[A/N: Thank you to Calamity Owl for beta-reading this chapter!]


Hermione gave up studying when she realised she'd read the same description of the Softening Charm four times without absorbing a word. So, when Remus jumped out of the floo just after eleven that night, he found her pacing only a few steps away.

"What's wrong?" she asked. "How's Harry? Did he find the serial killer? Is he alright? Harry, I mean. I don't give a toss about–"

She stopped when Remus threw his arms around her and hugged the life out of her. "Thank you," he said. "St. Mungo's said he might have died tonight without you."

Hermione's voice very nearly failed her, but she still managed to croak out a "What?"

"Your potion." Remus released her so he could look her in the eyes. "Aurors don't usually carry Wiggenweld because a Dark Wizard would have to be a special combination of skilled and stupid to use an Ennervating Curse in a fight, but unfortunately Marcus Flint fit that bill. There's a good chance Harry would be dead right now if you hadn't insisted he take the last vial of Wiggenweld Potion you made."

"Oh, God," she said as she fell to her knees. "Oh God, oh God, oh God."

"Breathe." Remus knelt in front of her and put his hands on her shoulders. "He's fine. They're just holding him overnight for observation."

"It's not that," Hermione said. "I…I spilt some when I put it in a vial for Professor Tonks. If I'd spilt more…Harry might…he might…"

"You didn't, though," Remus said. "You didn't, and he's fine. Would you like to see him?"

She nodded.

"Alright. Dobby?" Remus called.

The quirky house elf popped up right next to him. "Great Harry Potter sir's Uncle Wolfy called Dobby?"

Despite herself, Hermione had to fight down a giggle.

"Yes," Remus said. "I'm afraid Harry's in St. Mungo's."

"Again?" Dobby asked. "Harry Potter sir is valiant and bold, but Dobby sometimes worries Harry Potter overdoes those." A grimace overtook his face and he grabbed his ears. "No, no, Dobby must not question great and wise Harry Potter."

"Dobby!" Remus said sternly. "You know what Harry said about punishing yourself."

The elf released his ears and looked oddly depressed about it. "Fine, Dobby not punish himself."

"Thank you," Remus said. "Now, I'm going to floo back to St. Mungo's. When I call you, it will be safe for you to come and bring Hermione. Can you do that?"

Dobby nodded excitedly. "Dobby would love to bring bold and strong Harry Potter sir his My-knee."

Hermione had a bad feeling she started blushing at that, but decided to ignore it in the hopes it would go away.

"Thank you." Remus rose to his feet. "I'll call you as soon as I can."

After Remus left, Hermione pushed herself to her feet and turned to Dobby. "Why were you trying to punish yourself?" she asked.

"House elveses shouldn't question their masters," Dobby said. "Bad old masters made Dobby iron his ears or do other things when he did that, but benevolent Harry Potter sir told Dobby not to."

"Iron your ears?" Hermione said. "That's awful!"

"The Malfoys is awful wizards," Dobby said. "They be thinking all muggle-born witches and wizards is filthy and stupid. They do lots of bad things but pay lots of money to not get caught."

"So wizarding Britain is as corrupt as muggle Britain?" Hermione asked.

Dobby shook his head. "Oh, noes, is much more corrupt than that." Before Hermione could respond, he cocked his head and held out his hand. "We can go now."

As Hermione took his hand, she happened to blink. While she didn't feel like she was moving, a rushing wind made it seem like the rest of the world was moving around her, and when she opened her eyes again she found herself in a hospital room.

Harry lay on a plain hospital bed, with Sirius sitting to one side and Remus at the foot of the bed. "Thank you, Dobby," Remus said. "Please turn invisible, go outside, and warn us if anyone besides Susan, Neville, Minerva, Filius, or Andi comes. We'll need you to pop Hermione back home if that happens."

Dobby nodded and vanished.

While Remus instructed Dobby, Hermione sat down on the empty chair to Harry's right and put her hands on his. "I'm so sorry you were hurt," she said.

Harry's eyes fluttered open. "Oh, Hermione. You didn't have to come."

"Of course I did!" she said. "You wouldn't have been in danger if I hadn't gotten involved."

"You getting involved saved two lives tonight," Harry said. "Mine and their next victim. He's been badly injured by the torture, but somewhere out there are a pair of parents who would have lost a child tonight without you."

Though she couldn't see it through her tears, Hermione felt Harry shake off her hands and pull her head down to his chest.

"Um…" Remus said awkwardly, "we should probably go check on things outside."

"But things are just getting int–ouch! Right, outside," Sirius said.

Chairs shuffled and then the two of them were alone. Harry explained the whole incident to her start-to-finish, pausing periodically to take a breath. The healer had been able to mostly undo the Ennervating Curse, but Harry was still drained and they were keeping him overnight for evaluation and follow-up doses of Wiggenweld Potion.

"There were two of them?" Hermione asked when he was finished. "And you knew them from school?"

"Yes," he said. "It's so rare for serial killers to work as a team that none of us even considered the possibility there'd be another wand in that room. And yes, I knew both from school. They were both awful to me and my friends, not that I hurt them for that reason."

"I see," she said. "I'm so sorry you had to kill someone tonight. Would you like to talk about it?"

He gave a small shrug. "I probably don't feel as much right now as I should. They were always nasty people, and I always kind of wondered if I'd end up fighting them or others like them from school one day. It's hard to feel that much remorse when you've known for years that there was a decent chance it would end this way."

"Even as schoolchildren?" Hermione asked.

"They never saw muggles as people," Harry said. "I did. In the end, we were bound to end up on opposite sides, though I didn't think it would be in a cheap hotel room in Derby."

She didn't respond, and after a moment, Harry asked, "are you alright?"

"Someone like that stole my magic and memories, didn't they?" Hermione asked.

"Probably," Harry said. "We'll find them."

Silence settled on the room after that for a minute before Harry spoke up again. "Can I ask you something?"

"Of course!" Hermione said. "Is anything wrong? Can I get you anything? Do you need a doctor? What about–"

Harry cut her off with a gentle squeeze of his arm. "Don't worry," he said. "I'm fine. I'm just taking advantage of my injury to ask a question, since you can't get mad at me right now."

"You don't have to be so smug about it." The audible smile in her voice undermined her grumpy phrasing.

"Yes, I do." He smirked, then took a deep breath. "What are we, Hermione? I thought we were just flatmates, but flatmates don't burst into hospital rooms and lay on each other's chests."

Heat rushed to Hermione's cheeks and she tried to get up, but Harry's arm tightened around her and held her there.

"I'm not complaining," Harry said quickly. "I…quite like this. It's just…this made me re-evaluate the last few weeks, too. All of those dinners we've made each other, all of those outings together…we're not living like we're just flatmates, are we?"

"Maybe not," Hermione whispered into his chest.

"Are…um…you alright with that?" Harry asked.

"Me?" Hermione was so shocked that she pushed herself up a little so she could look into Harry's eyes. His warm, concerned, and impossibly green eyes.

Darn it. She'd once again forgotten about his eyes.

"Of course I am," she whispered, unable to force more volume into her voice under the force of his gaze. "Are you?"

He smiled. "I've fancied you for weeks, Hermione Granger."

She lay her head back on his chest and wrapped her arms around him as best she could, given that he was lying down. "I didn't want to make things awkward," she said, "since if you didn't return my feelings you'd probably still feel obligated to keep me around."

"And I didn't want to pressure you into anything," Harry said. "It's kind of awkward trying to start a relationship when you're also responsible for the other person's safety."

"I could just move home with my parents now, you know," Hermione said. "We got rid of the beacon."

"Oh."

She pushed herself back up so she could look into his eyes again. He looked sheepish.

"Damn it," he said.

"What is it?" Hermione asked.

"If I'd thought of that, I would have tried this a lot sooner." He moved the hand that was still around her back until it was behind her head and gently pulled her in for a kiss.

Her lips were close enough that she could feel the heat of his breath on them when a knock on the door reminded them of where they were.

As Hermione rocketed back into her chair, the door inched open and Remus asked, "May we come in?"

"Y…yes," Hermione said.

Remus opened the door all the way and entered, followed immediately by Sirius. "Damn it," Sirius said good-naturedly. "I was hoping you'd answer 'no.'"

"It's alright, Padfoot," Harry said. "I finally caught on."

"About damn time!" Sirius said. "I've been wanting to say something for several weeks, but Remus told me not to interfere."

"It was that obvious?" Hermione asked.

"I'm afraid so," Remus said.

"You can blame any delay on me," Harry said. "I'm awfully slow at this sort of thing."

"We do," Sirius, Remus, and Hermione said simultaneously. That earned her raised eyebrows from the other two men, at which she blushed but raised her chin defiantly.

"Ouch," Harry said. "You didn't all have to agree immediately, you know."

"We kind of did," Sirius said. The other two nodded and shrugged apologetically.

"Anyway," Remus said, "as much as I'd like to learn more about how you two finally sorted yourselves out, we came in here because we wanted to warn you that you'll be receiving visitors in a moment."

"Oh, should I go?" Hermione asked.

"No, you know them," Remus said. A knock came a moment later, and the older man opened the door to reveal Susan with a cane in her right hand and her left arm being held by Neville.

"Hi, everyone." Sue's voice was raspy, probably due to how hard the poor woman had screamed earlier. "Harry, how are you doing? When I came 'round, Nev told me you'd taken a nasty curse."

Harry gave her a quick rundown of everything that had happened since she'd been hit. When he finished, Sue sighed. "I don't know whether you're the luckiest or unluckiest man on Earth, Harry."

"Luckiest," Harry said. "Hermione and I just decided we're in a relationship."

Hermione blushed, but Sue and Nev just looked at each other confusedly. "You mean you weren't?" Nev asked.

Sue nodded. "After she moved in with you, I thought, you know…"

"It's a long, kind of silly story," Hermione said.

"It turns out neither of us are very good at this sort of thing," Harry added.

Sirius raised his eyebrows at Hermione. "Implying your witch is bad at something is a risky move, Pup."

She shrugged. "It's a fair cop."

"Harry is pretty bad at relationships," Sue said. "Ginny eventually gave up on hints and just pulled that poor boy straight into a broom closet."

Nev coughed. "I…um…don't think you're supposed to talk about his ex in front of his current girlfriend. There's some sort of rule about that."

"I see it more as 'letting her know in advance what works,'" Sue said. "Sort of–" her right arm spasmed and she dropped the cane, but Nev clamped down on her other arm and kept her from falling. Remus moved shockingly fast and had the cane back in her hand a moment later.

"I'm sorry," Sue said. "Cruciatus aftereffects."

Harry winced. "I'm sorry about that. I didn't have an angle on Millie until after she hit you."

"It's not your fault, Harry," Sue said. "I should have kept moving, but the room was small enough that dodging wasn't much of an option. I do wish you hadn't killed her, though."

"But she tortured you!" Nev said. "I'm glad she's dead."

Sue shook her head firmly. "Regardless, she deserved a trial."

"Harry won't get in trouble, will he?" Hermione asked.

"Not a chance," Sue said. "No jury in the world would convict him. That just makes it even more important to use force carefully, though."

"I know," Harry said. "I think I have some unresolved issues from Fifth Year, to be honest. I heard you scream and I just lost control."

Everyone else except Hermione winced, which caused her to look around in confusion. "What's wrong?" she asked.

"Nobody," Nev said, "wants to be around when Harry loses control. His raw power scares the hell out of me sometimes."

"Yeah," Sue said. "There's a reason he's our designated breacher. I've yet to see a locking charm that can withstand him."

Hermione raised her eyebrows. "Is there anything else Harry should be bragging about to me that he almost certainly isn't?"

"Youngest Quidditch Seeker in a century at Hogwarts," Nev said immediately.

"Fought off five dozen Dementors Sixth Year and saved several hundred people," Sue added.

"Permanently killed Voldemort," Sirius said.

"We've already told her that one," Remus said.

"We probably undersold it, though. I mean, he was bloody–"

"Language," Hermione said automatically.

Sirius rolled his eyes and continued, "only twelve at the time. There should be a new level of Order of Merlin just for that."

"Or you could just call it the Order of Morgana," Sue said pointedly.

"Not this again," Remus muttered.

"I'm just saying–"

"Harry's nearly been killed just now." Nev held up his hands in a placating gesture. "Let's have this argument some other time."

"Fine," Sirius and Sue grumbled simultaneously.

"Anyway," Neville said, moving on with alacrity, "I think those are the highlights that Harry probably hasn't bragged about yet."

"She doesn't even know what Quidditch is," Harry said.

"I saw the poster of you in 12 Grimmauld Place," Hermione said.

Sue's arm spasmed, but not as badly this time and she held onto her cane. Nev still tensed his arm, though, to make sure he held her up. "You showed her that poster, Harry?" Sue and. "And here we thought you weren't bragging."

"It wasn't intentional!" Harry said, clearly trying to exclaim and not quite mustering enough energy for it. "She just happened to walk in and wanted to know what Quidditch was."

"Oh, suuu-rrrreee," Sue said. "That's all she was interested in about that poster."

"It's just a poster of me, my broom, a Golden Snitch, and the name of the team," Harry said. "What else is there?"

Sue smirked and turned to Hermione. "What colour were his trousers?"

"A deep brown leather, creased and worn as if they'd been used for hours at a time and, as a result, fit him perfectly," Hermione said immediately, heat rising to her face as she spoke.

"Those were comfortable trousers after the first month," Harry said.

Sue sighed and looked at Hermione. "Could you bonk him with your wand, please? Normally, this is where I'd do it, but I'm just not up to it."

Hermione smiled shyly, pulled out her wand, and bopped Harry gently on the head with it.

"Not bad," Sue said. "We'll have to work on your technique."

"That's not necessary," Harry said.

"Trust me, Hermione," Sue said. "He makes it necessary."

Nev sighed. "I only wish I could pull off those trousers."

"Don't get too down on yourself." Sue spasmed again, this time her right leg suddenly buckling. She and Nev managed to keep her upright, though. "You're no pro athlete, but you spend a lot of time in that garden."

"Gardening isn't particularly demanding."

"Says the man who hauls around one-stone sacks of dragon dung all day," Sue shot back.

"Yeah," Harry said, "I am definitely using this injury as an excuse to avoid helping Neville do any horticultural work for at least the next fortnight."

"That's eminently reasonable," Remus said, "especially since you need to be in good shape to fight off some of those plants."

"What?" Hermione said.

"I don't have that many man-eating plants," Nev said.

"Any number of those above zero is too many," Sirius said.

"And notice how he limited that statement to 'man-eating,'" Harry said. "The percentage of lethal plants is much higher."

"Humph," Nev said. "Someone has to keep a mandrake supply on hand in the UK because Merlin knows the Ministry isn't doing it."

Hermione looked around the room as everyone shuddered. "What happened?" she asked.

"Basilisk-related petrifications our Second-Year," Nev said. "We had to grow our own mandrakes at the school and it was months before we could un-petrify everyone."

"That's horrible!" Hermione said. "Those poor students missed months of classes?"

The rest of them looked at each other. "That's the first place her mind goes?" Sue asked. "Good luck, Harry."

"I think," Remus said, "that her commitment to her studies is laudable."

"Same here," Harry said, "and I think we've established that my opinion is the important one around here."

"He's got you there," Nev said as Hermione's cheeks heated up again.

Dobby interrupted the conversation just then by appearing directly in front of Hermione. "Minister Bonesy is coming!" he said.

"Oh!" Hermione said. "I'd better go." She kissed Harry's forehead and held out a hand to Dobby, who popped her straight back to Harry's floo room.

Now that she knew Harry had survived, she had a much easier time focusing on her studies for the next half-hour or so until she got the all-clear from Dobby to return. When she did, only Remus and Sirius remained in the room with the now-sound asleep Harry.

"Harry fell asleep a few minutes ago," Remus said. "We checked with the nurse that it was safe for him to sleep, and the Minister escorted her daughter and Nev back to Sue's room. There's an Auror guard out in the corridor now, but they won't disturb us unless there's an emergency."

"I see," Hermione said. "Can I wait here, then?"

"I don't see why not," Sirius said. "Dobby can pop you back and forth if any shows up."

"Will you be here?" Hermione asked. "I don't want to leave him alone."

"Yes," Sirius said. "I appreciate that you're so worried about him."

"I'm…um…more worried someone will try to kill him," Hermione said.

Remus and Sirius shared a look and a dark chuckle. "She catches on quickly," Remus said. "Yes, we'll be keeping an eye on the door, too."

"Oh, good," Hermione said. "I wouldn't be much good in a fight now, but I'm going to learn."

"Good," Sirius said. "Life with Harry will never be completely safe, so I'm glad you want to learn to defend yourself."

She locked eyes with the older man. "You misunderstand me. I'm going to learn so thoroughly that I can defend him in a fight, not the other way around."

Sirius and Remus shared another look, this time a broad grin. "Have I mentioned," Sirius said, "how glad I am that he kept her?"

Remus patted him on the shoulder. "It's cute you think he had a choice in the matter."