Hermione felt very much like the proverbial caged lion as she paced a patch of blackened grass just in front of four Privet Drive. Her family was close by, Dumbledore was talking to the head Auror again, and the other Aurors were still examining every inch of the muggle home for clues. At the edge of the Dursleys' property line, practically in the street, was Harry. It was the farthest he could go in his need to escape without being too far to be safe. In deference to his wishes, everyone was keeping well away from him. He was standing perfectly still, his back to the house, his hands stuffed in his jacket pockets.

He could not have been standing there for more than ten minutes, but to Hermione it felt like hours.

She'd heard Harry say he needed a couple of minutes, her mother had insisted Hermione respect that, but everything in her screamed for her to go to him. He was hurting. She had to help him, it wasn't a matter of want or desire, she had to. It was as inarguable as the sun rising in the east.

Hermione paced more furiously. She couldn't stay still. When she passed near her mother, Miranda reached out and touched her shoulder. "Hermione… please, sweetie, calm down."

"How can I?" Hermione retorted, lowly enough that her voice wouldn't carry to where Harry stood across the yard. He was probably making an effort not to notice anything going on at the house, anyway. "Did you hear what that horrible man said to him?"

Miranda frowned. "He was upset; he just lost his son." Miranda tried to tug Hermione closer but Hermione felt she might go stark raving mad if she was confined. She shied from the invitation for comfort, shrugged off her mother's hand, and stood a pace away. Miranda's expression became troubled by that, but she didn't speak to it. Instead what she did say was, "You know that Mister Dursley was wrong about Harry no longer having a home, don't you?"

Hermione gave a tight smile. "I know, Mum." Hermione glanced toward Harry forlornly. "I don't know if Harry knows."

The sight of Harry alone and aching set Hermione to pacing again.

Dumbledore rejoined the Grangers after speaking a bit longer with the Auror in charge. Hermione whirled to face the headmaster, expectant and impatient. Hermione could see the worried look on her mother's face as she watched her daughter. Hermione couldn't make her mother understand the restless necessity in her blood. Didn't they realize she needed to go to Harry?

Apparently, Dumbledore alone did. He studied Hermione a moment then said, "Miss Granger… contrary to Harry's earlier demands to be alone, I believe he would benefit greatly from your presence."

Hermione didn't have to be told twice. She turned at once and started across the yard toward her boyfriend. The knot of manic energy in her chest began to uncoil the closer she got to him.

Her steps slowed when she was less than five feet from him. He was standing so still he might have been made of stone or perhaps under the effects of the petrificus totalus. "Harry?" she ventured.

Harry didn't move at her voice but Hermione could sense he would have invited her to his side if he had bothered to talk. She came up beside him and looked up into his face searchingly. Harry was staring down the street with unfocused eyes, lost inside himself. There was a tension in his jaw and a tightness in the skin around his eyes that betrayed his anguish.

Hermione carefully curled her hand around his crooked elbow.

"Mione," he croaked, and Hermione leaned closer. Harry's lips moved soundlessly a moment, then he blinked and turned his head to look at her. The wind ruffled his dark hair as he faced her. There was something powerfully raw in his gaze that took Hermione's breath away. She didn't know what it meant but it reached into her very core.

Harry stared intently at her face, into her eyes, then he said, "I never thanked you."

She didn't really know what to make of that; fair to say it was not what she'd been expecting him to say in that moment. "For what?"

Harry slipped his hand from his pocket to wrap his fingers around her wrist, his fingertips on her pulse point. Not quite holding her hand, but holding on to her just the same. He looked straight at her; he may as well have been looking straight into her for the intensity of his eyes. And when he spoke, there was a powerful frankness to his voice. "For what you did the night Cedric died."

Hermione's lungs seemed to stop working in a breathless second. Her heart began beating wildly. A tight flutter hit her in the bottom of her stomach and raced between her legs. Her knees threatened to shake for a fleeting moment. Her thoughts returned to that night, that unspoken night, when she had given Harry the most precious treasure she had ever possessed. She'd accepted it as an extreme act of love for a desperate friend. She had not permitted herself to think on it beyond that. Harry had seemed to agree to the unspoken vow to let it be just what it had been, a supreme act of caring from a friend in a dire moment, because neither of them had ever broached the subject. Hermione was okay with that. Harry was all right, and that was all she'd asked of that night's events.

But now, in his eyes… it wasn't a nameless form anymore. He wasn't leaving it at that night, an incredible moment in time that had simply come and gone. He was making it their now.

Hermione felt immense, intense emotions threatening to drag her under. A part of her wanted so very much to drown. Instead she reached up and touched Harry's face… in much the way she'd touched him in bed that fateful night. "You never have to thank me for that, Harry," she whispered earnestly.

Harry shook his head. "I should never stop thanking you. Hermione, if you hadn't… if you hadn't been there… if you hadn't been with me…" he brought up both hands to rest them on either side of her slender neck, thumbs tracing her jaw line. He looked deeply into her eyes so she might see the truth, and what a profound truth it was. It rendered Hermione breathless; she couldn't even think for being lost in Harry's burning, direct gaze. "Without you, I honestly think I may have gone mad." Then the intensity in his eyes shifted, went from fierce conviction to blinding adoration, and he said in a soft voice, "I love you."

Hermione closed her eyes in unmitigated joy. She had, of course, known Harry loved her. But he'd never said the words. He didn't trust himself to believe he could love the right way, not enough to be permitted to say it. It made Hermione ache inside, but she knew that he didn't believe he deserved the very thing most children took as a birthright, knowing love, any more than he could once have fathomed being loved. He knew his parents had loved him, but it was like knowing he'd be a fraction of his weight if he were standing on the moon; it was a truth he could know intellectually but couldn't conceptualize emotionally. And for all that, he wouldn't blaspheme the idea of love by saying it; Hermione knew that he didn't think he'd earned it. There were rites of passage he was waiting on before he dared to tell anyone that he, Harry Potter, loved them. Even with her. He had trials to overcome to prove to himself that he was worthy of telling Hermione that he loved her. She'd never pushed him for a proclamation; it would have been pointless and caused Harry unnecessary anxiety. If he couldn't say the word she wouldn't force it out of him. It was just a word. She'd had other ways of knowing. Hermione went on faith in his touch and his kiss and his smile to believe he loved her in the absence of those three words. But to hear them… it was a missing piece of the puzzle of her heart. It would seem that if Harry had imagined tests to his right to claim to love someone, he'd passed them.

Hermione opened her eyes and gazed up at him. "I love you, too."

For a moment they stayed like that, staring into each other's eyes and basking in the aftermath of their proclamations. For that moment, the mangled house and mangled family so near was forgotten.

It was Harry who broke the perfect stillness first. "I… I have one of your Christmas presents." He removed one hand from her person to reach into his pocket and pull out a small box. "You never got to open it… here." He held it out to her.

Puzzled but curious, Hermione took the brightly wrapped gift, looked up questioningly into Harry's eyes, then proceeded to tear off the Christmas paper. The first thing she noticed about the box was the engraved seal of Gringotts Wizard Bank on the front. Even more perplexed than before, Hermione opened the box to see what was inside.

It was a gold medallion, linked to a chain so it might be worn like a necklace. It was the size of the silver dollar Uncle Ben had sent her once when she'd asked about American money. This coin, however, was pure gold. Hermione looked at it closer. Written around the circumference, encircling the more ornate version of the Gringotts emblem that was on the front of the box, was goblin script. All witches and wizards could read some goblin, as it was the language of their currency, but the characters on the medallion weren't those typically used on wizard money. It required Hermione to study them more closely than she would have the writing on regular wizard money.

Hermione slowly put together some of the key words on the medallion, and when it clicked what she was looking at she gasped. It was a Full Rights Vault Granting medallion. It deemed all of Harry's fortune equally hers. It was the wizarding world's equivalent of the muggle practice of putting her name on the account.

"Harry…" she began only to find herself quite speechless.

Harry gave her a nervous smile. "I want to know that if anything… if anything happens to me you'll be taken care of. You can do whatever you want with the money, it makes no difference to me. I trust you."

It could be all the gold in Britain or a pence, that didn't matter to Hermione. What did matter was a rather significant legal detail concerning the medallion. The particular medallion Harry had given her granted another person complete rights to a wizard or witch's vault on the basis of that individual being the original vault-holder's spouse. It was a tradition from ages past; goblins were very stubborn to change their ways. In no other area of wizard law would it be binding, but in wizard banking law…

Did Harry even realize what he'd done? Hermione didn't know that he did; Harry was still very much a babe in the woods when it came to so many things in the wizarding world. He may very well have given her the medallion with no knowledge of what it would mean in goblin legal terms, beyond giving her access to his wealth.

"Harry… when you got this for me, did the goblin who gave it to you explain what it is? Do you… do you understand what it means in Gringott law?"

Harry looked directly at her and nodded.

Hermione gaped. Her heart was pounding almost too hard to bear.

"It doesn't… if you never want it to go beyond banking law, I… I understand. But I… when we're old enough… I want to marry you."

For a few second she could only stare openly at him, dumbstruck.

When it sank in, Hermione wanted to throw her arms around his neck and kiss him senseless. Instead she slipped her free hand inside his open jacket and rested her palm and splayed her fingers on his chest (she could feel his heart pounding almost as hard as hers) and stood on her toes to kiss him on the mouth, feather-soft, mindful of the cut on his lip.

Of course, in the back of her mind, she'd known they would get married one day. They'd already agreed to children; it only made sense. But she never would have expected Harry to propose so soon, when they were still so young. But it didn't change the answer, whether he asked today or five years from now.

Hermione looked up into Harry's face, gripped the goblin medallion tighter in her hand, and said lowly, "You better not die on me, Harry. I won't be your widow before I've even married you."

Harry's expression flickered with uncertainty a moment. "Does that mean that you will marry me?"

Hermione nodded. "Yes."

Harry broke into a huge grin. It pulled at the edges of his cut and he started to bleed again, but he didn't seem to notice nor care. He bent down and scooped her up in a hug that lifted her off her feet. Hermione clutched at him tightly. She wanted to scream for sheer happiness. Instead she clenched her eyes shut so she wouldn't see the burned and broken house or the dead grass or the skeleton of the Dursleys' car. She wanted to limit her awareness to only Harry.

"I shouldn't be this happy," Harry muttered into her hair, as though musing aloud to himself at an unexplainable phenomenon. Hermione ached because she knew he was sincere… he couldn't think himself deserving of normal happiness. Or maybe he meant he shouldn't experience anything good so soon and so near to the tragedy of his cousin's death. The death of the cousin who had tormented him and hated him and certainly never loved him. No more than Harry's aunt and uncle ever cared about him. Hermione wanted to feel sorry for them, but she just couldn't. Her heart wasn't that big, there wasn't room for her to find any compassion for people who had treated the person she loved so horribly. The love she felt for Harry was too much, it pressed at the confines of her heart, leaving no space for the Dursleys.

In silent response to his doubts, Hermione raked the fingers of her free hand through his black hair. She tried to imagine doing it for the rest of her life. She liked that notion very much. Voldemort had to die, because Hermione wasn't about to give up her future, this wondrous future with Harry.

Finally, Harry put her down and Hermione stepped back to look up at his face. He was flushed, his mouth was bleeding, but he looked completely different from the young man who'd fled his aunt and uncle's house less than an hour ago. She contemplated the fact that she was looking at her future husband and it astounded her even as it made her giddy.

How long would it take her to get used to going by Hermione Potter, she wondered? There would be time enough to find out. There would be… Hermione wouldn't stand for Voldemort or his followers to deny her that.

"I expect I'll need to activate this," Hermione said with a look down at the gold medallion, their personal engagement promise.

Harry nodded. "Just your magical imprint will 'sign the deed', to use a muggle term."

Hermione nodded and put it in her pocket. It would have to wait until they were back at Hogwarts and she could use magic. When she looked up she turned to glance at her parents, grandmother, and Dumbledore. They were all waiting. Much as she loathed to end this moment, she didn't want to linger at this house any longer than necessary, either. It was well past time that Harry left this part of his life behind forever.

"It's time to go," she said gently to Harry.

Harry sighed, much of the glee in his face chased away by the reality waiting beyond the two of them, but he gave a confident nod and took her hand. Together, they started back across the yard to where their friends and family waited.

As they drew near them, Hermione could see the looks on her parents' and grandmother's faces. It was all too knowing. Hermione could only imagine what her and Harry's exchange had looked like from a distance. They would have seen it in muggle terms, and for once it would have been as equally accurate as the wizard interpretation, if not quite precise in the finer details. And the best part was the fact that the expressions on her family's faces were accepting and maybe, outside of this terrible place and the terrible things that had happened here, they might have been happy. Miranda was smiling, eyes moist but not releasing tears. Jake was looking at Harry with something undeniably approving in his face. Berti's eyes were bright without a trace of flippancy or displeasure as she looked back and forth between the two. For their voiceless approval, for their acceptance of Harry even in this testing hour, she could never thank them enough, nor love them enough.

When they had rejoined the group Harry looked to Dumbledore. "My aunt and uncle made it pretty clear they don't want us here anymore. I think we should leave them be."

Dumbledore nodded.

Harry dug into the pocket of his jeans with his free hand and came out with a tiny version of a physician's type bag. Harry held it out toward Dumbledore. "Would you mind, sir?"

"Not at all." Dumbledore waved his wand and the bag returned to its normal proportions, bulging at the sides and suddenly much heavier than it had been before. Harry had to let go of Hermione's hand to heft the leather bag with both hands. He carried it to Jake and handed it to him. "Here. This is to make sure you and Miranda and Berti can hole up somewhere safe."

Jake opened the bag while Miranda leaned in to have a look. When they saw the contents they both gaped. The bag was full of money. It was well enough money to support all of them comfortably for at least a year without any of them working a single day.

"Harry! This is too much. We can't take this," Miranda protested at once.

"Please, just take it. I can't stand the thought of any of you getting hurt because of me. And if it takes more than that," he gestured at the bag in Jake's hand, "to make sure you're all safe, I'll pay it. Twice over, if need be."

"Son…" Jake started to say with a faint shake of his head, but Harry interrupted him. "Don't worry about the money. That's not even a quarter of my inheritance, you won't break me, and it's just money. It's never been more than a reminder to me. I don't care about money, but I care about you three not being in danger, or ending up like Dudley, just for being important to me."

"We'll take this for now," Jake said solemnly, "on the understanding that you have to take back whatever we return to you when this is all over."

Harry sighed but relented, for it meant the Grangers would be taking it. It would be there if they needed it.

"Where are we to go?" Miranda asked, naturally turning to look at Dumbledore.

"Harry and Hermione, of course, will be going back to Hogwarts with me. I've made arrangements for the three of you. The less we involve ministry workers in this endeavor the better. You'll floo from Tomlin's house, that's the wizard we met earlier today when we flooed to Surrey, to Remus Lupin's. He'll be expecting you." Dumbledore glanced at Hermione meaningfully. "I take it you trust Remus to adequately see to the safety of your family?"

Hermione conferred silently with Harry then nodded.

"Do you really think we can up and disappear like this? What about all our obligations and commitments? What about Jake and Miranda's dental practice? What about my husband's horse?" Berti asked.

"I will see to it that everything is tended to. We can place substitute dentists, witches and wizards, of course, in the Grangers' place of business to maintain their clientele until they're in a position to return to work. And your husband's horse will be similarly cared for in your absence, have no fear on that count, Missus Richardson." Dumbledore regarded the state of their surroundings in thought. "We should be going now, I should think."

Hermione squeezed Harry's hand but said nothing as they fell in behind Dumbledore for the return trek.