Morning.

Monday, Sept. 16

“I still can’t believe that Jolene’s dead,” Hermione said to Harry.

It was morning, and she’d been awake for some time now, but, after remembering that Dumbledore had cancelled classes for the day, the girl had simply remained in bed, chatting with Harry through their enchanted parchments, and feeling an uncharacteristic lack of any desire to do anything productive with her day.

Initially, the conversation had started with simpler, lighter topics; how they’d slept, what they could do today, their classmates, but eventually, and one could even argue inevitably, they’d moved to other topics. Heavier topics.

They hadn’t realised that they’d been doing it, but they’d avoided talking about things yesterday.

Everything that had happened on Saturday, from the fight with the basilisk (if you could call what transpired a fight) to Voldemort storming into the Gryffindor common room, had been subconsciously treated as taboo to discuss yesterday.

Oh, they’d talked about it, but only with others, never between themselves; save for that one moment in the empty classroom when Hermione had made Harry look into her mind.

Now though, in the quiet morning hours of Hogwarts, while enclosed by thick canopies in comfortable beds with only each other’s voices for company, the two preteens found that they couldn’t not talk about it.

Harry said nothing to Hermione’s comment about Jolene’s death for some time, and the girl didn’t push for him to; she knew very well how hard words could often be to find.

When Harry finally spoke, his words were a bit of a non sequitur.

“I almost left this morning, you know,” he said quietly, and Hermione blinked at the simple, rather abrupt way he said it.

Harry continued speaking. “Before you woke up. I just opened my eyes, and I realised that I don’t know what will happen anymore. I’ve changed things, and now I can’t guarantee anything anymore.

“You almost died, Jolene did die. And I don’t know if or when something like that will happen again.”

“But leaving Hogwarts won’t solve anything, Harry,” Hermione said. “It won’t stop Voldemort. It won’t help anyone, it will just—”

“I know,” Harry cut in. “I know it won’t. I also know that it will hurt you if I just disappeared.”

He was right, it would. An awful lot, it would.

“Besides,” Harry said, “I’m not going to leave my mess for other people to clean up, that’s a jerk move. So, I guess you’re stuck with me, Miss Granger.”

Hermione smiled. “I’d better be, Mr. Potter,” she said back, jokingly affecting a snooty tone of voice.

Harry laughed, and she did too, the air between them lighter.

“Hermione?” someone called from outside the closed canopy of Hermione’s bed, before a head—Parvati’s head—poked in.

“Who are you talking to?” the girl asked, eyes searching within the dim confines of Hermione’s bed for the mystery conversant.

Hermione blinked in surprise at the girl’s intrusion; she hadn’t known anyone else was awake. “I’m talking to Harry,” she said.

Parvati’s eyes widened. “Harry’s here?” she asked.

To Hermione’s surprise, another voice, Lavender’s, echoed the question; “Harry’s here?”

Parvati, being a dutiful friend, pulled her head back out and said; “Yeah, he’s with Hermione.”

A surprised “Really?” comes from Lavender, and then she slid the curtains around Hermione’s bed wide open, letting in the light of a morning farther along than Hermione had thought.

The girls’ loud voices, coupled with the subject matter of their conversation, caused a ripple of curious interest to roll across the dorm, pulling its two remaining occupants (Faye Dunbar and Helen McMahon) over to Hermione’s bed.

“You brought Harry to our dorm?” Helen asked, looking scandalized and trying to spot the boy through Hermione’s now open curtains.

Of course, neither Helen, nor anyone else, could see Harry, since he was, in fact, not in the dorm.

“Wait, where is Harry?” Parvati asked, voicing the realization that the girls were all beginning to come to. “I thought you said you were talking to him.”

Hermione held back a sigh, and was just about to explain to Parvati what was going on, when Harry said; “I’m right here, Parv.”

Parvati shrieked in shock, and the rest of the girls, sans Hermione, were not much better.

“Harry?” Lavender asked, eyes searching for a boy who wasn’t present.

“Hey, Lav,” Harry answered, his voice coming clearly from the little parchment Hermione had placed on her pillow beside her.

“You’re here?” Faye asked. “Where are you?”

“Are you wearing an invisibility cloak?” Parvati asked.

“Something like that,” Harry said, and Hermione rolled her eyes; this had gone on long enough.

“He’s not wearing an invisibility cloak, Parvati,” Hermione said, then picked up the parchment and held it up. “He’s in his dorm. This is how he’s talking to you.”

“Must you ruin my fun?” Harry asked, his pout virtually audible in his voice.

“When it’s at our friend’s expenses? Yes, Harry,” Hermione replied.

With the mystery of Harry’s invisibility solved, and the worry of a boy being in their dorm assuaged, the girls quickly became more interested in the magical, communication paper instead (reminding Hermione that they hadn’t come up with a name for it yet).

Very soon, Hermione and Harry found themselves fielding a bombardment if questions like; “Where did you get it?” “How did you make it?” and “Can you make some for us?”

Hermione was just beginning to get quite annoyed at having to reiterate, for the second time, that all that was needed to make the parchment phones was a relatively easy to learn spell, when Harry said; “Hermione, Dumbledore just sent me a note. He says he wants to see us.”

★★★

Hermione’s second trip to The Headmaster’s office was, at the same time, both different from, and exactly like, her first.

One way in which it differed, was that it was just her, Harry, and Hedwig going this time, with no adult escort, giving them the opportunity to speculate freely on why Dumbledore wanted to see them.

Unfortunately for them however, just like the day before, they couldn’t figure out anything more than that whatever reason The Headmaster had for wanting to see them, had something to do with what had happened the day before.

So, with some trepidation, and a not inconsiderable amount of curiosity, the children made their way to Dumbledore’s office.

At the office’s entrance, Harry gave the password that had been written in the note from Dumbledore, and, having been expecting it, Hermione handled it a lot better this time when the stone gargoyle leapt aside to admit them entry.

The Gryffindors stepped onto the spiral staircase, and it spun, slowly lifting them up to the heavy wooden doors to the office proper.

Harry pushed the doors open and they walked in.