That 14 year old Harry Potter woke with a start in the wee hours of the morning wasn't at all unusual. That his uncle wasn't pounding down his door and he hadn't had a nightmare was. He wasn't even at his relatives house, he was at the Burrow, staying with the Weasleys until September 1st and the start of his fourth term at Hogwarts. Next to his cot, Ron Weasley was snoring, covers pulled up so only tufts of his red hair was visible in an attempt to block out the moonlight.

Last night was supposed to be one of Harry's best birthday presents ever, a trip to see the Quidditch World Cup, and it had been, right up until the Death Eaters and the Dark Mark and everything went to hell. But bad luck seemed to follow him. Mr. Weasley and Percy made sure everyone was safe with Mrs. Weasley then went into the Ministry of Magic to try and make sense of what happened. Mrs. Weasley had fussed over all of her children (Harry and Hermione Granger included) and then sent them all to bed with strict instructions to stay there and get some sleep.

So why was Harry laying there at, he groped for his glasses and checked his cracked wrist watch, two thirty in the bleeding morning unable to sleep? Something wasn't right and he couldn't put his finger on it. It wasn't a dangerous sort of not right but it was enough to disturb his light sleep.

Sighing, he pushed back the covers and swung bare feet to the floor. He wasn't exactly comfortable wandering around the Burrow at night, no matter how many times over the last two and a half years Arthur and Molly insisted he consider it home. With one last glance at the snoring Ron, Harry grabbed his wand and cracked open the door, looking not only up and down the hall but to the third floor above to see if anyone else was moving around. All quiet here. Creeping down the stairs and glancing left into the kitchen, he noticed the family clock still had Arthur and Percy marked as at work, so it wasn't them returning that disturbed him. Rounding to the right, Harry almost stumbled over a trunk, a very familiar trunk with a cat carrier on top.

Looking over to one of the worn and overstuffed sofas in the living room, Harry could just make out the bushy brown hair of Hermione and curled up around her neck was her half-kneazle, Crookshanks.

"Hermione?"

The witch in question startled and glanced at him over the back of the sofa. The cat gave a meow and hopped over to a nearby armchair leveling Harry with a yellow eyed glare. Even with just the dim light coming from the kitchen Harry could see that her chocolate colored eyes were puffy.

"Harry, what are you doing awake? Are you alright?" She rounded the sofa and stood before him at the base of the stairs. She was dressed in jeans and a long sleeved tee shirt rather than night clothes.

"I'm fine. Something woke me up. Dunno, just something not...right? And since you're down here with your trunk instead up upstairs in Ginny's room, I'm thinking that was it."

Hermione sighed. "It's fine, Harry, really." she gestured to the coffee table behind her and the crumpled bits of muggle notebook paper torn out and scattered around it and the floor. She always brought muggle notebooks, pens, and pencils along with her to school. Something about not wanting to waste expensive parchment on revision work. "I was trying to leave you an explanation so when you found me gone in the morning you would know why. And if I wrote it on regular notepaper then I knew you would know it was from me."

It took Harry's brain a second to catch up with what Hermione said. "Wait, GONE!"

A hand covered his mouth and Hermione tugged him over to the sofa.

"Keep your voice down," she hissed. "Mrs. Weasley called me down after she was sure Ginny had gone to sleep. Considering how wound up we all were, I wouldn't be surprised if she gave her something to help her along. She explained that since it was the muggle family that was attacked at the Cup and then another spell was fired specifically at me…"

"That was Malfoy!"

"Anyway, she told me that she was worried enough about her family and since I had parents in the muggle world I would be safer there until term starts. Where there are no dark wizards or witches."

Harry stared at her trying to work out exactly what was happening. Molly Weasley, the woman who was forever trying to feed and mother him, who took him in before second year when Ron and the twins had to rescue him from a room with bars on the window and locks on the outside of his door, who knew that he was the boy-who-lived (and he really hated that moniker), was planning on sending Hermione, one of his best friends, back to the muggle world with no protection because of Death Eaters who were more than likely after him.

He was beginning to get very angry at the red haired family's matriarch.

"I'm not a Weasley, why didn't she say something to me? You can bet those Death Eaters were there to cause problems for me," he asked before he got worked up enough to go upstairs and start shouting at someone.

Hermione gave him a sad smile. "Harry, you know she considers you one of hers. She'd never turn you out and if she could, she'd have you staying here Christmas and summers."

"But I have Voldemort after me for fucks sake! Nothing even happened to me last night, it was you that nearly got cursed and she must have checked me over a dozen ti…" Harry stopped and looked at the witch next to him.

"Language, Harry," Hermione murmured almost in reflex. "What?"

He didn't answer right away as he thought back to the chaos of everyone being ushered into the house. Arthur and Percy trying to take charge and talk over the twins, Ron's darting into the kitchen to retch in the sink, Ginny rushing to hug her mother. Harry and Hermione had hung back at first, hands clasped together as they'd been since encountering Draco in the woods outside the campsite. An explosion from nearby distracted Hermione enough to cause her to glance away from the ponce allowing him to fire off a cutting curse at her. Harry had been close enough to knock her down but she'd had the sense to grab onto him and pull. Only her quick thinking kept the curse to just hitting his jumper and not slicing into his back. It also caused him to land on top of her and he knew she was bound to be at least bruised.

None of them expected the spell to come from Malfoy and in the malay after, he disappeared into the trees. Normally he was satisfied with verbal insults and threats of his father but the Death Eaters must have made him bold. Or stupid.

But Molly Weasley had barely spared Hermione a glance. She'd pulled Harry away from her and run a worried hand over him, then wand, muttering about being more careful and fussing over the slash in the back of his jumper but she hadn't checked on Hermione. Not really more than a cursory glance to make sure all limbs were accounted for.

"Harry?" He realized he'd been quiet longer than he thought.

"Mrs. Weasley didn't check on you once tonight did she?"

Hermione looked down and twisted her fingers in her lap. "She was busy with everyone, plus you nearly got cursed yourself trying to get me out of the way! And she's worried about Mr. Weas…"

Harry stilled her hand. "Hermione."

She huffed out a sigh. "No, not exactly."

"It's not the first time she's ignored you is it? I'm just realizing it. Last year when she met me at the Leaky Cauldron, she was short with you about Crookshanks and she very nearly forgot you when we were leaving."

Hermione nodded. "She wasn't all that polite to my parents when they met second year, either. Mr. Weasley more than made up for it but they noticed," she whispered. "I… I get the impression that if I wasn't considered 'the brightest witch of our age' or friends with you, she wouldn't bother with me."

"Not because you're friends with Ron?"

"Am I really that good of friends with Ron? He's always sniping away at me, calling me a know-it-all, laughing at my abysmal flying skills. Sometimes I feel I'm not much more than a convenient means to get his homework finished. I know he's your best friend, Harry and that's why I put up with him as much as I do. He's important to you so I deal with it. And he can be a good friend, it's just he falls into the insults more easily as we get older. It's not like it's not anything I haven't heard most of my life anyway. Well, minus the flying bit."

Harry got up to pace the living room, hands pulling at his already hopelessly messy black hair. "God, I'm an idiot aren't I? I mean, I know Ron's an arse but you usually just put him in his place so I've let it go. Except for that stupid fight about the broom, which you were right about anyway and explained it to me after and I was still pissed off longer than I should have been. So how didn't I put two and two together and figure out…"

"Harry, you need to calm down." Hermione rose off the sofa to step in front of him and gently untangle his hands from his hair. "You're going to break something in here if you get any more worked up and wake the whole house." She glanced over at the cabinet in the corner whose assortment of books and knick-knacks were rattling unsteadily. A pulse of magic swirled in the air for a moment longer but calmed when Hermione tugged at his hands.

"Maybe I should wake up everyone."

"I don't think I want to deal with that. Besides, I'm used to witches and wizards who don't know how to deal with Muggleborns. Sometimes Mrs. Weasley just lets it slip a bit more than usual that she's not exactly comfortable around me. Something like tonight just makes her want to keep her family close and I sort of stick out."

He sighed and looked at her. She looked exhausted and there was a bruise blooming on her cheek. A forgotten bit of information popped into his head.

"Hermione, your parents aren't even home, are they? Didn't you tell me they were planning on a holiday in Italy since you were going to be here with us?"

"I didn't exactly get a word in edgewise. You know how Mrs. Weasley gets when she makes up her mind about something."

"Right. Okay, this is what we're going to do…"

"Wait, you're making a plan?"

An eyebrow raised. "Hey, I can plan, you know. You clean up your pile of papers and I'll be right back."

"Harry…"

"Trust me."

"You know I do."

"Good. Then I'll be right back."

He darted back up the stairs and carefully opened the door to Ron's room. The snores greeting him proved Ron could sleep through anything. He probably could have knocked over that cabinet in the living room and scattered knick-knacks everywhere and Ron would have slept through the whole thing.

Switching pyjama pants for jeans, he tugged on a pair of socks and tossed his trainers on the bed. While he wasn't particularly neat by nature, he hated to have his things scattered around where he couldn't keep track of them. He'd gone too long without anything to actually call his own to lose something due to being careless with it.

He snorted. And wasn't that a kicker tonight. He wouldn't normally consider himself dense, he'd usually call Ron that, but fuck had he been stupid lately. After last year rescuing Sirius (and he never did tell Ron how he and Hermione pulled that off) and then Hermione making sure he had more than one way of getting touch with her over the summer as well as finding a way to send him food when the Dursley's decided that Dudley's diet meant Harry's already meager portion of food went to his cousin, he was beginning to wonder when he started to take her for granted. He'd damn near failed half his classes when he and Ron didn't talk to her over his Firebolt and while he was the moron that let Ron distract him, he'd avoided the library and common room study tables mostly because Ron convinced him to ignore her.

A snort and roll from the other bed got Harry moving. He wasn't worried about Hedwig, she always knew where he disappeared to, so tossed the last of his belongings in his trunk, concentrated on Hedwig's cage and muttered a shrinking spell that he finally managed to learn from Hermione. Dropping the cage in his trunk, he closed and locked the lid, shrinking it down as well. He'd possibly have to enlarge them before he left, but for now they needed to be small enough to hide for his plan to work.

Slipping back downstairs, Harry saw Hermione had cleaned up the scattered paper and was now wrapped in the knit throw from the back of the couch, a book on her lap.

He shook his head. Some things never changed.

"Do I even need to ask what you're reading?" He was willing to bet his broom it was Hogwarts a History.

She didn't look up until he sat next to her. "I needed to do something while I was waiting for this impressive plan of yours."

His hand went to the back of his neck. "I don't know about impressive or how much of a plan it actually is…"

"Harry Potter, what are you thinking?"

"Well, to start with, you're not going home by yourself."

Now he had her full attention. Placing the large tome on the coffee table, Hermione turned and leveled him with a stare.

Raising his hands in defense, he leaned back as far as he could. "Just hear me out. You can't use magic at home if anything happens, right? So, two sets of eyes have to be better than one. Besides, it's not like I don't have a record with the Ministry already for using magic when I'm not supposed to. If something were to happen and the Aurors show up, we'll just say I did it."

"Okay. And what exactly do we tell my parents when they get home and find you and I there by ourselves? Not to mention the fact they'd have to take us to King's Cross if we showed up at home."

"Yeah, that would be the part that I haven't gotten around to. What were you going to tell them anyway?"

"That an emergency came up and the Weasleys had to leave at the last minute and couldn't take me with them."

Harry snorted. "Well, why can't we tell them that the Weasley's couldn't take me either and it was either your house or stay at the Leaky Cauldron... Unless…"

"Unless what? You want us to stay in Diagon Alley?"

"Why not? I did last summer for nearly as long. We'd be able to do magic, wander around, visit the bookstore." That last one was more to convince Hermione that regardless of which idea she chose, Harry was going to accompany her.

She continued to watch him carefully, her eyes flitting over his face, bottom lip caught between her teeth like it always was when she was thinking over something. "Harry, it's not that I don't appreciate what you're doing but…"

"No, Hermione, you don't get it. I know exactly how it feels to be excluded from something, to be the one sent off like you don't matter and I won't let you go through that, too. We just need to figure out where we plan on going. We can floo to your house and then to Diagon Alley so everyone thinks we're in the muggle world - that may be safer - no one would think we would be left alone after what happened at the Cup."

Sighing, Hermione put her hand on Harry's knee. "You're really determined about this aren't you?" At his nod, she continued, "I won't tell you I'm not glad for the company. The thought of being sent home to spend the next four weeks alone just doesn't appeal to me like the Weasley's seem to think it will. I know they figure I'll just sit and read, not noticing the time passing but all I'll do is worry about everyone here, especially you since every time an attack happens it's centered on you."

I think...I think the Leaky Cauldron might actually be the best place to stay at. Not only because we can perform magic but because there will be other adult witches and wizards around, too. It will be harder for Death Eaters to sneak around there." Or easier but the two of them were beginning to be paranoid by nature at this point and Hermione's long standing trust in adults and authority figures was wearing thin after the debacle with Sirius.

Harry nodded. "Then we'll go to the Leaky Cauldron. We'll be able to wander around on the muggle side of London, too, if we don't want to spend all our time in Diagon Alley. Did Mrs. Weasley tell you when she wanted you to leave?"

Hermione let out a long breath. "Around 6. She wanted to let me sleep some but have me gone before everyone got up for breakfast."

Trying not to swear, Harry glanced at the cat across from him before turning his attention to the throw around Hermione's shoulders. "Here, budge up a minute and give me the throw." He moved to rest against the back of the couch and motioned for Hermione to stretch out in front of him. Covering both of them with the blanket, Harry scooted down a bit further from the armrest and let Hermione lean against him.

"What are you doing?"

"Between the throw and your wild hair (an elbow made to poke him in the stomach but he was able to anticipate it and grab Hermione's arm before it got that far) I won't be seen from the stairs or the kitchen. At least not until I want to be."

"Are you saying you have more to this plan of yours?"

"Yep and no, I'm not telling. Just try and get some sleep until Mrs. Weasley comes down to ruin our day."