Meanwhile, Harry had stumbled around nearly blind from his tears. Not knowing how, he had found himself back outside the door to the Hospital Wing. He barely had the strength to open the door and stumbled inside. He closed the door, and slid to the floor, sobbing with his arms on his knees and his head cradled in his arms.

The pad of bare feet on stone was followed by a tentative touch on his arm, and he heard a voice trying to break through his sobs.

“Harry, come on. I’m still too stiff to sit on the floor with you,” Hermione soothed, with a lopsided, worried smile. She tugged at his arm and chewed on her lower lip. Harry tilted his tear-streaked face up to her and grabbed her hand. Hermione’s heart ached for his pain. But before she had to give him further urging, Harry slowly gathered himself and rose to his feet, clutching her hand like a lifeline.

Hermione’s injury left her still wobbly, and Harry was none too steady on his feet at the moment, so they each put an arm around the other’s waist and made long, slow, halting progress through the ward, until they reached the bed Hermione had been assigned. When they both had collapsed onto her bed, Hermione pulled him close into a tender hug as he cried.

For several moments, she simply held his head on her shoulder as he cried, his arms draped uselessly. Finally, his arms tightened around her and his sobbing started to wane. Hermione implored, “Harry, what’s wrong? You seemed to be doing ok when you left only twenty minutes before you came back like this.”

Harry took a deep halting breath and lifted his head to look into her gentle brown eyes from only inches. He saw her gentle patience, and concern, and drawing from that the strength to answer her question. “Had a run in with Draco and his goons,” he paused, before continuing with a hitch in his voice, said, “but it was when Snape showed up that it all went spare.”

He swallowed, searching her eyes for more strength. She snatched at him and pulled him into a tighter hug, with her cheek against his, and their chins resting on each other’s shoulder. She pled, “Oh Harry, what did he say to you that set you off like this?”

“He said,” and Harry paused to take a deep breath and nuzzle into Hermione’s hair, before finally blurting out his greatest shame, “that I’d gotten Sirius killed and endangered everybody! And he was right.”

Harry twisted desperately in her grasp and pulled away. He couldn’t even look at her as he bared his greatest fear. He choked out, “How can you ever forgive me? I can’t forgive myself! I nearly got you killed. I did get Sirius killed! When I thought you were dead I went a bit mad and if Neville hadn’t told me you were still alive, I might have taken a dive through the veil myself to follow you and Sirius.”

Hermione tried logic. “Harry, you can’t take responsibility for everybody! Sirius was a grown man, he chose to be there to try and help you. The same can be said for all of us that went there with you. You told us it was dangerous, just as I told you it was likely a trap, but we all came to help you anyways, just as you had to go anyways.”

Hermione had managed to hold onto his nearer hand as he pulled away, and he hadn’t even look at her as he choked out his guilt-laden confession. After getting no change to his demeanor from her arguments, she used both hands to apply gentle pressure and get him to turn back and look at her. Once she’d gotten him settled upright next to her, he still had his body turned away, so she shifted her grip to his shoulders and twisted them to face her. Still, he wouldn’t turn to meet her eyes. So, she swallowed her own fears, and leaned in to kiss him softly on the lips.

His eyes flew to hers in shock. She pulled away just a quarter inch and chewed on her lower lip, eyes flicking between his eyes. Seeing the wonderment in his eyes, she giggled, and pressed her lips to his again. She brought her hands up to cup his face, while keeping her eyes open to watch as the pain and anguish slowly were replaced by something else. Just as his eyes started to drift closed in bliss, she allowed her own to close, and flicked her tongue against Harry’s lips.

Harry moaned into her kiss. As he did so, his mouth opened slightly, and Hermione needed no further invitation, as she launched her tongue on a mission of exploration into his mouth. Finally, Harry responded. He crushed her to his breast and drove her tongue from his mouth in a counter attack that granted him the secrets of her mouth.

When she drew her hands down to his chest to push him away, their lips parted and eyes opened, they panted with their eyes locked and foreheads touching. Both of them raised a hand to cradle the other’s face. Harry was suddenly aware of her breasts pressed into him when an errant thought sent a surge of panic through him, and he darted his eyes to the bed where Ron had been during his last visit.

Hermione felt him start. How could she not, as tightly, as closely as they were at the moment? Seeing where he was looking, she snickered, “Ron didn’t want to miss dinner. So he talked Madame Pomfrey into releasing him this afternoon, shortly after you left the first time.”

Harry gave a heavy sigh. Looking at her ruefully, “Thank God! I mean if he had seen me like this, who knows what he’d do? I’d never hear the end of it!”

Hermione gave him a quick kiss, but sucked his lower lip into hers as she pulled away. Then giving him an exaggerated pout, asked teasingly, “Which part? The part where you came in and collapsed into tears? Or the part where you were snogging me senseless?”

“Uh…well, both I guess,” he answered with a sheepish grin.

Hermione gave him a frown and said, “His response to both would have been to run away, or avoid the whole issue. His emotional depth still hasn’t gotten much passed that of a teaspoon,” she paused for a second, and grimaced, “Unless he decided to go spare out of jealousy. He’s got the jealous prat act down pat.”

Harry blushed and looked at her sidelong. He asked, “Not that it wasn’t brilliant, but what brought that on Hermione?” Seeing her eyes start to fill with unshed tears, he clasped both of her hands in his, and raced onward, “I didn’t know you felt that way about me. I’m so used to keeping all my feelings locked inside, and all I know for sure is that I never, ever want to have to be without you in my life.” Harry let out a deep breath; “I haven’t had much experience with people caring about me. In fact, when you hugged me in the potion puzzle room First Year, it was the first time I remember ever being hugged. So, I wasn’t sure just how what I was feeling was best described. Are you like a sister to me? Or more like my very best friend? Or is there more? Could I be falling in love with you? I just don’t know, because I have never had any reasonable role models to base my behavior upon. Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia? Please tell me that is not my fate! Hell, I don’t want to be Arthur to your Molly either!”

Hermione harrumphed right into his face. Getting nose to nose with Harry, she scolded, “Harry James Potter! I have loved you since First Year, when you saved me from the Troll. You mean we’ve wasted all of this time because you were too chicken to even ask your best friend how she felt about you?”

Harry felt incipient panic at her words and tone, but then he noticed the twinkle in her eyes, and the slightest of curl to her lips. He gave her a ferocious mock scowl, and growled, “No fair! I’m not used to this kind of closeness and not all that sure of how to describe my feelings. So, I’m not very good at teasing.”

Hermione blinked. She said, “I’m so sorry Harry. But you know me,” she paused and placed one hand over his heart, “And you know, right here, I would never do anything to hurt you, right? And honestly, I didn’t realize I was in love with you until the first task of the TriWizard Tournament.”

“Took you that long did it? So much for brightest witch of her generation! I’m afraid I’ve been in love with you since second year,” Harry smirked.

Hermione’s dive into him knocked them both over, with her landing atop him. She kissed him fiercely for several seconds, then winced and pulled away. “Oh, bother! I’m still too stiff and sore to get that energetic.”

“Well then, why don’t we just have a bit of a lay in and cuddle some? Do you need another pain relief potion?” Harry asked, as he rolled himself onto his side on one side of her hospital bed.

Hermione spooned herself back into her wizard with a smile, that grew bigger when Harry brushed her hair aside and kissed her neck and ear. After a few more minutes of conversation, with Harry very conscious of where his hands rested, they both drifted off to sleep; exhausted by the changes and emotions they’d been subjected to that afternoon.


Madam Pomfrey bustled down the ward towards her office. As she went, she turned her gaze upon her last remaining patient and skidded to a stop. Looking down upon Harry Potter and Hermione Granger, spooned together on her hospital bed, she started to smile, but then her eyes glazed over and her expression stilled. She mechanically turned and walked back out of the Hospital Wing and up the corridor leading to the Headmaster’s Office.

The guardian gargoyle stepped aside to let the school nurse ascend the spiral staircase to the Headmaster’s Office. At the door to his she paused until the door opened, then paced wordlessly to stand in front of the Dumbledore’s desk.

Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore, Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot, Chief Mugwump International Conference of Wizards, and Recipient of the Order of Merlin First Class, sighed in resignation as he saw Pomfrey’s blank stare. He muttered to himself, “This is getting ridiculous! I obliviate and obliviate and lay compulsion after compulsion on those two! And still, they end up getting together and I have to do it all over again! It’s only been eight days since the last time. I think I may have to let Snape’s plan to butcher that little bitch succeed, just so I don’t constantly have to deal with this aggravation! If I let him have Granger, maybe I can limit him to harvesting two girls this year. I guess I’ll have to figure out some way to save the boy though, can’t have him meeting Tom in anything other than a combat situation now can I?”

He snorted, invoking the triggers of the customized Imperious curse that Pomfrey was under, “Well, I guess I know what I’m doing this evening. Pomfrey, stay here for ten minutes, then head back to the hospital wing, forget everything from the time you entered the hospital wing before coming here until the time you return.”

Albus flowed down the spiral staircase and towards the hospital wing with the both the careful, exacting steps of a very old man, and yet, his strides were still the long and powerful steps of a much younger man. He was muttering to himself the whole way, “I can’t believe those two are able to keep throwing off my spells. Each time they’ve broken the compulsions faster, but at least the obliviations are still working. That would be a complete disaster.” He snickered, “I’m not surprised Potter couldn’t learn Legimancy, with as many holes in his memory as he has. Hell, even if he where able to completely protect all of the memories he knows about, to a sufficiently powerful Legimancy attack, his defenses would look like a sieve, since he can’t protect what he doesn’t even know about.”

Opening the door to the Hospital Wing, Dumbledore swept up the wing until he arrived at a bed with two occupants, unconscious and spooned together. He sneered, “How sweet. Young love,” drawing his wand, he began to cast, “Ennervate! Legimense!”

Sifting through Potter’s memories, he tried to pick out the point where he could erase the memories that would cause the boy the greatest pain, confusion, and suffering. Thinking to himself that if he just left the memory of Harry running from the confrontation at the entrance in tears, ended it when he slumped to the floor against the door inside the Hospital Wing, looping that memory for an hour or so before tumbling into an exhausted slumber, he could maximize the emotional disruption. On the plus side, he could simply modify Granger’s memory to have her remember being asleep the entire time. Putting his plan to work, he began casting at Harry again, “Obliviate! Legimense! Stupify! Levicorpus!” After levitating Harry over to the door, he left him slumped against the wall, and Dumbledore returned to Hermione’s Hospital bed. He finished off his casting with, “Obliviate! Legimense! Stupify!” Then, he put the Eldar Wand away, and walked out of the Hospital Wing, with a spring in his step, taking a different path back to his office, so that he wouldn’t run into Pomfrey on her way down from his office.