A/N – Welcome to my first story of the new year, and as promised it is a Dark Hermione story. This actually isn't the Dark Hermione story I was planning on posting first as I do have another story finished, and this one isn't quite there yet. But I am on the final few chapters and I decided to post this one first as it's a darker Hermione than my other story, plus it has the added benefit of a Dark Harry, which I know is pretty popular. Updates will be Mondays and Thursdays.

Settled in the library at Grimmauld Place, Harry Potter, listened as the headmaster of Hogwarts, Albus Dumbledore, briefed him on the plans for their latest trip to try and locate a Horcrux. It had been just over seven months since Harry had left Hogwarts and in that time, he and Dumbledore had been focused on destroying Horcruxes. Dumbledore had first confided in Harry about the methods the dark wizard, Lord Voldemort, was using to keep himself alive, in Harry's sixth year, and since then it had been the focus of the Order of the Phoenix to find them and destroy them as until they could manage that, Voldemort was unbeatable.

When Dumbledore had first approached Harry, his plan had been for the two of them to find and track down the Horcruxes together, but Harry had insisted that they brought the entire Order into play. He didn't think it was right to keep the Order in the dark about something as important as the reason Voldemort couldn't be defeated. Besides, Harry had argued the more people they had to help them, the quicker they could track down and destroy the Horcruxes.

Sadly, things hadn't been as easy as he'd been hoping. Dumbledore had been able to tell the Order about his suspicions that Voldemort had made six Horcruxes, and he'd even been able to list a few suspected things he'd used to create them. However, tracking down the suspected Horcruxes hadn't proved easy, and they were barely scratching the surface of finding the identity of the mystery Horcruxes.

Upon leaving Hogwarts, Harry had been accompanying Dumbledore on trips to try and track down the Horcruxes, or find evidence that one of them might have been hidden there previously. The places they'd been visiting were all connected to Voldemort's life in some way, and the majority of them had been identified by Harry's best friend, Hermione Granger, who was in charge of the Order's research.

"Harry, are you listening?" Dumbledore called, waving his hand in front of Harry's face as he noticed a blank look had descended over his young protégées face.

"Sorry," Harry apologised. "I was just thinking about Ron."

"Is he okay?" Dumbledore asked with a slight frown. Between running Hogwarts and trying to find Voldemort's Horcruxes, he didn't have a great deal of time to spend with the Order and it had been a couple of weeks since he'd seen Harry's other best friend, Ron Weasley.

"I think he's feeling a bit like a spare part," Harry admitted. "I'm busy with you, and Hermione has her research."

"I'm sure he could help Hermione," Dumbledore said. "The poor girl seems to do most of the work herself. I'm sure she would appreciate the help."

"Research isn't really Ron's forte," Harry admitted. "He does try to help, but he usually tends to get in Hermione's way. I was thinking he could maybe come with us one time."

"I suppose he could," Dumbledore said reluctantly. "But you know I spend a lot of my time protecting you, Harry. Taking you from Grimmauld Place is a risk, and I need to ensure that Voldemort can't track you. It could be harder to keep you safe if I was also worrying about Ron."

Before Harry had left school he'd been protected from Voldemort due to a blood spell Dumbledore had placed on his relatives house and as long as he'd called Privet Drive home, he was safe from dark forces. However, that spell had broken when he was seventeen, and since leaving Hogwarts the safest place for Harry was Grimmauld Place. Aside from when he was at The Burrow, which Dumbledore had provided with added protection, Harry never left Grimmauld Place unless he was with Dumbledore. In Dumbledore's company, he could still be shielded from any spells Voldemort might be using to try and find him.

"I understand that, but Ron needs something to do," Harry insisted. "He spends most of his days helping the twins in their shop, because our lives are on hold until we've defeated Voldemort and his Death Eaters. He wants to help, Professor."

"The let's find him something to do," Dumbledore said decisively. "I haven't passed the information onto Hermione to look into yet, but I've found evidence of a small cottage in Ireland once owned by a Thomas Riddle. It might turn out to be nothing, but I suppose Ron could check it out. He could always take Hermione with him."

"You'd seriously let Ron go and check out this cottage by himself?" Harry checked.

"You trust him, don't you?"

"I do," Harry answered with a nod of his head.

"Then I trust him," Dumbledore returned. "I'll give him the address, and when we go away next week, he can take Hermione and check out the cottage in Ireland. All he needs to do is check it out and see if it's worth us investigating further."

"Can we make a big deal of it?" Harry asked. "I really want to make Ron feel important."

"And he will," Dumbledore assured the young wizard. "Don't worry Harry, I'll make it sound as though Ron's the only person I would trust with this."

"And make sure he knows that he's in charge," Harry said. "I'll have a quiet word with Hermione. She'll understand that Ron needs this."

"You're a good friend, Harry," Dumbledore said with a small smile.

"I just don't want Ron to feel pushed out," Harry replied with a shrug.

"So now that's sorted, let's get back to planning our own trip," Dumbledore said.

Satisfied that his pleas had achieved their aim, Harry refocused his attention on the task at hand. An hour later, when Dumbledore had to leave, everything was sorted for their next trip.

Instead of following Dumbledore downstairs, Harry remained seated in the library. As he often did after spending time with Dumbledore, he had to refocus his mind and calm his anger at the headmaster. Even though no-one else saw it, Harry loathed Dumbledore and the fact he planned on using Harry as a weapon against Voldemort. The old man didn't care a jot for Harry himself, all he saw in him was a useful pawn in the war against the dark.

Harry had just started to regain his focus when he heard movement in the doorway of the library. When he heard the door slide quietly closed and a whispered incantation to prevent sound from leaving the room, he knew who had joined him. Sure enough, his best friend, Hermione Granger, stepped into sight and sat down beside him.

"Are you okay?" she asked in concern.

"Just growing tired of the charade," Harry confessed. "I never knew it was going to be this hard."

"Tell me about it," Hermione agreed with a sigh. "I'm sorry Harry. I never knew it would take this long. I never knew things were going to get this complicated."

"Who did?" Harry snorted. "Honestly, Hermione, it's not your fault. We couldn't have known Dumbledore had all those so called protection charms on me as a child, and we couldn't have known he would virtually keep me a prisoner once I'd left Hogwarts."

"I know, but I still feel responsible," Hermione admitted. "If I hadn't come to you as a child, you wouldn't be living a charade."

"I would, only a different one," Harry argued. "If it wasn't for you, I would never have known the truth about what happened to my mother. I might never have seen how Dumbledore has done nothing but manipulate me and my life since I was born. I would never know how he planned on sacrificing my life to win this war."

"We still can't be sure he plans for you to die," Hermione said warily.

"How else is he going to destroy the Horcrux inside of me?" Harry questioned. "Everything else with a Horcrux inside has been destroyed, why should I be any different? I somehow don't think he'll have looked into a way of saving my life but still destroying the Horcrux. He expects me to be killed, destroying the Horcrux in the process, leaving him free to kill The Dark Lord."

"I can't wait to see his face when he realises what he's really being doing all these years," Hermione chuckled. "I can't wait for him to see that rather than destroying my father, he's been healing him. And I cannot wait for the moment when he sees you rise from the dead and join our cause."

"That is something to look forward to," Harry conceded with a small smile.

"Yet, you don't seem happy about it," Hermione remarked with concern. "What's wrong, Harry? And don't say nothing, as you've been slightly withdrawn for the last few weeks. Ever since we came up with the plan for Ron."

"Speaking of which, Dumbledore fell for it," Harry said. "He's going to send you and Ron off alone to check out some cottage he's found out about in Ireland. He's going to put Ron in charge, and we can make it look like you have no idea where you're going. As far as the Order are concerned, the only people who had knowledge of where you are going are Dumbledore and Ron."

"That's good, but don't change the subject, Harry," Hermione said sternly. "Tell me what is bothering you?"

"It's stupid really," Harry admitted in a small voice. "But what if things aren't the same between us when I no longer have part of your father inside me. That was the reason you sought me out as a child, because I possess part of your father's soul. That is why we are so close and have such a strong bond. But what if when the Horcrux inside me is gone, our bond also goes. What if you no longer want me in your life?"

"Harry, I will always want you in my life," Hermione insisted, reaching out and taking Harry's hand. "I love you, and not just because you possess part of my father's soul. That might have been the reason I came looking for you, but it's not the reason we're still friends. We are friends because I genuinely like and care for you. I know that will continue once the Horcrux has gone. Unless of course, you don't want to be friends anymore, and you no longer want to serve my father."

"I want to be with you," Harry said. "You're my best friend, Hermione, and we will be together until the very end."

"The end won't be for a while yet, Harry," Hermione said with a wicked smirk. "We are going to win this war, and Dumbledore and his precious Order are going to rue the day they ever decided to use you."

Grinning back at Hermione, Harry blessed the day she had walked into his life and changed it on its head. Without Hermione, he might have been content to play the part of the chosen one, never realising that he was being used. But as it was, he had Hermione and she'd made sure his eyes were open by the time he'd gone to Hogwarts.

Harry had first met Hermione when he was just six years old. They'd met in a park near to where Harry had lived with the Dursleys. Before that moment, Harry had never had any true friends, partly thanks to his cousin Dudley who had persuaded the other children at school that Harry was odd and should be ignored. However, Hermione hadn't known Dudley, and hadn't been frightened off like the other children they knew, so they became friends.

Thanks to the lax parenting he received from his aunt and uncle, it was easy enough for Harry to sneak away to meet Hermione as their friendship grew. By the time they'd known each other for a year, Hermione confided in Harry that she was a witch and that he was a wizard. She also took him home for the first time, and introduced him to her mother, who confirmed that magic was real and Harry had magical blood flowing in his veins.

At first, Harry hadn't believed Hermione and her mother, but they'd shown him more love and affection than his aunt and uncle ever had, so he'd trusted them and allowed them to prove what they were saying. As well as showing him magic, and explaining that some of the bizarre incidents from his past had been magic, they also told him about his past once he was old enough to take it in properly.

Rather than his parents dying in a car crash, which was what his aunt and uncle had told him, he discovered that they'd died one fateful Halloween standing up to a dark wizard who had supposedly wanted to kill Harry. However, that dark wizard was Hermione's father, and both Hermione and her mother, told Harry that there was another side of the story that no-one but those closest to Voldemort knew.

While the world assumed Voldemort had killed the Potters, and tried to kill Harry, his loved ones knew the truth, and knew that rather than trying to kill the Potters, he'd been trying to help Harry's mother, Lily, escape from her husband and The Order. Several times, Voldemort had approached Lily about joining him, as even though she'd been a muggleborn, she'd been a talented witch, but she'd always refused to join the dark. She'd been adamant that Voldemort and his followers were evil, and her place was fighting against them. But then came the prophecy, which had changed everything.

The prophecy spoke of the birth of a wizard who had the potential to defeat Voldemort, and even though Voldemort himself paid the prophecy no heed, Dumbledore had believed in it. In fact, he'd even earmarked two families it could be concerning. One was the Potters, and the other were the Longbottoms. Both families fitted the details of the prophecy, and both were due to have their first child at the same time. However, the Longbottoms dismissed Dumbledore's efforts to try and protect them and their son, as they believed making a fuss would only draw attention to them and put their son in danger.

With the Longbottoms refusing to play ball, Dumbledore had turned his attention to the Potters, and convinced Harry's father, James, that his son was the chosen one and destined to defeat Voldemort. Lily had never been happy about labelling Harry and expecting so much of him, but James had fallen under Dumbledore's spell and the pair started making plans to raise Harry as a warrior, who would take down Voldemort when he was old enough. Seeing her son's future being mapped out for him, and seeing the way he would be manipulated, Lily decided the best thing for Harry was to leave his so called destiny behind, so when Voldemort made yet another attempt at procuring her support, she agreed providing he helped her and Harry escape the Order's clutches, and swore to never lay a finger on Harry.

Sadly, the night Voldemort arranged for Lily and Harry to disappear, James had returned early from a meeting with Dumbledore and a fight had broken out. In the midst of the fight, Lily had been hit with a curse which had ended her life. James and Voldemort had then fought to the death, and somehow in killing James, Voldemort had accidentally created a Horcrux and locked it inside Harry. His plan had then been to take Harry, and find a way to safely detach him from the Horcrux, but James had managed to send a message to Dumbledore and he arrived just in time to stop Voldemort. The killing curse he sent the dark wizards way, didn't succeed in killing him because of his Horcruxes, but it did render him a virtual prisoner in his ruined body. As for Harry, Dumbledore dumped him with his muggle relatives, until the day he would need to start using him as the hero who was going to save the wizarding world.

Hermione had been brutally honest with Harry, and had told him everything about her father. She'd also explained that she'd come looking for him because he carried part of her father's soul inside him, and she felt connected to him because of that. She also promised that her father would do everything in his power to remove the Horcrux without killing Harry. All he had to do was promise not to turn into Dumbledore's weapon and fight against her father.

Harry had been happy to agree as by that point, he and Hermione were good friends. Of course it meant putting on an act when he'd started Hogwarts, including pretending not to know Hermione, but Harry hadn't regretted any of it. Maybe he would have felt differently if Dumbledore hadn't been so focused on using him, but right from his first year, Harry had seen that to the headmaster he was nothing more than a way of defeating Voldemort.

So for years, he and Hermione had put on an act, and he'd even met Voldemort several times. Now his loyalty was firmly with the dark, and he'd just helped set into motion a plan that would hopefully spell the end of his and Hermione's act, and bring about victory for the dark side.