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What it comes down to	By : melinda1293 Category: Harry Potter > Threesomes/Moresomes Views: 115219 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 7
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, nor the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
- 30
- 31
- 32
Chapter 31. Truth and Consequences

“Dobby!”
Landing unsteadily in the foyer and nearly falling to her knees before managing to throw an arm out and catch herself on the wall, Hermione staggered on wobbly legs, still clutching Harry’s abandoned invisibility cloak.
“DOBBY,” she screamed again, breathlessly.
She felt dizzy and nauseated, paralyzed with fear and numb with shock. Oh, God! She was in a nightmare. She needed Dobby, he was the only one who could help her. Where the hell was he?
“What is it Miss?” Dobby asked in alarm, appearing in front of her with a sudden pop. “What’s the matter? Where is Harry Potter and his Wheezy?”
He scanned the foyer quickly with his enormous eyes and then her.
“You is bleeding! Dobby will fetch the healer.”
Hermione did go to her knees then, grasping the tiny elf by the shoulders with trembling hands, panic starting to take over.
“No! I don’t need the healer. I…I need you to take me to the Malfoy’s.”
His eyes went wide with fear, and he shook his head, trying to pull out of her grip.
“They were attacked…we were attacked, and they’re gone. She took him, and I couldn’t stop it! But I know that’s where they went. Please, Dobby. You’re the only one that can take me there. The dungeons, I need to get to the dungeons. Now!”

Hermione woke long before the boys, naturally. When she sat up on the couch and rubbed her eyes clear, she found Ron sprawled on his back with one arm thrown over his head. His mouth hung open and he was snoring as loudly as she’d ever heard him. In contrast, Harry lay next to him, curled in a tight ball facing Ron with not so much as a toe sticking out from under the blankets. Only the slight rise and fall of his ribs as they expanded in a steady rhythm indicated he was breathing at all.
He probably hadn’t been allowed to snore at his relative’s house, she thought irritably. Then realized with some dismay that it she asked him, and he was in a sharing mood, she’d most likely discover that it was true.
Sometimes she thought she’d quite like to hunt down the Dursley’s and give them a piece of her mind and maybe a bit of the business end of her wand for good measure for the horrible way they’d treated Harry. But this morning, they were just an easy outlet for her to vent her frustrations on instead of the two targets lying asleep in front of her, who were the real source of her irritation.
Hermione watched them for a minute, not yet sure if she was angry with their late night antics, or just cross that they hadn’t included her. The last thing in the world Harry needed was to start drinking, though, and if she’d been aware, she certainly wouldn’t have allowed it. But by the time they’d awoken her, they were already three sheets to the wind.
She still couldn’t believe that Ron had actually let him do it, facilitated it and joined in even. People with PTSD were prone to substance abuse problems. Didn’t she tell Ron that? Maybe she hadn’t. Maybe she hadn’t read that part out to him, thinking, of course, that it was unlikely that Harry would consume alcohol as averse as he was to calming or pain potions. Clearly she’d been wrong about that. Still, Harry did at least look relaxed right now in sleep, and he’d seemed to be last night, too, so she couldn’t complain very much, she realized grudgingly. Perhaps there wasn’t any harm in one night, but she planned to have a talk with Ron to ensure it didn’t happen again just the same. Then she intended to purge the house of whatever remained of the alcohol to make sure of it.
Chess pieces lay scattered between them, having been kicked over in the night or pushed aside as they’d tried to find a comfortable spot on the floor to sleep. Harry had probably had no trouble. He’d told her he could sleep almost anywhere, and she believed it, but Ron was surely going to be miserable this morning. In a brief moment of pity, she considered performing a cushioning charm, but then decided it was too late to worry with it now. They needed to be up soon anyway.
The three of them hadn’t all slept in the same room for days now. The first night they’d come to Grimmauld Place after fleeing the wedding last summer, they’d spent the night in here like this. She felt a little déjà vu at finding herself in here with them again after leaving Bill and Fleur’s last night. Of course it hadn’t looked like this. The room had been completely different then. They’d been different then, too. Everything was.
Smothering a yawn, Hermione got to her feet before folding the blanket and stacking her pillow on top of it. It was kind of nice all being in here together again, although Ron’s backside would probably disagree after a night on the hard floor. But she could almost pretend that it was September again. All of them sleeping in the drawing room and planning their stakeout of the bank instead of the Ministry this time, and her grouchiness simply a result of Ron’s annoying habit of fiddling with the Deluminator out of boredom, which caused all the light to be sucked from the room repeatedly while she tried to read.
Stepping cautiously over Ron, she leaned down to pick up chess pieces to return them safely to their box while he continued to snore loudly on the floor. When she straightened up, Harry was squinting up at her with bloodshot eyes.
“Hey,” she whispered.
“Hey,” he croaked.
Wincing, he stretched out his legs and propped himself on his elbow. Then he pinched the bridge of his nose and pressed his fingers into his eye sockets, moaning.
“Headache?”
He nodded gingerly.
“Least I didn’t throw up last night.”
“What were you two thinking?” she asked, exasperated. “What happened?”
Searching for his glasses, Harry slid them on and then rolled onto his back with a painful sigh.
“I had a bad dream. I think it woke Ron up, and he was just keeping me company,” he explained.
“Well, that’s all fine and good, but you shouldn’t have been drinking, Harry,” she admonished in a harsh whisper.
“It was a really bad dream,” he replied, groaning and smirking at the same time. “It was neither fine, nor good. I’ve learned my lesson, though. Won’t happen again.”
“Do you want to talk about it?” she asked, suddenly worried, her irritation with him all but vanished, replaced by concern.
“Nope. Not in the least. I’ve talked about it last night all I wanted, thank you, and then some. That reminds me,” he added crossly, sitting up again and going a bit pale before clutching his head. “Would you please stop telling Ron your theories about what’s wrong with me? If I have to spend another night with Doctor Ron, I might just go completely mental.”
“Told you about that, did he?” she asked, her lips quirking in unexpected amusement.
“Mmmmm,” he affirmed, nodding again and wincing. “What he could make of it, at least. Muggle medicine is a bit beyond him. I don’t think he has much of a future as a therapist.”
Wrapping the blanket around his shoulders, he scowled at the memory. Hermione bit her lips, trying not to smile and make his own bad mood worse as she pictured Harry lying on the couch with Ron perched in a chair in a white lab coat and a monocle, taking notes.
Showing amusement at Harry’s irritation was probably not wise. When it came to being surly, no one could compete with Harry, and she really didn’t want to get into a contest with him this morning.
“That’s not the way I intended to approach it with you,” she said when she’d managed to get her facial muscles back under her control.
“Too late, cat’s out of the bag now.”
“What did he tell you?”
“Nothing I didn’t already know, and nothing I want a repeat of,” he answered curtly. “The subject’s closed, Hermione.”
She didn’t argue. They were still on shaky friendship ground as it was after what happened the other night in his room and then yesterday morning’s row. Neither of them was in the mood to discuss it without getting into another, so she decided to concede this one. Harry wouldn’t listen to anything she had to say right now, anyway. That much was clear. She really wished Ron hadn’t said anything to him at all, though, and had let her handle it. He’d taken the initiative, however, and she hoped at the very least that he hadn’t garbled up the message too badly last night in the telling, since it didn’t look like Harry was going to be receptive to another discussion on the subject.
“Ahhh, sodding hell,” Harry moaned suddenly, kicking Ron, who abruptly stopped snoring. “Shut it, would you?”
“Would you like me to get you a pain potion?”
Hermione wasn’t feeling very much sympathy, and knew Harry would refuse anyway, but it seemed only polite to ask, after all. In fact, what both boys needed, she thought, was to have to deal with the consequences of their actions. Forcing them to suffer with a terrible hangover this morning would hopefully make them think twice about repeating the experience.
“No. Don’t you have anything in that bag of yours that won’t knock me out? Like a hangover cure, or just some aspirin, maybe, for this headache?”
“Why would I keep a potion for hangovers in my bag, Harry?” she snapped, placing her hands on her hips as she glowered down at him. “When we left the Burrow, it never crossed my mind that we might need something like that to recover from our nightly binges.”
Gritting his teeth, Harry put his face in his hands before digging his thumbs into his temples.
“I do actually have some aspirin, though,” she added as an afterthought. “It’s the best I can do to get you both on your feet, since they haven’t invented a potion yet that can remedy idiocy.”
Harry peered up at her reproachfully from between his fingers.
“I said it wouldn’t happen again. I don’t need a lecture.”
“I thought you were supposed to have more of the hair of the dog that bit you,” Ron mumbled, opening his eyes and then swiftly closing them again, throwing an arm over his face and groaning.
“Come on, get up,” Harry said, nudging Ron again with his foot. “I need the loo.”
Hermione’s eyebrows rose quizzically.
“Do you need some assistance or something?”
“No, a chaperone,” Harry replied dryly.
Before she could even ask what that meant, Ron sat up quickly, glaring warningly at Harry.
“Oh, fuck me!” he growled clutching his own head and moaning in pain.
Rolling his eyes, Harry got unsteadily to his feet and then held a hand out to Ron.
“You go on ahead. I’ll crawl there in a bit,” Ron said weakly, waving off the offer of help.
She checked again. Nope, still no sympathy growing. Hermione wasn’t about start feeling sorry for them and let them have a lie-in today after they’d kept her up half the night. Shaking her head in disgust, she left to get her bag.
When she’d returned from the basement kitchen with a glass of water and a handful of aspirin, she found them both on the couch looking miserable. Harry was sitting on the end closest to her, still curled up with the blanket, and Ron was draped over the other end, her pillow over his face, his head resting on the arm of the sofa. It didn’t look like either one of them was going to be much good for company today. Served them right, though.
Why was she the only sensible one? Why was she always the one expected to clean up the messes these two made? They left her asleep in bed while they sat up all night, playing games, getting drunk, and discussing embarrassing moments with past girlfriends and everyone’s eye color. Well, that part made her smile, actually.
Harry seemed to have a thing for girls with brown eyes, didn’t he? Hermione hadn’t heard him mention Cho’s last night, but hers were brown, too, and the Patil twins, though Harry never really fancied them. He’d only asked Parvati to the ball out of desperation. Clearly, he’d spent much more time studying the difference in color between hers and Ginny’s. The thought made her go slightly warm in the cheeks. But still, they’d excluded her last night, left her to linger in the hallway, reduced to listening at the door to their private conversations.
Hermione knew she was being overly sensitive, foolishly jealous of the time they’d spent together last night, at the closeness they seem to have re-established while she and Harry were still somewhat estranged. She shouldn’t begrudge Ron or Harry that, though. It’s what she wanted, their relationship repaired, and what had happened between her and Harry was Hermione’s own fault.
Perhaps it was easier for Harry to accept Ron back as his friend. There was certainly less that had happened between them to overcome. Whatever Harry might feel for Ron wasn’t confused and tangled up in his mind like it was with the painful memories of what had happened in the dungeons with her. Harry might be able to examine those emotions, accept them without the horrible guilt and shame that tainted his feelings for her.
Giving herself a little mental shake, Hermione sighed in a way that she hoped conveyed to them how heavily put-upon she was, then passed out the aspirin, handing the glass of water to Harry.
Ron looked at the two white tablets in his palm dubiously for a moment before popping the pills into his mouth to chew them up. Then he made a horrible face.
“You’re supposed to swallow them, dolt,” Harry said with a roll of his eyes, passing the glass to Ron.
“You might have mentioned that,” Ron choked out, quickly gulping down the remaining water to wash the bitter, chalky taste off his tongue.
“Disgusting! Muggle remedies are just as vile as wizard ones. Is it down in the rules that they all have to taste like bat droppings? Blimey, would a bit of sugar ruin their effectiveness or something?” he asked in dismay.
“I’ll leave you to your misery,” she told them waspishly. “I’m going to shower and get dressed. You two better pull yourselves together. Don’t think I’m going to take pity on you today. We have plans and you idiots aren’t ruining them.”
“Thanks, luv,” Ron grumbled to her retreating back.
Lifting her hand as she rounded the doorway, Hermione gave a mock cheerful wave in reply.
By the time she’d come back downstairs, Harry had finished with his shower as well, and was back on the couch, damp haired and clear eyed, pulling on his trainers. They headed down to the basement kitchen together without waiting on Ron, who had presumably taken Harry’s place under the shower spray.
“Oh, God! How can you eat that?” Ron groaned, looking horrified, when he joined them in the kitchen a few minutes later.
He pulled out the chair across from her, his complexion decidedly green. His eyes were still red-rimmed and bloodshot.
She’d requested a full English breakfast of Dobby this morning, partly because she wasn’t sure if they would be back for lunch and partly to torture the boys a bit more, which had clearly worked on Ron, but had no affect at all on Harry as he speared a sausage with his fork. For Ron, however, the sight or smell of his own plate of fried eggs, tomatoes, mushrooms, bacon, sausage, beans, black pudding and toast had turned him an even deeper shade of avocado green. Harry just shrugged at Ron’s disgust and continued to eat.
“I was hungry,” he explained around a mouthful of beans. “And I’ve felt a lot worse than this, believe me.”
Dropping into the seat next to Harry, Ron pushed his plate as far away as possible and curled himself around the cup of tea Dobby had just placed in front of him. He hadn’t bothered to shave, and his extreme pallor made him look like he was coming down with a bad case of the flu.
“Maybe this will be a reminder to you, Ron, to try and deter Harry from drinking in the future instead of joining in,” she said crisply, still resolutely refusing to let his peaky appearance influence her.
Ron and Harry glanced sideways at each other for a second, before Harry looked away again to continue his breakfast.
“You don’t have to be right all the time, you know,” Ron muttered sourly, sliding the toast off his plate and nibbling on it experimentally.
“You’ll need to eat more than toast,” she told him, pushing his plate back towards him again. “We might be late getting back, and you’re going to be starving.”
Ron scowled at her, leaning back in his chair as far as he could to get the offending smell of his breakfast out from under his nose.
“I don’t think I can. What are you planning today anyway?”
“Well, Bill knew about the guards, of course, didn’t he?” she began. “They were stationed at the bank once You Know Who had come back out in the open after our fifth year. But he doesn’t really know much about their routine or anything that might have happened with security at the bank since he went into hiding after our escape. So, I want to continue to stake out Gringotts. Watch them for a few days, get a feel for who they are, their movements and practices. We need to know everything we can about their habits. I want to know when they arrive, when they take breaks or change shifts, when they leave for the day. Everything.”
“And what will that tell you?”
“Well, among other things, it will tell us how they interact with patrons and other bank employees. Are they lax about using the probes on co-workers? Is there one or more that they’re particularly friendly with? Perhaps we can impersonate one of them like we did with the Ministry employees, and slip past the guards without having to stun them. We might also be able to get into the vaults that way without rousing suspicion.”
“But we still don’t have the key,” Harry interjected.
“Yes,” she agreed. “We’ll still have to figure out how to get into the vault once—”
“We have Draco’s hair don’t we?” Ron asked, interrupting her. “One of us can impersonate him, one under the cloak, and the other disguised as a bank employee.”
Holding up his hand, he ticked them off with his fingers as he spoke.
“We can talk our way past the guards that way. Say Draco is there on his aunt’s behalf, or something. They’d surely let him into the vault.”
“We still don’t have the key.” Harry reminded them again. “Even with Draco and a bank wizard, Bill said we can’t access the vault without the key or a goblin.”
“I didn’t say I had all the answers, Harry, but I’m going to start with the first obstacle and work from there.”
Bill had given them the name of a goblin he was friendly with at the bank, as friendly as anyone could be with a goblin, at any rate. He told them that Ragnok might be sympathetic to Harry and show him to his vault without the key or his wand as verification of his identity, but he couldn’t be sure. Bill had tried unsuccessfully to talk the goblin into siding with the Order a few years back.
Still, he warned them, it would be a huge risk for Harry to reveal himself on the off chance that Ragnok would cooperate, and of course, they couldn’t do that anyway, even if the chances were good he’d help. It wasn’t Harry’s vault they needed to access, and there was no way any of the goblins of Gringotts would help them break into someone else’s.
It was looking increasingly likely that they would be forced to use the Imperius curse on one or more of them, though she wasn’t ready to say that out loud just yet. Suggesting the use of one of the Unforgivable curses didn’t seem like the kind of thing you just tossed out over breakfast, not that planning a robbery of the bank wasn’t just as illegal, and never mind that they were already wanted for the break-in at the Ministry and for attacking several of its high-ranking officials. Hermione didn’t even count the fact that she was wanted for failing to appear for questioning by the Muggle-Born Registration Commission, or that she and Ron were on the run, aiding and abetting Harry Potter, Undesirable Number One.
Good lord, what a bunch of outlaws they were. Quite possibly, they were the most wanted witch and wizards in all of Britain. If they lived through this, the three of them would likely be spending the rest of their lives in Azkaban. Maybe Harry’s fame would at least get them adjoining cells, she mused. More likely, they’d be hung by their ankles, left dangling at opposite ends of the prison.
Hermione thought she might be able to handle living out her days in prison, as long as Ron and Harry were near her, and they didn’t put those horrible silencing charms around her.
“So what are we going to do? Sit outside the bank all day like we did at the Ministry?” Ron asked, breaking her out of her thoughts.
“Yes, I thought we would,” she confirmed with a nod of her head. “I want to know everything we can before we make an attempt on the vault.”
“We only have one cloak. So why are we all going then?” Harry asked.
“Well, the second obstacle right now is our supply of Polyjuice potion. We only have enough left for one more dose. We need some supplies.”
“It takes a month to make, Hermione! We don’t have that much time,” Harry argued.
“What other choice do we have? The plan Ron just came up with requires two doses, which we don’t have. And we can’t really fit two of us under the cloak anymore, either. So, that rules that out. We may as well plan ahead for it. If we come up with a better solution before then, we can act on it. It certainly won’t hurt to have a batch brewing.”
“Fine, but I’m running short on gold, so I hope we have enough to get what you need.”
“I only need the boomslang skin and bicorn horn. I have the rest of the potion ingredients in my bag.”
“What don’t you have in that bag?” Ron asked.
“A key,” Harry retorted, mopping up fried egg with his toast. “Or perhaps some Felix Felicis. If we’re willing to sit around for a month, brewing up potions, that one would help us get that Horcrux more effectively than Polyjuice.”
“Felix Felicis takes six months to brew.”
“I know that, Hermione. I wasn’t actually serious. Although I’d love to have some right now, I don’t have plans to try and whip up a batch,” he replied waspishly. “Now, if you still had your Time Turner…”
He went silent. The Time Turner was an object both of them had speculated on recently and even discussed that night in his bedroom. She knew he was remembering that, too, and everything that came with it, everything he would like to erase. Wouldn’t they all like to turn back time right now and start over, she thought heavily.
“So, your plan then is for one of us to just march into the apothecary? With all three of us on the top of everyone’s most wanted list.” Ron asked incredulously, breaking the silence.
“No. My plan is to transfigure my appearance enough so that I can’t be recognized, give a fake name if they ask, wear a hooded cloak and be out of there as quickly as possible.”
“You think it’s going to be you, then, do you?”
“Ron—”
“Nope. Hell no! You’re not traipsing down Diagon Alley alone, in broad daylight. I’m coming with you. You can transfigure me, too.”
“And just leave Harry to sit at the bank?” she asked pointedly, eyebrow raised.
Harry snorted into his plate at that.
“That won’t do, will it, Ron? What a conundrum,” he said sarcastically.
“Shut it,” Ron snapped. “I’m in no mood today, Harry.”
Well, that made three of them, didn’t it?
“Not Fluffy,” Harry whispered almost sing-song under his breath, glancing up at her a moment before returning to his plate.
“Look, why don’t Harry and I get the supplies you need, then, and meet you back here? Then one of us, or all of us can go to Gringotts,” Ron argued, ignoring Harry.
“Because, Ron, the bank will have opened by then, and I want to be there before that happens. You’re being ridiculous. I’ll be fine. You and Harry will go before Gringotts opens, Harry under the cloak, and you Disillusioned. You shouldn’t be noticed if you get there early. You said there was hardly anyone on the streets, anyway. And there should be even less people milling around this early in the day before any of the shops are even open,” she explained.
“Once they have, I’ll follow and get what we need and walk past you two so you know I’m fine, before I Disapparate back here and get the potion started. Then at lunch, Harry can come back here to Dobby, and I’ll use the cloak and take his place.”
Hermione knew Ron could spot the hole in her plan, which is why she mentioned Dobby as a subtle suggestion that the elf would keep watch on Harry while they were gone under her orders to report to them immediately if he left, or to perhaps use his magic to bind Harry to him, if he could be persuaded to do that. Of course, she hadn’t worked any of that out with Dobby. Not yet.
Ron was scowling, his hands curled into fists on the table, still clearly not satisfied with the plans she’d made.
“God’s sakes! Put your mind at ease, Ron. I’ll be just fine with Dobby as a sitter,” Harry snarled, pushing his plate away and standing up. “I’m not planning anything. I won’t be getting up to any hijinks while you’re gone. You’ve made it abundantly clear what you would do if I tried.”
“You know it’s not just that,” Ron hissed under his breath.
Harry glanced at Hermione a moment before he spoke.
“Fine. Search the house then, make sure I haven’t stashed any Firewhiskey or anything under my bed. Dobby would be delighted to help with that, too, I’m sure,” he said, sneering at Ron.
They both glared at each other then while Hermione wondered what Ron had threatened Harry with, and if Ron had stumbled onto the discovery of Harry’s night time drinking last night, or something. Perhaps it wasn’t a onetime occurrence. It made his comment last night about not getting away with anything more sensible, at least. It still didn’t explain why Ron joined him, but it did reinforce her resolve to purge the house of any remaining alcohol.
“Look, none of us is going to get anywhere with this Horcrux hunt if you’re both too busy keeping watch on me.”
“Harry’s right, Ron,” she agreed. “We all have the same goal here, and we need to start trusting each other and work as a team again. It’s too dangerous for us if we don’t.”
Ron gritted his teeth, but said nothing, his eyes focused on Harry, who stared innocently back. As if judging his sincerity, Ron waited for Harry to blink first, or flinch, to show some sign of duplicity, but Harry didn’t waiver. Finally, Ron stood up and turned from the room.
“Fine. I’m going to get my coat.”
Hermione watched him go for a moment, and then followed him out.
“Ron?”
She caught him at the stairs.
“Ron, wait, please.”
Still scowling down at his feet, he stood there, one foot on the bottom stair and a hand on the banister, but did not look at her as she came up to him.
“Listen. Why don’t I take your place, then, instead of Harry’s, and you can come back at lunch, if it’s that you’re worried about him being here alone,” she offered.
“And I’m supposed to just sit here twiddling my thumbs with both of you out there?” he snorted angrily.
“That’s the reason I have two of us stationed at the bank, so we’ll have backup if something unexpected happens. It keeps us all safer that way. We can’t all be there all day long, every day, and we can’t alternate and expect Harry not to balk at being left here with one of us to guard him. But we can’t sit still anymore either, Ron. You know that. We’ve been idle for entirely too long. We have to move forward. We have to trust each other.”
“Trust,” he muttered. “Yeah, right.”
She studied his profile.
“Ron, what happened last night, with Harry? What aren’t you telling me?”
He looked at her then, and she saw guilt in his eyes before he quickly glanced away.
“Nothing. Harry just had a nightmare. I heard him get up and followed him to the drawing room. He just…he didn’t want to go back to bed, so we stayed up and played chess for a while. That’s all.”
“And the liquor? Was he drinking when you found him?”
His ears went slightly red.
“No. I can’t keep letting him take the blame for that. I made him promise not to tell you, but it was my idea. He was…well…pretty upset, and I thought it might help him relax.”
Hermione watched him in silence a few moments, her eyes narrowed, while he continued to stare at his feet, avoiding her gaze.
“You’re lying to me,” she accused, finally. “I know there’s more to last night than you’re saying. You and Harry are both lying, both keeping something from me. You’re covering for each other. I’m not an idiot, Ron. I can tell by the way the two of you are acting.”
“It’s nothing—”
“Ron!”
“Look, just drop it, all right? You said it yourself. We have to trust each other. Trust me then. Trust that I’m doing what I think is best. I’m keeping my promise, so he’ll keep his. That’s all I’m going to tell you.”
Now she was alarmed, and she reached out to grab his arm, attempting to prevent him from fleeing up the stairs to escape her questions.
“I wouldn’t keep it from you if it wasn’t important. All right? And he can hear every word we’re saying right now, you know. Even from the kitchen. But I want him to hear. I want him to know it won’t be me who breaks this trust. I won’t betray him. I’m sorry, Hermione, but go interrogate him if you want answers.”
Hermione stared at Ron, round eyed and open mouthed, feeling hurt. Had he caught Harry doing something worse than drinking? Did he catch him sneaking out, perhaps? Did Harry have another episode of wandless magic or maybe a vision?
What did Harry make Ron promise to keep secret from her, and why wasn’t she allowed to know about it? Surely it wasn’t anything dangerous? Ron would never keep information from her that might be harmful to one of them.
Releasing his arm, she stood there a moment before nodding her head finally in reluctant acceptance.
“All right, Ron. I don’t like it, but I’m going to let it go for now,” she said grudgingly, and then in a more pleading tone, “Listen, we’re all leaving soon, splitting up, and I don’t want to leave angry with you, or you angry with me. Okay? Please?”
He nodded, grasping her hand with his and squeezing her fingers. Then he leaned down and kissed her forehead.
“Everything’s all right, ‘Mione, I promise. Everything’s going to be fine. Okay?”
She bit her lip, looking up at him, but again, Ron wasn’t looking at her. Instead, he was staring back down the hall. Turning, she saw Harry standing there. Arms crossed as he leaned against the doorframe of the kitchen, he grimly watched them. Apparently, he’d decided to just come out in the open instead of maintaining the pretense that he wasn’t fully aware that he was the subject of their conversation, or that he hadn’t heard every word of it.
Harry and Ron stared at each other a few moments, and then Ron squeezed her hand again before he released it and headed up the stairs. Letting him go, Hermione turned to face Harry instead, who was walking slowly up the hall. He came to a halt in front of her. She waited, but he said nothing. Evidently, he had no intention of sharing anything more with her than Ron had about what had gone on last night.
The silence dragged between them as she stared into his face. A face she used to know so well, a face she’d once been able to read with a single glance. Now he was like a stranger to her. What used to come so effortlessly between them, their easy friendship, had become a struggle. Hermione felt like she was losing him. As if the best friend she cherished so much was hardening to stone right before her eyes, the fire within him, a kiln for the clay. Becoming just a statue of the man she loved. Hermione could see it in his eyes, the distance, the separation, and she had no idea how to stop it.
Sighing heavily, she held out her hand to him. After a moment, Harry hesitantly placed his in it, twitching slightly when she curled her fingers around its warm heat and slid her other hand over his.
“What I said goes for you, too, Harry. I don’t want us all to part angry with each other. I don’t know what’s going on between you two, but I’ll trust that whatever it is, you’re working it out.”
He nodded, but remained resolutely mute.
Releasing his hand, she looked up at him again, capturing his eyes with her own.
“Watch after him today, Harry. Keep him safe,” she urged him in a whisper.
Harry opened his mouth as if to speak, but then closed it again before simply nodding his head. Then she, too, turned and followed after Ron, leaving Harry in the foyer.
Ten minutes later, Harry and Ron had departed together to take up their positions at the bank, both of them nearly invisible so that she could only hear the twin pops as they Disapparated.
When she followed, appearing nearly an hour later in Diagon Alley, her robes still twirling around her ankles from her rapid turn of Apparition, she looked around nervously. With slightly shaking hands, she pulled her hood down farther to hide her altered face before taking several deep breaths to calm her nervousness. Despite the assurances she’d made to Ron that she’d be fine on her own, she was terrified to be here without them.
Her hair was now blond, hanging longer without the curls with enough slight modification to her features to make her unrecognizable as the mudblood on the run with Harry Potter, but she was still herself underneath. She might have looked like Luna’s sister, but in her mind, she was still just Hermione Granger, a fugitive, wanted by the Ministry and the Death Eaters, out here all alone like a rabbit in the middle of a wolf’s den.
Squeezing her fingers around the wand in her pocket once for reassurance, she took another deep breath, and then began walking slowly towards the Apothecary. She could see the gleaming white of the bank in the distance and squinted at it as if searching for Ron and Harry near the entrance, which was ridiculous. If she could see them, then there would certainly be cause for alarm.
Just as Ron had described it, there was very little activity on the street. Only a couple of vendors, who were still setting up their carts, were about, hoping to sell to the few shoppers who might brave a trip to the Alley today. The nearest was squat with scraggly, matted, ginger hair. Bent over and arranging his goods, his back was to her. A powerful smell of stale tobacco hit Hermione’s nose as she drew near him.
It was Mundungus Fletcher, she realized suddenly, preparing to sell his wares, which he’d probably stolen. Tugging on her hood again, she kept her head down and moved swiftly towards her destination, giving him as wide a berth as possible.
She was sure he wouldn’t recognize her with her disguise, but she still wasn’t eager to confer with the Order member. On their last meeting, he’d been tailed for days and then dragged to Grimmauld Place by Kreacher, who’d then hit him over the head with a saucepan while Harry attempted to interrogate him about the whereabouts of the locket he’d stolen. Somehow, Hermione didn’t think he’d be all that glad to see her.
Mundungus was first and foremost, a greedy little thief, who would likely show no loyalty to Harry, or the Order, if given the opportunity to collect the current reward for the price on their heads. And she wasn’t fool enough to tempt him. Out here, alone, he was no ally of hers today.
“’Ello there, miss,” he called out to her as she passed, making her cringe. “The streets is no safe place for a lil’ dove like yourself. Perhaps I can interest you in a nice protective amulet? Ward you against Dementors and Inferi. Even protects against lots of hexes and jinxes. Normally ten galleons, but I’ll sell it to you for five. Bargain, eh?”
Shaking her head, Hermione quickened her pace. She was only a short way now from Slug and Jiggers Apothecary. Rounding the corner and out of earshot of Mundungus, she stepped up onto the stoop of the shop.
A bell above the door jangled loudly as she entered, making her jump and nearly run off, shrieking in fright. Releasing her tight grip on her wand, she mentally shook herself. Her heart was hammering, and she felt short of breath as if she’d run all the way here from Grimmauld Place. She needed to calm down. She didn’t want to draw attention to herself. No one was chasing her. Mundungus hadn’t recognized her, she told herself. There was nothing to be afraid of. She was just a customer, here to buy potion ingredients. That was all.
A balding, wizened-looking old man was wiping his hands on his apron as he ambled through a doorway in the back and towards the counter. He seemed surprised to see her and looked her over curiously. Hermione resisted the urge to tug on her hood again. It didn’t mean anything sinister. Perhaps his interest was simply because she was alone or because the shops had just opened, and he wasn’t expecting any customers this early.
“Good morning, miss. What can I get for you today?” he asked in a reedy voice.
Hermione stammered out the ingredients hurriedly, and he bowed, retreating back into the bowels of the pungent shop again. Walking to the window, she waited nervously for him to collect the potion ingredients she needed while she peered down the alley as if expecting a pack of Death Eaters or Ministry officials to be tailing her. She saw nothing, of course. The cobbled street outside was quite empty.
Rolling her wand between her fingers, Hermione relaxed her tense shoulders and turned back as the proprietor shuffled back to the counter with her ingredients. That’s when she saw it out of the corner of her eye, a momentary flash of red light.
She froze.
It was her imagination, a trick of the morning light reflecting off of something which had caught her eye, she assured herself.
Ignoring the proprietor’s soft throat clearing, Hermione turned back to the window. She stepped closer for a better look so that her nose was almost pressed against the glass. Then her hand was on the door, yanking it open as she fled into the street.
She’d seen it again, green this time.
Hood off, wand raised, her heart thumping frantically, she sprinted up the alley towards the bank, but then ducked as another streak of light flew over her head. Turning quickly towards the source, she saw something that made her heart stop.
It was Harry, some fifty feet away, one Death Eater lying motionless at his feet in a pool of blood. But there were two others with wands raised. And then, to her horror, she saw Bellatrix.
Stunned, her brain unable to comprehend the scene, Hermione stood there in shock. She was utterly frozen. This couldn’t be real, couldn’t be happening. She’d stumbled into some kind of horrible nightmare.
Harry was wrapped tightly around Bellatrix, apparently oblivious to what was going on around him. The two of them were struggling with each other as the other pair of Death Eaters fired spells, not at Harry, but back down the alleyway towards Hermione. Coming out of her stupor then, she quickly deflected one of the spells which was speeding towards her.
“HARRY!” she screamed as the second, a bolt of green light, narrowly missed her and instead, blew a chunk out of the wall behind her, showering her in bits of brick and mortar.
Then she was rammed hard, knocked sideways by some invisible force, who she knew instinctively was Ron, running towards Harry, still under the Disillusionment charm.
Her wand flew out of her hand at the impact, and she dropped to her knees, frantic to retrieve it. She recovered it quickly, but didn’t even have time to feel relief as her hand closed around it. She could hear Ron yelling curses, still running flat out.
“Confringo!” she shouted, pointing her wand at the nearest Death Eater, whose clothing burst into flames.
Screaming, he flailed his arms in a panic as his robes were set alight.
Not even caring what she’d done, Hermione scrambled to her feet again just as Bellatrix began to turn.
“NOOOOO!”
Hermione started to run, but she wasn’t going to make it in time. Bellatrix was twisting, Disapparating with Harry. And then, with a crack, they were gone.
The Death Eater she’d cursed was still on his feet, screaming just as she was, but Hermione spared no thought for him, sprinting to the spot where she’d seen Harry disappear as if she could still catch them and bring him back. Hoping to undo the catastrophe that had just happened if she could just get there fast enough, even though she knew it was already too late, Hermione skidded to a halt where they’d been standing a moment before and spun around in a circle.
The last remaining Death Eater, staggering slightly and spitting blood, fired off one more spell, which flew wide to her right and shattered a shop window. Then, abandoning his injured or dying fellows to their own fates, he Apparated away.
“RON?” she screamed, stumbling around over broken glass and through pools of blood, shaking all over.
But there was no answering response. In fact, all had gone quiet. Even the burning Death Eater’s screams were silenced now, though she didn’t yet register what that must mean. Her thoughts were only for Ron and Harry.
Feeling around on the ground for his body, her hands scrabbled over the cobbled stones, but she came up with only Harry’s invisibility cloak and the dead Death Eater’s wand.
Oh, God! Where was Ron?

~ . ~

I know it's been forever since I posted a chapter. I've had a lot going on and this chapter (and the next) were really giving me a lot of trouble. The next one is already with the beta though, so it shouldn't be much longer. If you're still reading, Thank you. Greycie
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What it comes down to

Chapter 31. Truth and Consequences