The floo from Tomlin's house spit them out in Headmaster Dumbledore's office. Fawkes gave a squawk at their arrival and a few of the portraits craned to see who had come through the fireplace, but otherwise the room was calm and quiet. It was a stark contrast to the scene they'd found at the Dursleys'.

After brushing off his robes, Dumbledore turned to the two teenagers. They were standing uncertainly, side by side. Dumbledore's eyes lingered longer on Harry than they did on Hermione. "I think you would be well served to go to the hospital wing and have that cut on your lip tended, Harry. I'm not as adept at the healing arts as Madam Pomfrey."

Harry touched the tip of his tongue to the open wound and gave a weary nod. "All right."

"Come on, Harry," Hermione whispered softly and tugged Harry toward the door. Harry let himself be led. When it was Hermione taking him by the hand, it was easy.

They didn't see anyone in the hallways on their trek to the hospital wing, and when they pushed open the doors to the school infirmary Madam Pomfrey seemed to startle at having visitors. She turned and saw Harry's face. "Well, for Merlin's sake, Mister Potter, one would think you could manage to keep out of my care while you're not even at school. Come on, over here." The mediwitch beckoned him toward a bed so she might examine him. Hermione followed, staying close.

Pomfrey squinted at Harry's split lip once Harry had taken a seat on the bed and she tisked. "Nasty bit of work. Stay there and don't touch it." She left her patient's bedside to fetch a bottle of viscous green potion, which she proceeded to dab on Harry's cut.

"That stings," Harry hissed.

"Mmm hmm," Pomfrey merely hummed back in her usual officious manner. Then her demeanor softened visibly. "I heard about your cousin. I'm sorry."

It was doubtful that she knew how many split lips dear old Dudley had given Harry through the years before he had a mediwitch to patch him up, but that was neither here nor there as far as Harry was concerned. It still served to bring back the vivid memories of the Dursleys' house blown full of holes and bearing burn marks from cast spells.

Harry frowned and sat still the rest of the visit. He didn't want to chance any conversation that might cause Pomfrey to bring up Dudley again.

When Madam Pomfrey discharged Harry, injury cleaned, set to healing, and generously smeared with medical potion, he surrendered to Hermione's guidance and compliantly followed her, trusting in her to take him somewhere safe where he could let down the remainder of his splintered guard.

Hermione led them to Gryffindor tower.

There was no one in the common room when they stepped through the portrait hole. The fireplace was out and cold, but upon their entrance a flame leapt to life on the logs and quicker than any muggle fireplace would take to fire it was soon burning steadily, inviting and warm. It clearly appeared to warm only them.

"Did anyone stay over at Hogwarts for Christmas?" Harry wondered aloud at the deserted common room.

"I'm sure some did. I imagine they must be outside playing in the snow."

It sounded obscene to think of games in the snow when they'd just been at the scene of a murder. It didn't fit the frame. Harry gave up trying to sort it out.

Hermione dropped his hand for the first time since leaving the hospital wing to dig into her jacket pockets and withdraw her shrunken luggage. "Go ahead and get settled in and I'll meet you back here."

Harry nodded and trudged up the stairs to the boys' dormitory. The five beds were all equally untouched, no hint of errant socks or hastily shed pajamas on the floor. Harry took a fair guess that none of his roommates were at Hogwarts over the Christmas holiday. It was both a relief and a let-down. He didn't particularly want Seamus cracking lewd jokes or Dean fretting over the state of the common space, but so many empty beds arrayed around him made it seem eerily like the rightful occupants were deceased. And it would imply heavy losses for all the other boys to be dead.

Harry concluded he was thinking too much about death.

He crossed to his bed and took his own luggage from his pockets. He took out his wand to reinstate their normal sizes, then he began to shove things back into some semblance of their proper place. He noticed his clothes smelled like smoke, and he paused in his straightening up task to change into clean clothes. He kicked his ash-scented items aside and resumed his efforts to put away his luggage. It struck him as he haphazardly put away his belongings that the entirety of his worldly possessions were in this room. Whatever he might have left at the Dursleys' he would not go back for. They'd probably burn anything he left behind for the satisfaction of searing him from their lives before he would have had a chance to go back, anyway. All he saw before him was the whole of what he could call his own. It was a pithy amount of things to show for a life.

That thought exhausted him and he stopped his unpacking to sit down heavily on his bed. He was motionless for a time, mind a void, too inundated to feel anything concrete, then he happened to glance up at his nightstand. Some of the gloominess in him melted away when he laid eyes upon the framed wizard picture of him and Hermione at the Yule Ball last year. He still had that. He had his parents' photo album in his trunk, safe and undamaged. He had his father's invisibility cloak, he had his Firebolt. He had everything that was of real value to him, everything important.

And Hermione was waiting for him downstairs, or would be shortly if she wasn't already. Harry breathed in and sat up straighter at the thought. He wouldn't spare another thought for anything he may have lost; he still had the most precious thing in the world to him.

He wanted to be with her again, the compulsion rose in him and he didn't bother fighting it. Leaving his unpacking half-done, Harry rose from his bed and left the dorm room. He breathed a sigh of relief, of reprieve, to find Hermione sitting cross-legged on the couch waiting for him. She, too, had changed into different jeans and a clean shirt. Maybe she'd smelled the aftershave of death on her clothes, too.

Hermione turned to look at him when he came downstairs and she smiled, kind and offering so much peace to his troubled mind.

Harry crossed the room and joined her on the couch, all but falling back on the cushions next to her. Hermione at once curled into his side and it made things quite a bit better.

"Are any of your roommates here for the Christmas holiday?" she asked.

Harry, his head thrown back and resting on the back of the couch, rolled his head from side to side in a shake. "No. Yours?"

"I think Lavender might be here, I saw her robe out, but it looks like everyone else is gone. Is it always this empty at Christmas?"

Of course, Harry had spent Christmas at the school before. He could tell her.

"Pretty much. No one would be here if they have somewhere to go."

Hermione silently mulled that over a moment then rested her head on his shoulder. She snuggled into his side like Crookshanks settling in for a nap in a window sill. "For a while, it was a perfect Christmas."

Harry lifted his head to lay his check against the top of her head. He looped his arm around her back and held her closer… for her sake and for his. "Yeah, it was." For a while, it had been the most amazing Christmas of his entire life.

Just then, Hermione pulled away from Harry's hold. Harry let her go, faintly disappointed, and watched to see what had made her move. Hermione sat up, reached over to the couch space behind her, and retrieved the Gringotts box with the medallion inside. She must have brought it back down with her when she came back to the common room after unpacking her things. She opened the box and pulled out the medallion, the chain dangling from her hand as she palmed the gold disk. She set aside the box and used her newly freed hand to draw her wand. She concentrated, gave her wand a swish over the medallion, whispered, "identum," and tapped the precious metal with the tip of her wand. There was a momentary golden glow that etched yellow light into the markings of the goblin script, then the medallion returned to looking as it always had. Except now a fidelus charm would reveal that it was active. Hermione could walk into Gringotts tomorrow without him and she could access the Potter family vault as easily as he did.

Harry watched Hermione intently with a tightness in his chest and a lump in his throat.

Hermione put away her wand, then proceeded to affix the medallion around her neck. It came to rest between her breasts, a golden vow given on a black day. Hermione traced her fingers over the finely-etched lettering of the goblin language, then she glanced up at Harry through her eyelashes. "We'll have more Christmases, Harry. Perfect ones."

Harry hoped she was right. He reached out a hand and touched the medallion lightly, as reverently as he might touch her body beyond the gold and cloth. Hermione smiled and tucked the medallion into her clothes and against her skin.

"Are you hungry?" Hermione asked. "It's probably close to dinnertime."

"Not really."

Hermione studied him with a worried crinkle on her brow. "You haven't eaten all day."

"Neither have you. Are you hungry?"

Hermione paused to consider his question then she looked bemused by the answer. "Not really." Hermione pursed her lips, narrowed her eyes thoughtfully at Harry, then sighed. "All right, then I won't pester you to eat, but you really should get some sleep, Harry. I know you haven't slept since the night before last."

That idea actually sounded tempting. He was exhausted, and there was an appeal to the promise of ending this day. But he didn't want to part from her. She was the only thing that seemed to offer him any comfort; she alone kept this day from being yet another ugly scar in his life. He didn't want to go back to that depressingly empty dorm room without her.

"Will you come to bed with me?" he asked as he looked hopefully at her.

Hermione blinked once, and that was all the time it took for her to make up her mind. With a small smile, she grabbed his hand, stood, and pulled him after her. Harry went without hesitation.

Hermione led him up the stairs to the boys' dorm and opened the door to the empty room. At Harry's bed she let go of his hand and started to rifle through his unlatched trunk. Harry didn't ask what she was looking for and neither did he protest her search; he didn't mind her pawing through his things. He ducked in past her shoulder to snatch a set of pajamas when Hermione dug past them and he moved out of the way to the far end of his bed. There he proceeded to change for bed, his back considerately turned to Hermione, while she continued to search through his possessions.

When Harry turned back around, dressed for bed, he paused when he saw Hermione standing on the other side of his bed wearing his Quidditch shirt. It was a size too large and went down to nearly mid-thigh on her, but that still left plenty about the sight of her for Harry to appreciate. She'd shucked her pants while he'd been turned away and his brain hitched a fraction of a second on her slim, naked legs. She looked positively irresistible in the maroon and gold shirt, and it stirred wild things in him to know that, right then, she had 'POTTER' emblazoned across her back.

Hermione gave a bashful smile and plucked at the sleeve. "Is it all right if I borrow this?"

"It's all right if you keep that," Harry answered on reflex.

Hermione chuckled. "Careful or I'll be apt to take you up on that." Hermione turned down the comforter on Harry's bed and crawled in. She nestled down, got comfortable, and looked up at him where he continued to stand watching her. "Come to bed, Harry," she beckoned in an angel-sweet voice.

Dumbly, Harry crawled in with her. He'd barely had a chance to get situated when Hermione curled against his side and wrapped up in him, her arm around his waist, one leg tangled with his, her head on his shoulder. When she pressed against him, he could tell that she wasn't wearing a bra… but she was wearing the medallion. Harry let his eyes drift shut, the nearest to perfectly content that he could ever imagine being.

For whatever mental reason, Hermione thought he was worth marrying. If he didn't screw up, he could have this every night for the rest of his life.

He'd move the earth to have that, so it seemed, for a moment, a small thing to kill just one wizard.

Just one wizard for Hermione in his bed, draped over him and sighing into his shoulder, for years and years to come. Just one wizard…

In a matter of minutes, Harry was asleep, with Hermione not far behind.

❾¾ ❾¾❾¾❾¾ ❾¾❾¾❾¾ ❾¾❾¾

She was sunning on the savannah, the sun soaking wonderfully into her bones, heating her blood, gilding her mane and setting the horizon to dancing. She was lying in the grass, tawny as her coat. She could smell the sweet scent of the earth, the tree over her shoulder, the gazelles in the distance. They lived by her clemency. Her power was sure, uncontested, a part of her every cell. She could not be anything but a weapon even at rest, dangerous even in repose.

She was a queen of the grasslands. And she was not alone.

She looked over her shoulder, into the squat tree, where her blue-eyed panther stretched across the lowest limb. He turned his head to her. Hers, that black master of the jungle. But he was in her realm now.

She stood and went to him. The branch he'd chosen for a resting place was low… she might not be the climber he was, but she could reach him easily enough. He watched her, interested and alert, as she jumped up to join him. His gaze was intense, his presence intoxicating.

She sat wedged in the crotch of the tree, she laid down like he did, straddling the branch. She crowded his back end; he didn't move to give her more room. She didn't want him to. She rested her head on his haunches and thrilled in having him all around her.

His body was warm beneath her… not as warm as the sun but just as hot to her blood. His scent was thick, right there, suffusing her. She did so covet his smell. He was living and solid and glorious under her.

"I can't figure how they got away with this," a familiar male voice carried to her ears, distant but growing clearer.

"They're so cute together." A female. Familiar, too. Growing even more familiar by the second. Hermione wanted to tune them out, but consciousness was creeping back to her in their exchange.

"We should do something about this, don't you think?"

"If you wake them, Ron, I swear you'll be hexed cross-eyed for a week."

"Didn't I tell you to stop spending time with that wanker? He's a real rotten influence on you."

"Seamus is not a wanker. Keep your voice down."

Hermione knew them now. Ron and Ginny. They were in the room, somewhere nearby. They were trying to be quiet, but 'quiet' and 'Weasley' had never been concepts on friendly terms.

While they bickered, Hermione became aware of her physical surroundings. She was in bed, though technically half of her mattress was Harry. He was lying on his stomach and she was very nearly lying right on top of him. She had pillowed her head between his shoulder blades, her torso favoring him to bear her weight more than the bed itself. Her right arm was thrown over the far side of his body in a veritable sprawl. She was rising and falling gently with Harry's breathing. Hermione had never had a better pillow. The thin material of Harry's pajama shirt allowed her to feel his body heat on every inch that they touched; it allowed her to smell him where he lay just beneath her nose.

It was such a great way to wake up that for a while she didn't recall why they were in a Hogwarts bed where Ron and Ginny could argue over them when they should have been at Berti's, or at least her parents'.

"Honestly, Ginny, we ought to… I mean, look! Her hair's all over his face. You know that's got to be driving him mad."

"Yeah, he looks really put out," Ginny retorted sarcastically.

"Well, all right, I'll give you he doesn't much look like a bloke who had his cousin killed yesterday."

Hermione's happy morning came crashing down. She remembered yesterday in a rush. Dudley Dursley being murdered by Death Eaters, the interruption of their perfect Christmas morning by Dumbledore bringing them the news, her parents and grandmother going into hiding. Without thinking, she curled the loose arm she had draped over Harry to hug him barely to her like a child might clutch a teddy bear.

"Awww," Ginny cooed.

"Gack. And she nicked his Quidditch shirt, too. That's just not right."

"And you're about as romantic as a kidney pie fart in the middle of a candle-lit dinner. Let's go down to the common room."

"And just leave them like this?"

"I swear, Ron, if you wake them, I'll—"

Hermione opened her eyes at last and looked over at her friends. They were both wearing new knit sweaters with the first letter of their names on the front (rather to say Ginny's had a 'G' on the front; Ron was standing slightly offset so Hermione couldn't see the front of his, but she'd bet anything that Ron's had a matching 'R'). Ginny was standing in a position to see Hermione first, and she never finished whatever threat she'd intended to make to her brother when she saw Hermione's eyes open. When Ron turned his head to see what had tripped his sister Hermione whispered, "If you wake Harry I'll hex you bald."

"Hermione…" Ron turned fully to address Hermione, though he looked distinctly uncomfortable as she continued to lie sprawled over Harry's sleeping form. "Uh… we heard—"

Hermione gingerly moved to get off the bed without waking Harry. "Tell me in the common room what you heard, I don't want to wake Harry."

"Ron woke Harry," Harry mumbled against the mattress.

Ginny snorted. Hermione froze and shifted against Harry's back to peer at his face. Harry peeked open an eye and gave a weak first-thing-in-the-morning smile.

"How long have you been awake?" Hermione asked.

"Long enough to assure Ron that I gave you that shirt."

Ron made a strangled, scandalized noise at that. "Mate, if you were awake then why didn't you bloody say something?"

"Because I didn't want Hermione to get up off me just yet," Harry answered plainly.

"Oh, that's so sweet," Ginny said.

"That's really more than I wanted to know. So, uh, you two want to get up out of bed now, or you want to just meet up later and talk about… uh… everything?"

Harry grunted. "That depends on Hermione." He shifted up slightly on to his side to look toward her. "You getting up?"

Hermione fought a smile. "Much as I'd like to have a lie in with my own personal Harry Potter pillow, I'm sure there's a lot of stuff for all of us to cover to catch everyone up on all the news. Probably best we get a start on it."

Harry grumbled under his breath. "All right, if you insist. Want to just meet in the common room in ten minutes?"

Hermione nodded and reluctantly climbed out of bed. Ginny leapt forward when Hermione started toward the door. "I'll go with you, keep you company while you get dressed. We can squeeze in a spot of girl talk."