the secrets.'

He tucked in one of the books in the crook of his arm, dusting it off and moving to settle in the more comfortable rocking chair by the fireplace. 'So is this all?'

'This is all I could find so far,' she answered, sitting down onto the floor. 'The library is enchanted. It gave me all that I presently need and nothing more.'

She had described to him the magic of the library that only she could access. It had proved to be quite a fest of knowledge for the duo as they brainstormed almost every night the different ways of getting past the protection around the Gaunt cottage.

Harry had handed over to her a total of forty five sheets of incredibly detailed notes pertaining to the seven layers of ward magic around the cottage. She would never have expected such a thing from Harry but apparently Henry was something of a scholar.

Harry had already made it past the first five layers but every layer through meant that the wards only got stronger. Even with their combined efforts they hadn't really gotten very far.

'It's been four days and we're still stuck,' Harry muttered. 'I have to get back to the network. I've been stalling this off for so long now but I honestly thought we could get down to it together.'

Hermione agreed, 'It's rather infuriating, isn't it? If only I could pick apart Dumbledore's mind. I can't even begin to imagine how he managed the enitrety of this task all by himself. How peculiarly brilliant is he.'

Harry uttered a noncommittal grunt, 'If we could somehow get our hands on Voldemort's blood this would become so much easier but even with your position it'd be nothing but a death sentence for you.'

'Wards are constructed through the most complex magic, Harry. His blood would make it infinitely easy for us to simply walk through them but I suggest you forget all about it. There's no way we can get around all the manual research.'

He looked at her from over the top of his book, looking acutely at the title in her hands. He raised a brow, 'Why are you going through The Famous Legends of the Past, Hermione?'

Her ears tinged pink, 'I know it's probably a stupid idea but I figured that a cursory glance across this text might help us out a bit.'

He grinned cheekily, 'It's never a stupid idea if it's coming out of Hermione Granger's mouth. But what exactly are you looking at?'

'You see, we only stumbled upon the Hallows through Beetle the Bard's tales mesnt for children. There was an inkling of truth there. Of course we could never tell if Death is a true entity but despite that his words cannot be entirely discredited. When I fell upon this book in the library this morning I felt that a little more knowledge of the Hallows might just be helpful in countering the curse that Dumbledore would have almost died of.'

'I still don't get it,' Harry frowned.

She took a deep breath, enunciating each word separately, 'I wonder if we can harness the magic within the Resurrection Stone to battle whatever curses have been placed upon the ring by Voldemort.'

'That sounds.. indigenous. But we don't even know where we could possibly begin researching that.'

'I know. But I've only just started. I'm sure I'll find something. The book details the various observed occurrences of the Hallows. Most of the legends primarily deal with the Elder Wand, obviously, but there are mentions of strange magic that have allowed people to bring back the dead. There are some very ancient runes accompanying each of the stone's illustration wherever I look. And they always translate into something very simple.'

Harry got up to look at the sketch her fingers pointed at. He read the translated words she had penned down on a spare piece of parchment. He mumbled, 'Might is in the Magic of the Dead.'

Hermione rested her bare feet into the plush carpet, seeking solace from the firm leather in her hands. 'There aren't many details but it can't be a coincidence. Three completely separate incidences have pointed at the same little message. There has to be a meaning behind this.'

'We can't just blindly follow through without a backup plan, Hermione. You have to be very sure for this to work. We can't risk the curse affecting us. It would mean the end of our quest.'

'This is practically the most challenging horcrux to get our hands on. I don't know how much of it is the Stone's doing. Do you reckon Voldemort unknowingly sensed the power within the ring and therefore resolved to putting up such extreme measures of security around the house?'

'It sounds like a plausible theory. But I've never ceased to think about just how he managed to corrupt such ancient magic in the first place. If there is truly such strong magic within the stone why didn't it resist such exploitation of itself?'

'Some things can never truly be accounted for, I suppose. Not everything has a rarionale behind it. We know how you survived the Killing Curse because of something as immaterial as love.'

Harry shrugged, 'Not that I want to discourage you from your research but maybe you can focus on the curse itself.

'We know that it would have taken around a year to seal the deal. We know Dumbledore's hand turned almost coal black. Maybe we should look into an inventory of such curses and get down to a choice of a few. That way we could just perform the countercurse to each one till the time we can finally extract the ring from its hiding place.'

Hermione smiled, pulling out another old volume from the pile on the table. She turned to a page marred by a disgusting smell coming out in wafts and completely ruining the Christmas air around the tiny flat in the heart of Muggle London.

Harry shook his head, amused. 'Always a step ahead of everyone.'

Hermione glowed, 'I know it wouldn't do to rely on stories and myths. I've already cut down the list to a total of three curses.'

Harry nodded as he looked at the three curses highlighted by a wavy line below them against which were written down their respective countercurses.

Hermione pointed out, 'But we still need to figure out the last two layers before we can get to the actual horcrux, Harry.'

Harry looked thoughtful, 'If only it wasn't such sensitive information I'd have called in Gustav already. The bloke has a way of making you see things you would usually ignore.'

Hermione chuckled, 'Wouldn't that solve a lot of our problems? Sometimes I fear Rab is right. He keeps telling me all these secrets will kill me. There have been so many instances when I just wanted to run to someone to help me out. But every person you reveal yourself to is just another mind for Voldemort to plunder through. Fighting a war all alone is a terrible fate.'

Harry smiled, his voice reassuring, 'You're not alone anymore, Mione. We'll make it.'

The two fell into a comfortable silence, devouring as much as they could. They spent the entire night away pouring over the books Hermione had collected from her secret library, quietly progressing through page after page.

So deep into their research were they that neither noticed the sun rise, bringing along with it Christmas Day. It was only when Dari interrupted them with a promising breakfast that they broke away from their books, nibbling onto the simple toast Hermione had requested.

That evening as Harry threw himself back into research, Hermione attempted to read more into the Stone's history. She plundered through the only two books she could find on the Hallows even after her second secret visit to the Lestrange Manor. But there was no mention of how to activate the Stone if there was even such a thing that could be done. There was simply no way for her to find out how the magic within the Stone worked.

Could she risk a look into the Malfoy library perhaps? But if her own magical library couldn't come up with anything how could a normal library ever provide her with her much needed aid?

Time passed by at snail's pace. They did nothing but come up with various plans to tackle the problem at hand. But Hermione was still haunted by the thoughts that had become central to her mind those past few days.

'Obsessing over it will do you no good,' Harry said to her reproachfully on their last day together before Hermione would once again leave for Hogwarts. 'I can see the wheels of your mind turning but you know you'll never find anything to help you with the Stone's secrets. If your little library is as powerful as claim it to be, I don't see how you could find an answer to your problems anywhere else.'

'It's just not right! There has to be something somewhere!'

He walked around the sofa to stop her fingers from flicking around the knight. He looked at her sternly. 'Hermione, stop! I know your intent is pure but remember what Dumbledore said. Everyone who's hunted the Hallows has eventually lost their mind. This obsession is unhealthy and you know it.'

She sighed, reluctantly putting her knight away. Harry looked at the tiny chess piece sadly.

He commented, 'You know, that's who you are.'

She looked at him quizzingly.

'In this war, you are the Knight. Your moves are fuelled by intuitive leaps. The answer will come to you when you require it the most. And if you're really starving for more,' he chuckled, 'I'll take you to my Manor back in Bulgaria someday.'

She nodded halfheartedly, 'I'll drop it for now. But we're no close to the ring any more than we were back when the holidays began. We've spent the majority of our time together working on this riddle and we've come up with absolutely nothing. As much as I love the aspect of research I'm tired of feeling so inadequate. Coupled with that is the constant worry about Rab that plagues me almost all the time.'

He could sense it. He knew it wouldn't take more than a few moments for the gloom to set in. He knew she had spent almost a decade bearing the weight of the world all by herself but now that he had found her, he had vowed to himself to shelter the one small part of his family he still had left.

He couldn't afford to lose the very last piece of his old life.

So he took her arm, once again Apparating her away. This time he took her to the one place she would find the most pleasant especially at this time of the year. They landed right at the edges of the wards that surrounded the Burrow.

They could make out its faint shadow against the skyline, longing for the warmth they knew they would find within its safe confines.

They moved along its boundaries, their feet padding along the snow as their breaths came out in a synchronous gait.

Harry whispered, 'Rabastan will be back before you know it. It's only been a few weeks. You know how terribly long it took Hagrid with the giants, remember?'

She nodded, leaning into his side. They looked at the tiny house against the picturesque backdrop of the winter night.

'It sucks how we're so close to home and not really there,' Harry muttered, 'I want to blow them all up. All those Death Eaters. They took away everything.'

Hermione felt something tingle against her mind, 'Harry..'

He looked at her, confused by the sudden glee in her voice.

'Harry, that's it! We've been looking at it all wrong!'

He prodded, 'You know I won't get it until you spell it out for me, Mione.'

Hermione laughed, a beautiful sound that filled him with peace despite the darkness edging at his soul.

'Don't you see? All we have to do is blow the wards up! Why put in so much effort in breaking through them when we can just destroy them?'

Harry shook his head, almost disappointed now that his hopes had been crushed by the sheer idea of how preposterous her words seemed to be.

He said, 'We could do that if it wouldn't immediately alert Voldemort and obviously..' He broke away mid speech, realisation hitting him like a brick of ice.

His face split into a huge smile. 'Blimey, Hermione, you are brilliant.'

Hermione stooped down, collecting the snow on the ground, turning it into a small ball and sending it flying at him.

She broke into a fit of giggles. 'Disintegrating an alarm is the simplest bit of magic.'

Harry joined in her carefree laughter, 'It seems stupid now, doesn't it? How can it be so simple? Merlin, this is amazing. All we have to do now is dismantle whatever alert system he's put in and simply make an explosion.'

Hermione grinned, mischief glittering im her eyes, 'Living with Fred and George is finally going to pay up.'

Harry nodded, his fondness for the Weasley twins sending him into an even deeper maze of euphoria. 'The wards, when blown up, would cause the cottage to explode too. But the Horcrux won't even be touched.'

'And even if the cottage falls into a rubble it wouldn't matter. If Voldemort ever visited it wouldn't be likely for him to leave the place unchecked if it looked all good but lacked the one thing he needed, anyway. So it wouldn't entirely be a loss for the cottage to be destroyed.'

'Three weeks from now is the next Hogsmeade weekend, right? That's when we strike,' Harry said with resolution.

He picked her up, laughing and spinning her around, both of them falling down with a soft thud, ignorant of the cold seeping into their bones.

They stared at the expanse of the sky littered with the stars, hoping for their family to be looking down at them at that instant as they sought a long lost solace between the empty spaces that separated them.

Harry whispered, 'Merry Christmas, Hermione. We're one step closer to defeating him.'

She breathed in a sigh of relief, the sounds of an all too familair hymn reaching her ears.

'Can you hear it?', she asked.

Harry turned to look at the Burrow, standing in its solitude. 'Its beautiful. Can you imagine Bill and Charlie as kids? Imagine Percy as a toddler?'

She mumbled, 'Seems all wrong, I know. They're supposed to be here.. with us.. all of them.'

Harry found her gloved hand, bringing it up to his lips and dropping a chaste kiss, 'One day we will find them again and they will tell us how proud they are of us and we'll tell them how it was all to avenge them and how.. how we never stopped caring for them. Our family.'

Hermione felt her tears leave behind a chill against her rosy cheeks. She croaked, 'I want us to live, Harry. But what kind of world would it be without those we love the best?'

'Time will catch up with them and they'll be all grown up one day,' he said, not even believing the hollow words himself.

'But they won't be ours,' she cried.

'No, they won't. They will never be ours.'

AN: I would like to thank everyone who has reviewed, alerted or favourited the story. The support you have shown humbles me. You've stuck despite the story being unbetaed and so having a few of errors here and there.

I'd love to hear more from you and find out what you'd like to see happen in the coming chapters or even if you have suggestions to make the story a little better.

Oh and kudos to those who guessed that the Oakswood heir was Harry :-)