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Harry Potter And The Game of Death

Level 1

Chapter Fifteen: The First Three Flowers

Ginny sighed as she stared at her ceiling. Its unvarnished wooden planks were as familiar to her as the back of her own hand. Mostly because Ginny had spent more time staring at it than she would care to admit.

Her eyes flicked over to the Holyhead Harpies calendar set on the wall across from her bed. A wizarding photograph of the all-woman Quidditch team moved, showing the team captain making an incredible shot. But her eyes ignored it as she instead counted the number of days it had been since she returned home from Hogwarts.

Three weeks. Three weeks since she had last gone to classes. Three weeks since she had been surrounded by people of her own age.

But most importantly, it had been three weeks since she had last seen Harry Potter.

"Urgh!" Ginny groaned aloud as his handsome face appeared in her mind. She rolled onto her stomach, shoved her face into a lumpy pillow, and screamed into it. "Why do I feel like this? Why can't I get him out of my head?"

But it was a moot question. One born out of frustrations with things no longer under her control. For Ginevra 'Ginny' Weasley, only daughter and youngest child of seven, was hopelessly in love with Harry Potter.

Three years ago – hell, even two years ago – this sort of feeling would not have bothered her. If someone had told her younger self that she would be near the Harry Potter at school, that she would see him nearly every day, and be able to talk to him without stuttering or blushing like the sun, then Ginny's past selves would have squealed at the top of their lungs and jumped for joy.

But that Ginny had been young. Innocent. And naive as to the dark things which lurked within the magical world. That old her had died in the Chamber of Secrets, buried with the torn pages of the lying journal that had tormented her.

It had only been thanks to the help of Ginny's loving family, the medical professionals at St. Mungo's, and her best friend Luna Lovegood that she had made it through the previous summer. Her mother and father had showered her with attention, with her father even taking a week off from his work to spend time with her. Having both her father and her mother around had helped soothe some of Ginny's lingering pain in a way that only a parent's love could.

Meanwhile, the company of her bizarre, but well-meaning, trio of brothers in Fred, George, and Ron had been appreciated. Even if their attempts to console or cheer her had been ham fisted at best.

Ron had kept trying to challenge her to chess matches for the first time in almost five years, an activity in which she had less than zero interest. Meanwhile, the twins had decided that using Ron as an unwilling test subject for their joke ideas – and parading him around in front of her afterwards – would be their contribution to her recovery. Something which, though funny, had not been appreciated by either Ron or their parents.

Meanwhile, travelling to see their eldest brother, Bill, in Egypt had been an incredible event, while leaving Britain's moody shores for Egypt's sunny desert scenery had been a welcome change of pace.

Immediately after arriving in Egypt via a Ministry issued international portkey, Ginny had found herself swept off her feet and into a crushing hug. Bill had wasted no time in letting her know how thankful he was to have her there. And even though he had been unable to sneak her into any of the really cool cursed tombs thanks to their mother's ever watchful eye, Ginny had to admit she had really enjoyed herself. Meeting his latest boyfriend – a nice local boy by the name of Omari – had just been the icing on the cake.

As for her second eldest brother, Charlie had sent her letters from the dragon preserve in Romania every other day. Poorly written and often smeared with soot, his old Hogwarts professors would have given him a T for composition. Yet every message was as wild and fun as the man himself. Each had contained some obscure fact of dragon knowledge he was discovering in his job, or had a companion envelope attached with things like old dragon's teeth and claws that would have cost a fortune on the potion's market.

And as for her final brother, Percy… well, even the pompous git had tried in his own way. At least, she took his attempts to tutor her over the summer as such.

Since then Ginny had started to take control of her life. She had attacked her books with a passion and finished her summer assignments within a week, redone her whole look from scratch, and practised her spells at every possible opportunity. By the time her Second Year at Hogwarts came about it felt like she had become an entirely different person.

Perhaps as a result of this change, Ginny had noticed more boys checking her out when she walked down the corridor of the Hogwarts Express looking for Luna. The older girls like Penelope Clearwater and Alicia Spinnet still garnered more attention, but it was more than the grand total of zero that Ginny had gotten the year before. It had made her feel weird, yet also good. Very good. As though she were pretty and cute. And though she still only thought of Harry in that way, it was nice to know that other boys found her attractive.

But every bit of empowerment Ginny had gained from her changes over the summers had fled the moment when she had laid eyes upon him.

Seeing Harry's beautiful emerald eyes as he made his way down from the boy's dorm the next morning had literally driven the breath from Ginny's lungs. Every ounce of her body had screamed at her to run towards him, to take him into her arms and declare her undying love to him then and there. While they had been around each other at the Burrow over the summer, being in Hogwarts with him somehow changed everything.

Ginny was no longer an ignorant fool. Magic was clearly influencing the way she felt towards Harry. But she had no idea what it could be, nor why it was acting up now, and so had done her best to hold it in check while researching possible causes in Hogwarts' vast library.

It was during this time that she had gotten to know Hermione better. The bushy-haired girl was a fixture in the tome filled corridors of Hogwarts' library and had provided Ginny a sympathetic ear. Hermione had listened to Ginny's fears and provided a shoulder for the younger girl to cry upon.

Shortly before the end of term, the two had finally managed to create a list of plausible possibilities. A few shrewd questions placed to various professors had narrowed it down even further. And with one week to go, they had trimmed the list until only three possibilities remained: awakening to a previously dormant Veela bloodline awakening; possession by a new item or entity similar to the Journal; or the effects of a rare magical bond that bound her to the one she could not stop thinking about.

The first two options were highly unlikely. Ginny's Pureblood family tree, easily researched in the library, indicated an utter lack of Veela heritage. While the high levels of – justified – paranoia she had taken to when interacting with magical artefacts eliminated the second option. Which left only the third option as a possibility.

A possibility which was easily confirmed when she had researched the subject in depth.

Ginny had apparently gained something called a 'Life Debt' to Harry when he had saved her. And then, probably owing to her intense feelings towards him, the Life Debt had transformed into something called a Life Bond. A magical bond which bound her to him for the rest of her life and would mark him as the only person she could truly love in a romantic kind of way.

The book also mentioned that while it was possible to nullify the bond, doing so would be an incredibly difficult and resource intensive effort which would require the assistance of at least one person at the level of an Archmage.

Those revelations had been like a bombshell. An incensed Hermione had spluttered something about 'mind control,' 'chauvinistic magical nonsense,' and 'women's rights' before pacing up and down the library aisle until Madame Pince had loudly told the older girl to shush.

But after a minute spent digesting the information, Ginny found that she felt much differently.

If she had been bound to someone like Draco Malfoy, or even the sweet and kind Neville Longbottom, then Ginny would have felt sick to the pit of her stomach. She had never been interested in either and would have hated the idea of being forced to love them against her will.

Being bound to Harry, though, was different. Because he was the person whom Ginny had longed for since the first day she had seen him. So rather than feeling chained, having the Life Bond placed upon her felt like magic itself was giving her a helping hand.

Because by Morgana's icy name did Ginny need every bit of assistance she could get in that department.

Half of the girls in the school stared at Harry the moment he entered a room. They gossiped about how good he looked in his Quidditch robes; how striking his eyes were; and how he always seemed to be filled with confidence in himself. A few of the older girls would even comment on how he had nearly ripened, and Ginny was far from deaf to the many times Alicia and Angelina Johnson teased Katie Bell about what Harry's excellent broomstick skills indicated for night-time activities.

When compared to many of them Ginny knew that she fell short. She was pretty, but not beautiful like Daphne Greengrass or Susan Bones. And Ginny might have been rather athletic, but there were girls like Cho Chang and Katie Bell who were older, prettier, and just as sporty than her. And while Ginny was smart, Hermione was far smarter.

To make matters worse, Ginny had seen each of these girls look at Harry in ways which left little doubt in her mind that each one was a potential competitor for Harry's affections.

With that heart-numbing thought weighing heavily on her mind, Ginny turned her eyes away from the calendar and got up from the comfort of her bed. She made her way to the modest bathroom she shared with her brothers and took care of her morning routine with smooth efficiency. As she did, her mind switched to a related track as she prepared herself for what would come next.

The adventure she had gone on with Hermione and Harry at the end of the year had shown Ginny that she was not yet worthy to stand next to him. And that both he and Hermione were destined for a greatness that would drive anyone around them to either push themselves to keep up or to fall back and stare at their backs from afar.

Towelling her hair dry, Ginny made her way to the private study desk set in a cramped corner of her small room. Old textbooks and handwritten notes on subjects like Ancient Runes, Potions, and Alchemy lay stacked to one side. On the other were massive stacks of non-standard books, on subjects ranging from dragon biology to the history of Dark Lords in Europe.

Her family might have been poor, but an advantage to being poor was that you got in the habit of never throwing away something which could be of future use. And the various books belonging to her older brothers, three of whom had already graduated, had never been sold. Just in case a younger sibling one day found themselves in need of the material.

Which meant that Ginny had access to a sizeable home library. One which covered a vast range of highly practical subjects she could use in her drive to improve herself.

Ginny sat down at the desk and picked up a battered book which had once belonged to Bill. She opened it to a dog-eared page and picked up reading where she had left off the night before.

"The first complete stage of Occlumency," Ginny read aloud, "is the ability to completely shield one's thoughts behind an opaque barrier. Of the three major stages it is the easiest to achieve and can be done by most individuals with but a modicum of effort. But like all skills, it can be further improved, with the final goal being the attainment of a mind that feels like an open book to users of Legilimency yet is wholly beyond the influence of any outside source."

The loud thud of a book forcefully hitting a wall rang through the hotel room. As it did, Hermione swore at the top of her lungs without caring if anyone overheard her. "Buggering piece of shite! Why can't you be easier to understand?"

Hermione stared at the fallen book, her chest heaving from the strength of her anger.

As to why she was so angry, the reason was rather simple: for the first time in her life, she had found herself struggling with her assigned reading!

Such a thing had never happened to her before. In fact, the mere notion of it ever happening had been so far out of the realm of possibility that Hermione had never paid any thought to it. The mere concept that Hermione Jean Granger, avowed bookworm and near shut-in at the Hogwarts library, could be defeated by a pile of books… well, it was utter nonsense is what it was!

Hermione devoured books. Daily! It did not matter whether they were the weekly books her parents sent her to read or if they were esoteric treatises on the arcane written by some long dead witch or wizard two hundred years ago. All were consumed in turn and added to the sum of Hermione's knowledge with a fervour that bordered on the religious.

So to have finally encountered a situation which defied this logic was infuriating to the extreme.

Grumbling more curses under her breath, Hermione angrily glared at the stack of ancient tomes neatly placed on the hotel room's desk. The stack was the source of all her current frustration. She had spent the past several weeks trying to learn the various languages necessary to read their contents. And after hours upon hours of near fruitless studying, it felt like her head was on the verge of exploding.

A stray thought passed through Hermione's mind, which was that this was probably how Ron felt most of the time when studying for their classes. But whereas Ron's brain hurt when trying to absorb content designed for their age group, it had taken trying to learn the magical dialect of Ancient Greek within four weeks for Hermione's well-trained brain to turn to mush. And she had not even started on learning the magical dialects for Hebrew, Sanskrit, or Egyptian Hieroglyphics, let alone Linear A!

Oh, how she longed to start reading the sole book written using modern English – or even the book written in modern French – rather than breaking her brain on diacritics and irregular rules. But alas, both of those books presumed a working knowledge of the subject which Hermione did not yet possess.

At this moment she deeply regretted giving the Time Turner back to Professor McGonnagall at the end of term. With over thirty books to read, only one of which she had even begun, Hermione had begun to despair of meeting her goal of finishing everything before summer had come to an end.

But what was done was done and giving it up after the end of the year had been part of her agreement in using the Time Turner in the first place. She had already handed it in with a guilty conscience as it were, knowing that she had not held up to either the letter or the spirit of her agreement with the Head of Gryffindor.

A polite cough brought Hermione's distracted brain back to reality.

Emma Granger's dark brown eyes glittered with wry amusement as she studied her daughter. "You know deary, back when I was studying my Greek and Latin at Harrogate, I wanted to toss my books like that too. But – and this might sound absolutely crazy to you – I seem to recall having refrained from actually doing so."

Hermione felt her face flush at her mother's chiding tone. "Oh hush, mum. The books are spelled with protections which make it impossible to damage them from a little toss," she answered tartly.

"Huh. My younger self really would've loved to have been able to throw books like that. But more importantly, darling, is it really the book that's frustrating you? Or could it be that something else is bothering your brilliant little mind?"

Hermione's shoulders hunched at the pair of questions. This was a topic she had been trying to avoid broaching with her parents all summer long. Because while she had told her parents that the books had been assigned to her by the Headmaster as part of a special project, she had avoided telling them exactly why she was so dead set on learning this material.

After all, telling your parents that you were delving into possibly forbidden, dangerous schools of magic in order to save the boy you have a crush on was not exactly the easiest conversation to start.

After a moment's hesitation, Hermione rolled her eyes and sighed. "Maybe a bit of both, mum. It's… complicated."

Hermione's mother raised a delicate eyebrow in response. "And it's not something that your poor, elderly, non-magically educated Muggle of a mother could help you with?"

"No! I didn't mean it like that at all, mum!" Hermione huffed in exasperation. Her parents did not usually seem to be bothered by their lack of a place within the magical community, but sometimes, like right now, Hermione was not so sure. "It's… it's… well, honestly, part of it you really wouldn't understand. Not without education in esoteric branches of magical theory, at least. But part of it, um, you might."

"Good! That sounds like something I can work with." Emma gently patted an open spot on the bed next to her and motioned for Hermione to start moving. "Now go fetch that poor book and place it back on the desk where it belongs. Then come and join me up on the bed."

Hermione did as she was bid, her hands fidgeting nervously as she handled the ancient tome. After bookmarking her place and setting it down far more gently than she would have had she been alone, Hermione hopped up onto the bed next to her mother and examined the woman intently.

Emma Granger had a simple charm to her which shone through even at the age of forty-four. She had soft brown hair, gorgeous brown eyes, and a figure that could captivate men twenty years younger. Hermione's father, Dan, would often bemoan how no one paid any attention to him when his wife was around, and a recurring joke of his involved him begging Hermione to never become a woman like her mother lest he disappear into the background entirely.

Telling that joke had earned the man more than a few mild swats to his shoulder from both women over the years, but his loving sentiment never failed to bring a warm glow to either of their hearts. He was silly and often bizarre, but he really did love his wife and daughter in his own weird way. Emma often said that the man's continued use of the joke just demonstrated she had yet to properly house-train him, to which Dan would come up with some cheeky response which often led to the two adults disappearing to their room for a while.

Yet deep down, every time Hermione heard her father make that joke, a part of her worried that his wish might come true. That she would never blossom into a beautiful woman like her mother and stay a plain, boring girl forever.

As if knowing what her daughter was thinking, Emma reached out and tucked an errant piece of hair behind Hermione's ear. "Oh honey, you shouldn't worry about how you look. You are the kindest, gentlest soul I have ever known, and you are not nearly as unattractive as you might think."

"You're just saying that because you're my mum," Hermione said with a pout. This was not the first time she had heard the woman say such, and she was no longer a six-year-old child who believed everything her mother said.

"Nope!" Emma said with a chortle. "For while I may be your mother and have a mother's pride in you, my dear, I have evidence to prove me right."

"Evidence? What sort of evidence could you possibly…" Hermione's voice trailed off as she felt her eyes widen in horror. "Oh no. Please don't mean you know about last summer!"

Emma's eyes sparkled as she bit her lower lip in glee. "Well, I was only going to refer to how those two young boys in the lobby had their eyes glued to your bottom when we first arrived here, but if you want to talk about your little kiss last summer…"

"No! Nope, nu uh, not at all, mum. It never happened." Her face blushing scarlet, Hermione tried to bury her head into her arms. "It was just a dumb moment is all it was. He said that he was leaving the next day, and that he thought that I was pretty, and that he wanted to give me a present before he left. I didn't think that what he what he really meant was…"

"That he wanted to kiss you?"

"Yes! That!" Hermione pushed herself away from her mother so that she could gesture wildly with her arms. "After all, it's – it's not like I was really interested in him or anything. We had only known each other for a few days. And it's not like tha-that, erm, kiss, went on for very long either."

Emma's amused smile at her daughter's expense was wide enough to split the moon. The woman's eyes danced with mirth as she continued to tease her daughter mercilessly. "Oh, my apologies honey. I didn't realize that gently kissing for nearly five minutes, taking a break to catch your breath, and then snogging for another ten minutes under a full moon wasn't considered long anymore. Times really have changed since I was young."

"How do you even… Oh, my, gosh! Mum! Were you spying on me?"

"Not at all. I prefer to think of it as cataloguing my daughter's romantic escapades for future recall."

"You were! You really were spying on me!"

"Oh, hush, deary, it's not that big of a deal. Parents all over the world do it when their underage children sneak out of their hotel room close to midnight." Emma's tone had a little bit of an edge at that part, and hearing it made Hermione wince in remembered shame over her little misdeed. "Besides, I could have interrupted you in the middle of it instead of keeping quiet until now. Would you have preferred that scenario?"

Hermione opened her mouth to respond, only to find that nothing came out of it. Her tired brain must have been reaching its limit because she was unable to come up with any sort of rebuttal to her mother's suggestion. All she could manage was to mutter a sullen 'no' and shut her mouth with an audible click.

Feeling as if her face was aflame, Hermione brought her knees up to her chest in order to completely hide her face from sight. That night, as much fun as it had been, was really something that Hermione wanted to forget. She had wanted her first kiss to mean something. To come from the boy she had a crush on, and who she thought might like her as well.

But instead she had just gone and given it away to some… some stranger she had met while on holiday with her parents.

The boy in question had been charming. Tall for their age, but with mottled green eyes and dark black hair that had reminded Hermione of someone else. His name had been something common, like James or Arthur, and had not stuck in her mind once the summer had ended.

The kiss, though… that had been nice. So nice that Hermione had lost herself in it. She had wrapped her arms around his neck, imagining that she was locking lips with the boy of her dreams instead of the boy holding her in his arms. But after several minutes of pure bliss, when Hermione had pulled back to look into Harry's brilliant green eyes, the mottled green orbs which had greeted her gaze had dashed the illusion and brought Hermione crashing back into reality.

She had fled the area shortly after, managing to wish the boy a safe trip before running back to her hotel room in a blind panic. That had been the night Hermione had realized that she fancied her best friend. A revelation which had nearly caused her heart to burst when next she saw him, and one which still caused her body to heat up whenever he came near.

Damn puberty for making her like this! The next day and many days thereafter, Hermione had bitterly cursed the fact that women went through puberty sooner than boys.

After soliciting advice from her mother about the medical perspective on puberty, Hermione had gone so far as to look up the subject in Hogwarts' library at the beginning of the term. But aside from learning a few handy spells, like the anti-pregnancy and lubrication charms, Hermione had learned that long-term magic dealing directly with the more subtle mechanics of a living organism's body was generally forbidden. And that thus far no one had managed to develop a spell that would stop or ameliorate the effects of hormones.

On a side note, Hermione had been quite angered that no one had told her about the Charm to reduce the pains caused by a woman's menstrual flow. Finding out that it was apparently common knowledge amongst witches, and that everyone else had assumed she too knew of it, was just the cherry on top of an already infuriating pie.

Regardless, the reason why such spells were generally forbidden was related to when Lockhart had vanished the bones in Harry's arm back in their second year. For while hexes and Charms and Transfiguration spells that temporarily affected living organisms were commonplace, actual healing spells and long-term rituals which could permanently change a person's body often carried massive risks if done improperly. Minor healing charms were usually the limits of what most witches and wizards could do without causing something like Lockhart's mishap.

"Judging by your look, honey, it seems like you've tried to retreat into your head to calm yourself down. Something which is rather suspicious when talking about a boy that means nothing to you." Emma narrowed her eyes as she gazed at her daughter. "Hm… Unless I miss my guess, that probably means there's another charming young man involved. Such as a certain boy with, oh, I don't know, brilliant green eyes and a mop of shaggy black hair?"

Hermione's head rose as she gaped in shock at her mother, aghast that she had been seen through so easily. "Ho-how did you figure that out so quickly? I haven't told that to anyone! And no one else has said anything about it to me either."

Emma gave another soft laugh and shook her head in amusement. "It's because I'm your mother, deary. As well as being a far more experienced woman at this sort of thing than you."

The older woman then leaned in close to poke her daughter's side right where it was ticklish, causing Hermione to jump. "Besides," Emma said with poorly hidden glee. "The way you were looking at him when we picked you up at the platform a few weeks ago was a dead giveaway. I'd heard of making cow eyes before, but I'd never really seen it until I saw the expression brought to life on your face."

Hermione groaned. Had she really been that obvious? She had been so certain that no one knew about the feelings she had for her best friend. Not even Ginny, who watched Harry like a hawk, or Lavender, who seemed to always know whenever a new couple was formed at Hogwarts, had managed to puzzle it out.

Undeterred by her daughter's embarrassment, Emma patted Hermione's arm excitedly and scooted closer. "Now tell me all about him. Have you talked to him about it yet? Held hands? Or kissed him? I only know him as the nice boy you hang out with, not as possible boyfriend material, and I want to hear all of the juicy details!"

After moaning into her hands once again and wondering how she had gotten dragged into this discussion in the first place, Hermione began to talk. Slowly at first. The constant interruptions from her mother, in the forms of questions or high-pitched squeals of joy, kept breaking Hermione's momentum.

After several minutes of this behaviour, though, Hermione eventually reached her fill. She levelled a glare at the woman who was not acting her age at all, and whose expression was currently like that of a child who had found themselves locked away inside a chocolate factory. "As I was saying, mum," Hermione bit out in annoyance. "Yes, I do think that Harry has a shapely rear. And I love his hair, and the way his shoulders look so broad, and how beautiful his green eyes look in any sort of lighting, as well as everything else about his body I can see or touch. But none of those are the reason why I like him!"

"Then what is the reason? Because as things go, you're already making him sound like quite the dish," Emma said in a throaty tone Hermione had never heard the woman use before. "I'm surprised you haven't tried to eat him up."

Eat him up? Like a meal? Or dessert? Hermione glared at her mother and thought about stopping there. It would serve the older woman right for having pushed her when Hermione had said not too.

But after a few seconds of contemplation Hermione chose to continue speaking. Because while she really did feel annoyed at her mother, Hermione also felt grateful. Talking about her feelings with someone else like this felt… good. To finally get it out of her head and off her chest with someone who would not judge her for feeling the way that she did.

Hermione told her mother everything. She spoke about how her heart had soared when Harry had risked his life to save her from the troll in their first year at Hogwarts. About how kind he was, and how brave, even though he often thought that he was neither. And that no matter what happened, how Harry always tried to do what was right. Even if it meant that the entire school hated him or called him names.

Her mother had already heard part of these stories; Hermione had written regarding the Troll incident the very next day and there had been no way to hide what had happened as a result of the Basilisk. Not with how often she and her parents wrote one another. But Hermione had only gone over it in letters and not even her own exhaustive writing could contain every detail.

As she spoke, Hermione thought about how similar her words sounded to the ones Ginny had voiced during a similar conversation in Hogwarts' library. The young red-head's admiration for their mutual love interest had followed along the exact same lines as Hermione's own. And not for the first time, Hermione wondered if not telling Ginny about her own attraction to Harry had been wrong. Because while Hermione had not told a lie, she had still omitted the truth.

She mentioned as much to her mother and found herself surprised by the woman's reaction.

Emma groaned and flopped backwards onto the bed, flinging a hand over her eyes. "It's the Granger curse yet again!" She sighed dramatically and waved her other hand in the air. "What you're saying sounds just like what happened with your father and I when we first met in undergrad."

Hermione's ears perked up at that; she had heard the story of how her parents met more than once, but neither of them had ever mentioned something like a love triangle being involved.

But before Hermione could pursue it any further her mother waved it off. "We can talk about ancient history later, deary. It's a long story and one filled with quite a lot of sex and drama. For now, tell me more about this Ginny girl and why she's interested in Harry. Then I can begin helping you figure out how to show him why you're the better choice!"

"But… no! That's not what I want." Hermione said as she shook her head.

"It's not?" For the first time since the discussion began, Emma Granger had a look of confusion on her face.

Hermione gulped. Here it was. The moment of truth, and the real reason why she had not told anyone about her feelings up until now. "Because… well… what if… what if I really don't want that to happen?" Hermione said softly. "What if, I, uh, want a third option instead?"

This was the crux of the matter when it came to her feelings regarding her best friend. The secret she had not shared with anyone and the real reason why Hermione felt guilty about not talking to Ginny about their shared attraction to Harry.

But this moment, with her mother, felt like an opportunity for her to finally give voice to it. So in the most timid voice she had used since before she had gone to Hogwarts and discovered her place in the world, Hermione gave voice to a desire she had buried deep within herself. "What if, for some reason, I would be okay if he were to… if Harry were to date both of us. At the same time. And with both of our consent."

At her side, Hermione's mother slowly sat upright. The older woman raised her hands and gently placed them on her daughter's shoulders, staring deep into her daughter's eyes. "Hermione, sweety. I know we've already had a talk about having sex, and what you should do when you feel attracted to someone, so I have a very important question to ask of you. And I need you to be totally honest with me about it."

Hermione nodded her head. "Of course, mum."

A pause settled on the air. Then Emma Granger blurted her question out with all the grace of an elephant doing ballet. "Are you gay? Or bi-sexual? Because if you are, then that's totally okay with me! Your father and I will love you no matter what."

Hermione's jaw dropped. She whipped her head from side to side in response to her mother's barrage of questions. "No! Not that there's anything wrong with it, mind you, but, urk, no! I mean, while I do find other girls, on a purely aesthetic level, to be pretty, especially if I see them… argh! I mean, no, I do not really find girls attractive in that particular way!"

Emma shrugged and let her hands fall from Hermione's shoulders. "Oh well. I really got my hopes up for a moment there, but I guess you didn't inherit that from your father or me after all."

"You-what-huh?"

Her mother's blasé delivery of such an enormous revelation is what finally did it. Hermione's already faltering brain, overburdened from studying and the baring of her heart to her mother, completely shut down as she stared at the older woman in slack-jawed disbelief.

But instead of going into more detail regarding the enormous bomb she had just dropped, the woman in question just waved off Hermione's shock once again and refused to address it. "Like I said earlier, honey, we're here to talk about you and not about myself or your father. I'll tell you all about my past – and your father's too – some other time, but for now I'd like to hear more about you. I just wanted to let you know that whatever you tell me will not come as a shock, and that I'll support your love life no matter how you decide to pursue it."

Feeling as though her entire world had just turned upside down – for never in a million years had Hermione ever expected that sort of a revelation to come from her mother's mouth – Hermione nodded rather dumbly in acceptance.

On the positive side of things, Hermione's giant revelation, which she had worried over for the past year, no longer felt so scary. Because if both her mother and her father, apparently, were attracted to members of the same and opposite sexes and had found a way to make things work for nearly twenty years of marriage… it somehow made her own issue felt like small potatoes in comparison.

As it turned out her mother actually was thrown for a loop when Hermione told her about it. But Emma got back on the horse fairly quickly and helped Hermione to talk things through. And it turned out that the woman had loads of advice on the subject. Words that Hermione committed to memory and thought to use as the basis for how to make her own move on Harry in the future.

Even if the oddest part of the whole situation, which had reduced her oddly experienced mother to tears of laughter, was that Hermione would somehow need to persuade Harry that consensually dating more than one girl at the same time was actually okay.

It was a backward idea. And one which would not find much acceptance in either the Muggle or Magical worlds. But with a little bit of luck – and a bucketful of hard work – Hermione was confident that she could convince Harry to give it a go. Because while over half of Hogwarts might have been interested in dating Harry Potter, with many of the girls being sexier or better looking than her, Hermione had two giant advantages over all of them.

Several hours later a teary eyed – but happy – Hermione went back to her studying with a vengeance. She would succeed in figuring out what was behind the Game of Death. Even if taking the time to learn the languages and read the material Dumbledore had given her wound up taking twenty years, she would still accomplish it!

But perhaps just as importantly, Hermione would use this coming year to finally make her move on the green-eyed boy of her dreams. She was done with waiting and hiding her feelings. And if everything went according to the plan she was even now beginning to draw up in her mind, then Hermione would not be the only one to find happiness in his arms.

Though a small word of warning from her mother on the subject did stick with her. Which was that if Hermione and Ginny agreed to share Harry, they would need to be careful lest some strumpet, think that they, too, could get in on things and try to steal Harry away.

Far away, in the warmth of Costa Rica, a riotous crowd of wizards and witches filled a modest stadium. Banners bearing the faces and figures of serious looking youths draped down from the ceiling, moving about in the way that wizarding world photos did. While at the centre of the stadium, where one might expect a sporting event to be held, three of the youths on the banners clutched their wands and stood before three raised podiums.

"Behold, ladies and gentlemen, your International Youth Duelling Champion of 1994!" A loud, boisterous voice called out. The crowd of witches and wizards howled and hollered as the announcer continued to speak. "This year's champion should come as no surprise. After all, she's both brilliant and bewitching, and has been the number one ranked duellist on the circuit for two years running! Now give a warm welcome to the one! The only! Fleeeeeeuuur Delacour!"

Smiling, the young woman in question waved her hand as the crowd went wild at her introduction. Men and women alike screamed her name, some having to be restrained by the stadium's security as they attempted to rush onto the stage. Ignoring their antics, she stepped onto the champion's podium with a single graceful step, raising her wand high in victory.

But while the international crowd of wizards and witches continued to cheer and chant her name, Fleur found that her mind was already far away. This stage was but one of many in her life and represented only a small step on her future path towards success. And a larger, far more prestigious stage was looming on the horizon.

Fleur's dazzling smile gleamed under the bright lights as she imagined her coming glory in England. The title of Tri-Wizard Champion would be hers, and none would be allowed to stand in her way.

A/N: I tried to approach each of the three girls featured in this chapter in different ways, with takes on each that I have either never or only rarely seen done in fan fiction. Please keep in mind that it is also only the tip of the iceberg for each of them.

Until Next Time,

Elsil