Hey all! Today feels like a good day to finally upload my most popular oneshot to this site. Some of you may have come across it already even if you don't frequent AO3, as I know it has been recommended on the subreddits, but for everyone who hasn't seen this before, I hope you enjoy!
Disclaimer: The first italicized paragraph here is directly from Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. The italicized paragraph and italicized quotes later on are directly from Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. I own no canon content and have no financial incentive nor benefit for writing or posting this story.
On the third anniversary of the night they encountered Fluffy, Hermione found herself reflecting on the details of that evening, and on one detail in particular. She had read a book over the summer about wand lore, but the details in the book didn't line up entirely with her experience.
"Oh, move over." She grabbed Harry's wand, tapped the lock, and whispered, "Alohomora!" The lock clicked and the door swung open.
That had been the first time she performed the spell, and it worked just as perfectly as it would have had she used her own wand. By all of the accounts of wandmakers and other experts, that shouldn't have happened.
"Harry?" Both Harry and Ron looked up from where they were bent over their first Potions essay of the year. "Never mind."
"Everything alright?" he asked.
"Yeah," she replied, keeping her tone uncertain enough to prompt the intended reaction.
Sure enough, when Ron gave up for the night and went up to bed, Harry stayed behind. "Is something the matter?" he asked her when only the two of them were left in the darkened common room.
"I'm not sure. Could I try something with your wand for a sec?"
"Er, alright." He passed her his wand, and she aimed at the armchair beside the fireplace.
"Wingardium Leviosa." Sure enough, the armchair rose into the air just as easily as if she'd used her own wand.
"Are you rearranging the furniture?"
"No." She carefully lowered the chair back into its place. Then she handed Harry back his wand, along with her own. "Try the spell with my wand."
"Okay." He did so without any issue.
"We're not supposed to be able to do that."
"What?"
"Use each other's wands so well." At his blank look, she turned fully towards him. "Didn't Ollivander tell you something along those lines when you bought your wand? How many others did you have to try before you found the one that worked right for you?"
"Quite a few. He said that 'the wand chooses the wizard.'"
"Or witch. But exactly, Harry. So why is it that our wands don't distinguish between the two of us?"
"Er, I have no idea."
She sighed. "Nor do I. I'm going to write to Ollivander."
The wandmaker's response, however, only made her more perplexed. As she had suspected, her and Harry's situation was very irregular. There should have been, at a minimum, some resistance when they attempted to use each other's wands. Instead, the wands seemed to think that they were the same person, a single entity of magic within two separate physical bodies.
He mentioned the theory of soulmates, but confessed that he didn't know much about it, and that Hermione would have to look elsewhere for her research. So, that became her next order of business, and she scoured the library that she already knew so well. But what little information she found was all purely speculative, as there was no hard evidence that the concept of soulmates was anything more than a romantic figure of speech.
But then Harry's name came out of the Goblet of Fire, and Hermione, well, panicked.
"I'm not going to get this," he said sullenly, sitting on a desk in the empty classroom they had commandeered for the past few hours while she tried to teach him the summoning charm. It was nearly midnight, two nights before the first task. He had been trying with both his own wand and hers, but he just couldn't manage the spell for whatever reason.
She bit her lip, turning over an idea she had been thinking about for the past week. It was entirely theoretical and highly risky, but if they really were soulmates with a single pool of magic between them, it should work.
"There's something we could try," she said, but it was so quiet that it was barely audible to herself, never mind him.
"What?"
She hesitated. "There's a ritual. I could have it set up by tomorrow night."
"What sort of ritual?"
"Something to help you in the tournament. It would be like when you use my wand, only it would also give you my understanding of how to cast each spell."
"Your understanding? How would that work?"
"Well, we each have our own brains, obviously, but according to our wands, we have the same magic. If this is true, the ritual could broaden the bond so that not just our magic is shared, but also our understanding of magic. You would have access to all of my knowledge and skill at casting spells, and vice versa."
He blinked several times as he contemplated her words. "So, basically, it would make me a lot smarter."
"When it comes to magic, yes. And I would also learn some things that you've managed to do, like casting a patronus."
"Still, it doesn't feel very fair. I would gain a lot more from this than you would."
"It's not about fairness, Harry. I would do anything to help you survive this bloody tournament."
He stared at her, his jaw falling open a bit.
"Oh come off it, that can't be surprising to you."
He closed his mouth, but it was several seconds before he said anything. "So, you're going to set up this ritual?"
"Yes, but there's something that I need you to do first."
"And what's that?"
"I need you to open the Chamber of Secrets."
Her heartbeat accelerated steadily as the hour of Harry's arrival drew nearer. She had no idea what might happen if this ritual didn't work, but she found herself worrying more about what it would mean if it did work.
And it didn't settle her nerves at all that she had to set the ritual up so close to the carcass of a giant serpent that nearly killed him, the same monster that petrified her. But rituals were strongest underground, closest to the ley lines within the Earth that were the source of most magical power, and the chamber was located further underground than anywhere else she could access.
Finally, he arrived. His eyes stayed on the basilisk for a while before scanning the floor in front of her, where she had drawn various runes using a dark-purple potion.
Then he looked at the rune that was drawn on her forehead and cheeks. "What is that?"
"It's the triquetra. I have to draw it on you as well."
"Alright." He took a deep breath, looking at the runes on the floor again. "You're sure about this?"
"Yes."
"Okay then."
She dipped her fingers into what was left of the potion and drew the runes on his face. His skin felt hot beneath her fingers, and she felt the ridges of his scar as she covered it with the rune on his forehead.
"It feels strange," he muttered.
"Ritual magic always feels strange." When she was certain she had the runes just right, she lowered her hand and stepped back from him.
"What's next?"
"Well..." Now it was her turn to take a deep breath. "With regards to the next step, there's good news and bad news."
He grimaced. "What's the good news?"
"The good news is that we don't have to look at each other."
He blinked. "Why is that good?"
Her heart was pounding now. "Because the bad news is that we can't be wearing anything."
He stared. "Why?"
"Well, technically, we could keep our clothes on, but there will be so much magic flowing around us that there's a high chance they could catch on fire."
"Right then, clothes off it is." He turned away from her and began stripping. Her eyes widened, and she immediately spun away.
"Are you ready?" she asked when she was done.
"Yes."
"Okay then." She swallowed. "I'm going to start."
"Go for it."
She began chanting the litany she had memorized. Immediately, the runes on her face began to feel ice cold, but she didn't let that stop her.
"Hermione?" he asked uncertainly, no doubt feeling the cold as well.
She ignored him and kept chanting.
"Hermione, something's wrong."
This caused her to pause, and she turned to him. He turned as well, showing that while the runes on his cheeks had turned white, the one on his forehead was now as black as tar.
That wasn't right.
She kept chanting, watching the black rune. As light emanated from the white runes on his cheeks and all of the runes on the floor around them, darkness emanated from the black one.
She realized that there was something very wrong with his scar.
Suddenly, there was a sound like thunder. The light from the runes around them filled their vision, the magic heating up as it flowed around their bodies and coalesced between them. But the darkness reached out from the tainted rune, trying to mingle with the light. And she felt it, something deeply evil that touched their shared magic.
She watched in horror as the darkness spread over the coalesced light, trying to consume their power.
"ACCIO BASILISK FANG!" Harry roared, reaching his hand out towards the carcass of the snake. Their shared magic pulsed, causing the darkness to shrink away from it. One of the snake's fangs flew into the air, but it wasn't heading for Harry. The spell had come from their magic, not his, and that magic was currently not contained within their bodies. The deadly fang sailed right towards the heart of the light.
Fortunately, Harry was an incredibly talented seeker, and he managed to catch the fang just before it touched the light. Redirecting it, he thrust it into the darkness that was flowing from his scar. There was an awful scream, and then the darkness dissipated.
Then the light went into their bodies, leaving them standing there, all of the runes faded away. Hermione let out a breath, mentally exhausted.
"Did it work?" Harry asked.
"You successfully performed a summoning charm," she pointed out.
"Oh yeah."
"And without a wand, no less." She looked at him, and her eyes went wide as she realized how much of him she could see. She quickly spun away again. "Turn your back."
"Er, right." He did so.
Trying something, she reached out her hand. "Accio my robe." The robe flew towards her, and she caught it.
"I felt that," he said.
She frowned. "You didn't use to feel it when I cast spells."
"No." He summoned his own robe, and she felt the tug on her magic.
"And I felt that." She considered it. "Maybe it's because we're not using wands to focus our magic." Walking over to the rest of her clothes, she grabbed her wand and summoned the basilisk fang that he had dropped. "Did you feel that?"
"No."
She nodded at the expected answer. "We should stick with using our wands, then."
Once they were both dressed, Harry began gathering fangs from the monster.
"What are you doing?"
"They might be useful tomorrow."
"You're going to try to poison the dragon?"
He shrugged. "If all else fails."
She sighed. "Fine, but only as a last resort."
He nodded. Once he had crammed a dozen fangs into his pockets, he pulled out the invisibility cloak. "Come on, let's go."
She followed him out of the chamber. "Close," he said to the door, and the chamber sealed itself.
She blinked. "I thought you had to give the instructions in parseltongue."
"I do."
"But you didn't just now."
He stared at her. "Yes, I did."
She met his stare for a long moment, and then turned to the door. "Open." The stone serpents sprang into action, and the chamber opened once more.
"You can speak parseltongue now?"
She stared at the door. "I suppose... Parseltongue is magic, isn't it? It's part of the mental component to magic that we share now."
"Right," he muttered.
"Close," she told the door, and the chamber closed again. They continued on, and she averted her gaze from the bones that littered the floor.
Then she sighed when she saw the pipe, and eyed the two brooms that leant against the wall beside it. Last night had been another reminder that she was terrible at flying, and tonight surely wouldn't go any better.
As she followed Harry upwards, however, she found that her broom was far more obedient to her wishes.
So, she could fly now, not that she wanted to.
When they reached the top, Harry closed the hidden entrance and then threw the cloak over them. She stepped close so that they were both completely covered, and found her face heating up. She was used to being so close to him beneath the cloak, of course, but the fact that she now knew what the body beneath his clothes looked like made their proximity suddenly feel very different.
But now was definitely not the time for such thoughts.
"Harry!" She threw herself at him as soon as she saw him, wrapping her arms around him tightly.
He grunted. "My shoulder, Hermione."
"Oh, sorry!" She moved so that she wasn't pressing against the injured shoulder, but didn't loosen her grip on him. She had felt the pulls on her magic as he used her repertoire of spells to distract the dragon while he tried to fly past it. Twice, it had looked like he would be burnt to death by the fire, and she had felt like she would die if he did.
She couldn't lose him.
Abruptly, he stilled in her embrace, and she pulled back enough to follow his gaze over to where Ron had entered the tent behind her. Ron's face was almost white, but it shifted rapidly towards red as he eyed his former best friends in their prolonged embrace. "Reckon I might have missed something," he said darkly.
"Reckon you might have done," Harry replied coldly, showing no interest in correcting Ron's obvious misconception. "That happens when you call your friends liars and abandon them."
Ron's face darkened more, and he stormed back out of the tent.
Hermione's elation faded a little, as she realized that any hopes of a reconciliation between Harry and Ron were likely crushed for good. But she couldn't feel entirely bad about it, as there had definitely been a thrill to having Harry all to herself these past few weeks. It was much easier to just be friends with him than it was to be friends with both him and Ron, as Ron was often callous and sometimes outright cruel to her, and there was no question that she would never attempt to be his friend were it not for Harry.
But Ron didn't matter anymore. Harry was all hers now, and she would keep doing whatever she could to protect him.
Well, he wasn't completely all hers. His crush on Cho Chang persisted. This put her in a bit of a dilemma when the Yule Ball was announced.
She had noticed the little flirtations between Cho and Cedric Diggory in the Great Hall, and she was sure that Harry had not. And she knew that Harry would drag his feet on asking Cho to the ball. But she wanted her best friend to be happy, and he deserved to have a chance with his crush.
"Hi, Cedric."
The sixth-year looked at her in surprise. "Hello, Hermione."
"I would like to ask you some questions, if you don't mind. Could we go for a walk, perhaps?"
Cedric glanced at the group of girls who had been trying to talk to him, and were now glaring daggers at Hermione. "Certainly."
Just as she had done with Harry weeks earlier, she led him out of the castle and down towards the lake. It was significantly colder now than it had been then, but he took care of that by placing warming charms on both of them.
"Thank you."
"You're welcome." He gazed out across the lake, not looking at anything in particular. "So, what did you want to ask me?"
"That transfiguration that you used against the dragon was very clever. Was that a N.E.W.T.-level spell?"
"It's O.W.L.-level. Although, based on what I've heard about you, I suspect you'll have it mastered by the end of term."
"You've heard about me?"
"Of course I have. It's quite rare that one student gets top marks in almost every class each year. And to hear Professor Vector tell it, you could figure out a complex arithmantic equation faster than most anyone in the school, regardless of level." He looked at her appraisingly.
She felt herself go pink. "To be fair, I had a head start with arithmetic in my Muggle primary school."
"I see. Well, in the off-chance that I'm Head Boy next year, it's good to know that at least one of the new prefects will be perfectly capable of performing her duties."
Hermione felt a thrill at the prospect of becoming a prefect next year, something she had been eager for throughout her time at Hogwarts. She knew that she and Harry were the obvious selections for the roles, but she wasn't willing to imitate Cedric's certainty until they had the badges in hand. "I hope so."
They fell into comfortable quiet for a little while as they continued around the lake, and then he spoke again. "I appreciate how much time you put into helping Harry prepare for the first task. I was quite worried about him facing the horntail."
Hermione swallowed, not particularly keen to remember that. "You and me both."
"The two of you make quite a good team, you know."
She caught the bit of cheek in his tone. "Don't get the wrong idea. We're just friends."
The cheek emerged fully now. "Are you?"
"Yes." She pursed her lips. "He fancies someone else."
Cedric's face fell. "I see. Well, I'm sure he'll realize what he's missing."
"It's not like that," Hermione insisted. "That's why what I really wanted to ask you is..." She took a breath. "Would you go to the Yule Ball with me?"
He stopped walking and turned to her, and she turned to face him. He was scrutinizing her, searching for her motive. This surprised her, considering how popular he was with girls. Was it really so difficult to believe that she might harbor a secret crush on him?
He was certainly handsome enough.
"All of those girls you saved me from wanted me to ask them to the ball, and yet here you are, taking it upon yourself to ask me the question."
She shrugged. "I'm a Muggle-born."
A small smile crossed his face. "I'm not quite sure how that explains it, but fine. You know, there is someone else that I was considering asking."
Again, she shrugged. "I asked first. But if you really have your heart set on that person..."
He scrutinized her again. "Harry wants to ask her, doesn't he? You're attempting to divert his competition."
Hermione's face fell, and she looked out over the lake. She should have realized how transparent this would be to someone who was three years older and far less naïve than her usual companion.
"Well, I suppose that I owe him for telling me about the dragons."
She swallowed. "If you really like Cho, then..."
He smiled wistfully, looking down. "There's no telling how she would have responded to me. But here you are, ulterior motive or not."
Hermione was quite sure that Cho would accept Cedric's offer in an instant. But...
"Yes, Hermione, I'll take you to the ball."
As the event approached, her anticipation grew. She and Cedric mutually decided not to reveal that they would be going together, as there would likely be an uproar over the prospect of the elder, pureblood Hogwarts champion dating a young, Muggle-born witch. The more she thought about it, however, the more intriguing the prospect became.
He was handsome, as she had already observed, but more than that, he was mature and experienced. She didn't overly fancy him, but she also knew that her first relationship was highly unlikely to be her last. Her parents had gotten lucky in that regard, meeting at the start of uni and both deciding within weeks that they wanted to spend their lives together, but she knew that sort of fortune was not a genetic trait. Logically, what she should be looking for right now in a boy was not a future husband, but rather a tutor in the skills of romance. And Cedric could make quite a good instructor.
So she was quite excited by the time she did one last check of herself in the mirror, standing at the sink beside the hidden entrance of the Chamber of Secrets. Lavender and Parvati had been increasingly persistent in trying to get her to reveal the identity of her date, so she decided to complete her preparations here before meeting Cedric in the Entrance Hall.
"What do you think?" she asked Moaning Myrtle, who was hovering above her usual stall, shooting Hermione a jealous glare. Hermione had tried the approach of being nicer to the ghost, but that had done nothing to diminish Myrtle's tendency towards jealousy and resentfulness.
And right now, considering how Hermione looked and her agenda for the evening, Myrtle was particularly jealous. "If you wore that in my time, you would be regarded as a scarlet witch," she said bitterly, crossing her translucent arms.
"Well, we're not in your time," Hermione replied breezily, not letting the ghost's resentment diminish her excitement. "Have a lovely evening, Myrtle."
Leaving the bathroom, she made for the Entrance Hall. When she reached the landing of the Marble Staircase, her eyes immediately found Harry, who was standing at the foot of the stairs with Cho.
Cho saw her and gasped, which prompted Harry to turn around. His eyes went perfectly round behind his glasses, and his mouth fell open. She felt herself blush as she descended the stairs, watching his reaction. He failed to pull his gaze away from her, even when Cho noticed his stare.
And then Cedric appeared, smiling at her. She took his hand as she reached the bottom of the stairs.
"You look incredibly beautiful," he told her.
"Thank you, you look very dashing yourself."
"Merlin, Hermione, you do clean up nicely," said Cho. Her eyes darted back and forth between Hermione and Cedric, and Hermione realized that she may have inadvertently attracted the jealousy of Harry's crush.
"Thank you," she replied. Her gaze drifted to Harry.
It took him another moment to manage some coherence. "Er, yeah, what they said," he added lamely. "You look... great, Hermione."
"Thanks, Harry." She turned to Cedric. "So, how does this work? Are we supposed to wait for everyone else to enter the hall and then make a grand entrance at the end?"
No sooner had she asked the question than Professor McGonagall called for the champions and their dates.
She wound up sat at the table between Cedric and a raven-haired girl who was Viktor Krum's date. Krum had, quite out of nowhere, asked Hermione to the ball a few days after she asked Cedric, and she had let him down gently, honestly informing him that she was flattered by his interest but already had a date to the ball. His substitute date was a Durmstrang girl whose voice was rather loud and whose English was as heavily accented as his was.
"You are young, aren't you?" she asked Hermione bluntly as they ate dinner.
"I'm fifteen," Hermione replied defensively.
The girl looked at Cedric. "It is unusual that you would ask such a young gorl to the ball, isn't it?"
Hermione thought about pointing out that the girl's own date had also intended to take 'such a young gorl' to the ball, but there was no sense in embarrassing Krum as a retort against his date.
"I couldn't ask for a more sensible companion, regardless of her age," Cedric replied calmly, and Hermione felt herself blush again.
She did, however, notice Cho's face fall at Cedric's assertion. On the far side of Cho, Harry was watching the conversation rather stonily, likely upset at Krum's date for insulting Hermione.
"I agree," said Krum. "Herm-o-ninny seems to me to be more sensible than many girls our own age."
Hermione winced at the mispronunciation of her name, but was amused by the frown that Krum's date shot at him.
When they were finished with dinner, Dumbledore waved his wand, and a platform emerged from the floor on the side of the room where the Gryffindor table usually sat. An array of musical instruments rested on stands across the platform, and a group of very hairy witches climbed up and prepared to play. At the same time, the lanterns went out on all of the tables except the one at which Hermione sat.
Krum stood. "Ve are supposed to dance now, yes?" He reached out his hand for his date, and she took it, although there was still some ice in her expression as she followed him to the dance floor.
Cedric stood, and Hermione smiled up at him. To her shock, however, Cedric turned and smiled at Cho. "Shall we?"
"What?" Hermione blurted.
Cho smiled and stood beside him, taking his hand. Hermione stared as she laced their fingers together.
Cedric winked at Hermione. "I suppose you two will just have to dance with each other." He shared a conspiratorial smile with Cho, and led her away, and Hermione realized that she had been tricked.
She turned to Harry, who was staring at the other pair in bewilderment. Standing, she circled behind the two vacated chairs between them. He looked up at her.
"It appears that we've been deceived," she grumbled, although she couldn't bring herself to feel much anger at Cedric. She knew exactly what he thought he was doing.
"They planned this?"
"Evidently." She caught the looks of amusement on the faces of Dumbledore and Bagman. "Let's go dance."
Harry looked rather terrified at the prospect, but stood. She took his hand, refusing to let herself think about implications, and led him to the dance floor.
As she pulled him into formation, however, she couldn't help glancing at his dress robes and envisioning the body beneath them, which her recalcitrant teenage imagination insisted on recalling so clearly sometimes. She had carefully suppressed all of the stray thoughts that had assaulted her ever since the night of the ritual, but all of them threatened to accost her now as she held her best friend close, guiding him around the dance floor.
The way he kept glancing down at her dress and then catching himself didn't help her defenses at all. After all, he got as much of a look at her body as she got at his that night. But this was the first time that he had shown any sign of an internal struggle similar to the one she'd been steadfastly refusing to acknowledge.
But the implications of that were so dangerous. Right now, she needed to be his best friend, to help him survive. Anything that might cause confusion or conflict between them needed to be ignored.
So, as soon as the second—or was it third?—song ended, she dropped her hands and stepped back from him, clearing her throat. "Shall we walk around a bit?"
"Huh?"
"Seamus and Lavender are around here somewhere, and so are Neville and Ginny. We could go and find them." Neville had also asked her to the ball, and she'd redirected him towards Ginny, who wouldn't have been allowed to go without an older student asking her.
"Er, right." Harry didn't look thrilled with the idea, but followed her away.
Hermione looked around, keeping her thoughts as silent as she could. There was a very stubborn part of her that wanted to turn right back around and pull him back onto the dance floor, but she immediately quashed the idea.
"I'm sorry," he blurted.
"For what?"
"I'm terrible at dancing. You'd have been much better off with Diggory."
Hermione glanced over her shoulder, and saw Cedric and Cho dancing, their faces only inches apart. "I don't think that was ever a real option."
Harry didn't follow her gaze. "Right."
"I'm sorry about Cho."
"Don't be. I would have disappointed her just as much as I disappointed you."
"What?" She spun towards him. "You didn't disappoint me."
He responded with a look of skepticism.
"You didn't, Harry. I mean, sure, you could certainly use some practice at dancing, but that isn't why..." She hesitated. "I just feel like we need to keep certain boundaries in place."
"Boundaries?"
"You know what I'm talking about."
He pursed his lips, looking away from her. "You're right."
She sighed, that very stubborn part of her wishing that he had argued against her assertion.
A few days later, when Cedric caught her frowning at him in the library, he smiled back. Then he stood and approached her, and Cho followed.
Hermione wasn't in the mood for this. In the days since the ball, she kept catching boys stare at her as they had never done before, and it had rather put her off the idea of being seen as attractive. She just wanted to get back to her life of studying and being ignored by everyone other than Harry.
Oblivious to her thoughts, the couple sat down on either side of her. "We owe you an apology," Cho said quietly. "But we really thought that you and Harry would..." She trailed off and glanced at her boyfriend, shrugging.
Hermione turned her frown back on Cedric. "I told you that we're just friends."
"But it's clear that you aren't perfectly happy with the circumstance. We thought that the Yule Ball would provide an excellent opportunity for you to scratch that itch. Whether you decided afterwards to just stay friends or not, at least you would know."
"That isn't your decision to make."
He nodded. "You're right, Hermione."
"I still think that you and Harry should at least talk about it," said Cho. "You two have such a complicated friendship."
She had no idea.
"And such friendships have the propensity to... explode. The better you communicate with each other, the more likely things are to explode in a good way, rather than a bad one."
Hermione fixed her gaze on the table in front of them, wishing that Madam Pince would come along and kick out the couple for talking to her. But they weren't talking nearly loudly enough to attract attention.
"Harry hasn't figured out his golden egg yet, has he?" Cedric asked.
"Not to my knowledge."
"He should take it to the Prefects' Bathroom. The hot water can be a great place to mull things over."
She blinked at him.
"You should go with him," Cho added. "Maybe the steam can help clear the air between you two." The suggestion in her tone couldn't be missed. "The password is 'pine fresh.'"
Hermione felt her blush rise rapidly. "You're suggesting I take a bath with him?"
"The bath in there is the size of a swimming pool. It isn't terribly intimate, unless you wish it to be."
The word 'intimate' didn't calm Hermione's blush at all.
"Just talk things over with him. Put everything out in the open and then come to a mutual decision. You two are close enough that things couldn't go too badly."
Hermione studied her, mostly as an excuse to avoid any thoughts that involved both Harry and steam. "Harry never really had a chance with you, did he?"
A small smile crossed Cho's face. "Maybe he did, once." Cedric's face fell, and her smile widened. "He is the Boy-Who-Lived, after all."
Hermione scoffed. "Well, if that was the reason for your interest in him, he wouldn't appreciate it much."
Cho raised her eyebrows. "That's going to be the starting point for the interest of any girlfriend he could ever have, at least in our community."
"Except for you, of course," added Cedric.
"We really are just friends," Hermione attempted, rather feebly.
"Right, and that's why you were blushing so brightly just a second ago," said Cho. She stood, and Cedric followed suit. "Just talk things over with him, and help him figure out the egg." They walked away.
Hermione glared at their backs. She would certainly go with Harry to help him with the egg, of course, but only for that.
They each turned away from the other as they stripped and got into the water. Hermione had found a spell to transfigure cotton into polyester and turned a tank top and underwear into a swimsuit, and had likewise transfigured a pair of old shorts Harry owned that had once belonged to his cousin. Once they were submerged and everything beneath their shoulders was obscured by the bubbles on the surface of the water, they turned to each other, both of their faces a bit redder than normal.
"Right then," said Hermione, glancing at the golden egg which was leaning against one of the bejeweled taps behind Harry. "Cedric said to mull things over."
"What does that mean?"
"In this context, I have no idea."
Harry turned and stared at the egg for a moment, then grabbed it. He held it above the water with one hand and twisted it open, and Hermione immediately covered her ears. The noise caused him to drop the egg into the water, at which point it changed to something much more melodic. Blinking, she ducked beneath the surface to listen to the song.
They listened to it twice, and she felt her dread growing with each line. He would have to spend an hour underwater, somehow, and search for something he would "sorely miss."
She couldn't think of anything that would help him breathe for an hour underwater, and she found herself getting more and more distracted by what little she could see of his body above the bubbles. Her adolescent brain insisted on filling in the rest from her memory of the ritual, until she forced herself to look away from him.
"Are you okay?" he asked her.
She sighed, knowing it would be best to get this over with. "We need to talk, Harry."
"About what?"
"About us." She looked back at him and saw his confusion.
"Us?" he asked.
The way he said the word sent a little shiver through her, and she cleared her throat, wishing that she was wearing more clothing for this. Her gaze wasn't the only one that kept drifting. "We're best friends, and that's extremely important, especially with this... connection between us."
"Our shared knowledge and magic."
"Right."
"We're soulmates."
She huffed. "In the magical sense, yes. So it's very important that nothing happen that could... cause confusion."
"Like what?" he asked, his tone indicating that he knew he was treading into dangerous waters. And he was treading closer to her while he said it...
"Like the fact that we're teenagers of opposite sexes wearing very little clothing right now." She backed away from him. "We can't act on what we're feeling, Harry. It's too risky."
He swallowed. "What are you feeling?"
"The same thing that you are. But... we can't."
"Because it would cause confusion?" He was advancing on her again.
"Yes... Harry, stop!"
He froze, as though the word were a spell. "I'm sorry." Quickly, he backed away from her. Then he turned and made for the edge of the pool.
"Harry, wait." She averted her eyes as he emerged and began dressing. "You don't have to go."
"I'm sorry, Hermione," he mumbled, quickly dressing. Then he grabbed his egg and fled from the room.
She sighed, shutting her eyes and swearing in her head. This was exactly what she was trying to avoid.
And it wasn't only him that was upset with her. That very stubborn part of her brain was furious with herself for not acting on her own desires.
She climbed out of the pool and stared down at herself. He desired her, but what did that mean? Before the ball, he'd been staring at Cho instead of her. He was a teenage boy and they shared knowledge and magic, but there was nothing to indicate that he had feelings for her as anything more than his reliable best friend whom he had finally noticed was a girl after seeing her naked.
Tonight was evidence that they couldn't cause any further complication of their relationship.
His imagination tormented him. It had tormented him almost nightly since the ritual, reminding him of how incredibly pretty she was beneath her loose-fitting robes. Before the ball, he had learnt to ignore it, and to carefully suppress his feelings whenever she was around. He wasn't good enough for her, he knew it, so he kept himself focused on Cho instead, even though that particularly unruly part of his brain seemed to have forgotten that it had been attracted to her as well.
But then the ball and Cedric and Cho's prank happened, and he danced with Hermione and couldn't keep his eyes from wandering and his mind from imagining every inch of her that was hidden beneath the lovely dress robes. And then she stopped it and talked about boundaries and he reminded himself that he wasn't good enough, but the damage was done. The dancing added itself to his dreams, but her dress robes were rarely present.
And then she confessed that she was feeling the same thing that he was, or so she thought. That unruly part of him had roared with victory, but the elation had been short-lived. She stopped him, reasserting her wish for boundaries, and he again reminded himself that he wasn't good enough. She was wrong about feeling the same thing he was. Her feelings weren't as all-consuming as his were becoming, nor would they ever be. He wasn't worthy of her, and she'd be much better off, and likely much more interested, if it was Diggory there instead of himself.
"I know, mate, she's really something." He tried to ignore Seamus and Dean's conversation on the other side of the dormitory. "I never would have guessed, thought Lav and Parvati would be the girls to go for. Turns out Hermione's the most fit of the lot."
That unruly thing within Harry roared furiously, and he glared at them. They caught his glare and shut up.
But they were far from the only ones. Everyone now knew what he had already known for over a month, and what he was pretty sure he had always known but never let himself acknowledge: that Hermione Granger was far more beautiful than she typically made herself appear. Boys actively stared at her, looking like they were trying to see right through her robes, or craning their necks to glimpse her face beneath her mess of hair.
Each time he noticed it, he wanted to stand in front of her and draw his wand. Thanks to the ritual, he knew a hex that would leave the oglers blind for half a day. But he knew that she wouldn't want him anywhere near her, anymore than she would want one of them. In fact, most of the boys who were ogling her would make a much better match for her than he would.
So he kept his distance, doing his best to ignore everything and limit his fantasies to uncontrollable dreams in the safety of his bed. From time to time, he would mull over the problem of how to breathe underwater, and new, previously unknown magical ideas would surface in his head that told him she was researching the problem and adding to their shared knowledge.
Even when she was disgusted with him, she was still trying to help him. He didn't deserve her.
Neville, on the other hand, seemed more chipper around him than ever. He tried to engage Harry in conversations as he had never done before, and Harry wondered if that was because Neville was now seeing him as a kindred spirit, left alone and unable to get along well with his other housemates. If so, Harry supposed he couldn't blame his shiest roommate, but he also couldn't help resenting Neville's recognition of the unpleasant new reality.
"You alright, mate?" Neville asked as he entered the dormitory, finding Harry alone and perusing his notes for Charms.
"Fine," Harry muttered.
"Have you done the Herbology homework? I could help you with it."
"No thanks, Neville."
"Alright... Is there anything... anything else?"
Harry sighed loudly. "Not unless you know of a way I could breathe underwater for an hour."
"Well... you could try gillyweed, I suppose."
"Gilly-what?"
By the time he found his way to the merpeople's village, everything Hermione had learnt last night about the potion that was keeping her safe underwater had emerged to calm his panicked mind. Still, he couldn't help fearing terrible possibilities, such as the potion wearing off too soon or the merpeople refusing to return her to the surface in time. He was determined to get her back to the surface as soon as possible.
When he cut her loose, however, he hesitated. Cho was also there, still tied up, and so were Krum's raven-haired Yule Ball date and a girl who couldn't be older than nine. What if something went wrong for any of them?
He looked around, anxious to get Hermione up to the surface but unwilling to leave the others behind. And then Cedric appeared, cutting Cho free and mouthing to Harry to go, that Fleur and Krum were coming. Harry, taking the other champion's confidence to heart, followed him back up to the surface, holding Hermione close.
She became conscious as soon as her head broke through the surface. Her eyes opened and she gasped for air, but it took a while for her senses to focus, so he towed her to the land. Percy and Dumbledore helped him get her out of the water and then pull himself up. Madam Pomfrey immediately descended on him, giving him a potion that caused the gillyweed to wear off ahead of schedule and his gills to disappear. Once he was breathing normally, she wrapped him in a heavy blanket and sat him down beside Cedric, then summoned a pair of Wiggenweld Potions for Hermione and Cho.
"Alright there?" Cedric asked.
"Yeah," Harry replied, watching as Hermione swallowed the bright green liquid. Her eyes focused then, and she shivered, tightly clutching the blanket that Madam Pomfrey had given her.
She met his gaze, and a weak smile crossed her lips. He quickly looked away from her, knowing that she would be even more upset with him now after he had caused her to be placed in that situation.
He was given the highest score, as the merpeople told Dumbledore that he arrived first and waited because he was worried about the other hostages. Hermione looked exasperated at that, and Harry winced, quickly looking away again. Of course she would be upset that he had prioritized his concern for the others over his concern for her.
The Gryffindors wanted to throw another celebration for him, but Harry wanted nothing to do with it, retreating up to his dormitory and staying in there for the rest of the day. Neville came to try to talk to him, but Harry made it clear that he had no interest in talking to anyone.
But then the door opened. "I said no, Neville!" He looked up and froze, for it wasn't Neville who had entered.
"I'm not taking no for an answer," Hermione said sternly, advancing towards his bed.
He leant back against his pillow and looked away from her as she sat down in front of him. "I'm sorry," he mumbled.
"For what?"
"It's my fault you were put in that situation. You shouldn't have been trapped down there."
"You didn't sorely miss me?"
"Of course I did." He sighed. "I've been missing you for ages, but—"
"Good."
He winced, averting his gaze further.
She took a long breath before she continued speaking. "I kept my distance because I thought it would be best. I could keep doing research and pass on anything I learnt through the bond, while giving us both a chance to sort through our feelings. It... didn't really work out so well, did it?"
He had no idea how to answer that, so stayed silent.
"I'm sorry, Harry. I should have tracked you down the night after the Prefects' Bathroom. We're at our best when we work through things together, and not just passing knowledge and magic back and forth." Her hand slid along her lap, edging closer to him, but she stopped it. "And my feelings were not as confusing as I was forcing myself to think they were. I was just scared."
He swallowed, desperate for her to elaborate on that.
She took another, even longer breath. "The truth is that I've known how I've felt about you since even before we discovered the bond. I've known for... at least a year now, but I've never let myself acknowledge it. I was terrified of losing you, Harry. You're by far the most important person to me at this school, and I couldn't risk our friendship by letting myself want to... to be more than just your friend."
His heartrate picked up, his breath catching as he listened to her words, still unable to look at her.
"But then the Yule Ball happened and you started looking at me that way and I panicked. I... I didn't know what you were feeling, whether you just wanted... my body."
He flinched, shutting his eyes tightly. She was disgusted with him after all.
"Harry?"
He kept his eyes tightly shut. "I'm sorry."
"For what?"
"I... treated you terribly, didn't I?"
"When?"
"At the Yule Ball, and the Prefects' Bathroom. I..."
"It's alright, Harry. Like I said, you weren't the only one who was feeling it. But I do need you to tell me if it meant anything more to you."
He opened his eyes now, looking at her. "What?"
She sighed. "It was obvious that you wanted me. But was there anything more than that?" She looked down. "It's alright if there wasn't, we can still be friends. You know that I'll never abandon you, Harry. But if there was..." Her fingers drifted off her thigh and fiddled nervously with his blanket.
He stared at her hand, hesitating. Then he gave the most honest answer he could. "I don't know."
She looked back up at him. "What?"
"I don't know what I'm supposed to feel, Hermione. I know that I've missed you desperately. I know that nothing's been fun while you've been mad at me." She opened her mouth, but shut it again. "I know that I've spent time every night thinking about the conversations I wish we'd had during the day. I know that I haven't been able to stomach talking to anyone else while I couldn't talk to you. And I know that I've dreamt about you in the Chamber or in that dress or in that pool every single night, and thought about..." He trailed off, refusing to finish that sentence. "I don't know what it means. No one's ever told me what it feels like when you...
"It was so much simpler with Cho. She was pretty, and I liked looking at her. With you it's so much... more. And I don't know what it means, whether it means that I—"
He was unable to say anything more, because her lips were on his. He froze, but fell into the kiss as her hand found the back of his head and pulled him tight against her.
"Everything's going to be alright." She leant up and kissed him, then pulled him into a hug. It was the morning of the third and final task, and she had been waiting for him in the common room.
He kissed her cheek on the way out of the hug. "Tell me again," he whispered.
"Everything's going to be alright." She looked around, and then drew her wand and surreptitiously stashed it in the deepest pocket of his robes. "Here."
"What?"
"You can use my wand just as well as your own."
"But, that's..."
"It's to help you survive. Everything else is secondary." She kissed him again. "I told you before we did the ritual, I'd do anything to help you survive the tournament, and that was true even before you turned out to be the best boyfriend I could ever ask for."
He smiled at that. He doubted whether he would ever feel like he truly deserved her, but he would certainly keep trying to for as long as she would let him. "Thanks."
He didn't make use of both wands until he encountered the acromantula. With two wands and her repertoire of spells, he defeated the monster and moved on to the cup. Then he carefully stowed her wand out of sight again and took hold of his hard-earned trophy.
"When the connection is broken we will linger for only moments... but we will give you time... You must get to the Portkey, it will return you to Hogwarts... Do you understand, Harry?"
"Yes," Harry gasped out as he fought to hold onto his wand, keeping the beads of golden light around the tip of Voldemort's wand. The shades of Bertha Jorkins and the yet-unknown man from his nightmare last summer were floating around Voldemort, while the other two shades, those of Harry's parents, stood on either side of him.
And Harry understood what he needed to do, but it wasn't fair. He was being given so little time with them, again, because of the evil man at the opposite end of the golden thread.
"Do it now," whispered the ghostly voice of James Potter. "Be ready to run... Do it now..."
Harry didn't want to, but he had no choice. His wand was vibrating more and more violently, threatening to tumble from his hand again. One way or the other, he would lose his parents once again, and it would either help him get away or it would doom him to the death he had been expecting ever since the new body of Lord Voldemort emerged from the cauldron.
Hermione's wand was still hidden within his robes. He never stood a chance in this duel, even if he used both wands against his enemy. His only hope had been that her wand would somehow find its way back to her after he was dead.
"Now!" his father insisted, and Harry echoed the cry himself as he jerked his wand up and broke the thread. The golden light vanished and the phoenix song dissipated, and the four shades swooped at Voldemort as Harry ran for his life.
The cup was in the distance, but something else caught Harry's attention, sticking out from one of the Death Eaters' robes: a silver hand.
Voldemort wasn't the only reason his parents were taken from him.
"Stun him!"
Harry dove behind a marble angel as the streaks of red light flew around him. The silver hand remained on the edge of his vision, and he knew what he had to do. Pulling out Hermione's wand, he took a deep, steadying breath.
Then he stepped out from behind the statue, aiming with both wands. "Impedimenta!" The purple light shot from his own wand at the nearest Death Eater who wasn't Wormtail. "Accio silver hand!" And then he stepped behind the statue again, keeping Hermione's wand aimed at the fast-approaching Wormtail as he aimed his own towards the Triwizard Cup. "Accio Portkey!"
Wormtail landed at his feet, silver hand thrust into the air in front of him. "Incarcerous." Harry pulled the spell from Hermione's knowledge, and cords erupted from her wand and bound the traitor. Then he grabbed Wormtail's arm as his other hand caught the handle of the cup.
He landed face-first on the grass. He kept his grip tight on Wormtail, Hermione's wand trapped between his palm and the traitor's robes. His other hand dropped the cup, but held onto his own wand.
And then there was a deafening burst of sound. He didn't look up as footsteps surged towards him, and there were shouts of his name from all directions. Dumbledore reached him first, rolling him over to face the deep-purple robes and the dark sky beyond them, but Harry didn't perk up until he heard a higher-pitched and much more welcome voice than the Headmaster's.
"Harry!"
She threw herself on top of him, and he let go of Wormtail in order to hold her close, clutching her to him, a wand still in each of his hands.
"Harry, what happened?" Dumbledore asked, but Harry ignored him. The only thing that mattered right now was holding onto Hermione.
"Dumbledore? What's going on?" The voice of Cornelius Fudge preceded him appearing on the edge of Harry's vision, upside down given the angle Harry was looking from. "Who is this?" He was looking at the bound man lying beside Harry.
"Cornelius Fudge, meet Peter Pettigrew." His voice sounded hoarse in his own ears, but he felt a wave of satisfaction as Fudge paled.
"Pettigrew? But... But... he's dead!"
"I believe there is much to explain." Dumbledore stood and stepped back from the couple. "But for now, however, it seems that we have our Triwizard Champion."
And Harry noticed now that the other three champions were also nearby. Cedric had his arm around Cho, while Fleur stood with her parents and Madame Maxime. Krum stood alone, glaring at Wormtail. Behind him, Mad-Eye Moody was hovering, taking a swig from his hip flask.
"The cup was a portkey?" Hermione had lifted her head now, and was looking up at Dumbledore.
"It appears so, Miss Granger."
"But who could have done that? Who put the cup in the maze?"
Dumbledore paused for a moment. Then, with shocking speed for a man his age, he drew his wand and aimed it.
"Protego!" The shield spell was cast by Moody, but whatever spell Dumbledore silently cast sailed right through it, and he collapsed to the ground, immobilized.
"Dumbledore, what the—" Fudge began.
"Revelio!" Dumbledore struck Moody with a second spell, and this one had the most bizarre effect. Harry and Hermione sat up, baffled, as their professor began transforming. His magical eye and clawed wooden leg popped out as their places were taken by the real parts, and his scarred face became young and smooth.
Dumbledore lowered his wand. "Barty Crouch Jr."
"What?" Fudge gasped. "But... But... he's dead!"
"That's exactly what you said about Pettigrew," Harry grumbled, glaring at the man who had posed as his Defense Against the Dark Arts professor all year long, and who had undoubtedly placed his name in the Goblet of Fire.
It was hours and many explanations later before Harry was finally allowed to settle into a bed in the Hospital Wing. Hermione hadn't left his side all night, and the moment Madam Pomfrey was out of sight, she crawled into bed beside him, holding him tightly.
"It's all thanks to you, you know," he murmured, his own arm wrapped just as tightly around her. "Sirius will be free now thanks to you."
"It's not just thanks to me." She kissed his cheek. "I provided the second wand and the knowledge of the spell, but the idea was your own. You're more clever than you give yourself credit for."
"I think that's also thanks to you. The more time I spend with you, the smarter I get."
"Yes, well, being a good student does tend to have that effect, doesn't it?"
He kissed her, and she deepened the kiss, one hand rising to his face to keep it pressed with hers for a while.
"I'm going to need you more than ever now... Now that he's back. Even with Dumbledore here and the Ministry on high alert, Voldemort is still dangerous."
"You have me, Harry. No matter what, you have me." She kissed him again.
Then he lay back, letting himself relax for the first time all day. Despite everything, her words and proximity reassured him. His enemy had returned, but he had the most important person in his life by his side, and their shared magic and knowledge guiding him. Despite everything, he felt that so long as he had her there, everything would be alright.