Chapter Text
Hermione’s brain had been in overdrive since this godforsaken Tournament dragged Harry into its clutches. Just like Harry, she had desperately hoped that this year would be a quiet one for her and her friends.
But all that was thrown out the window and into a volcano when Harry’s name was spat out of the Goblet of Fire, sparking her inquisitive mind. Who was out to get him this time? Was it V- You Know Who again? Or a new player on the field? The protections on the Goblet of Fire were meant to be foolproof, so was that true or was it a bluff and Professor Moody’s hypothesis of a really strong Confundus spell held merit? If Harry never put his name in, was it really him bound to this mystical magical contract or was there a way out?
Hermione had thrown herself into research and supporting Harry immediately. The gravity of this situation was not lost on her. In the three years previous, there were still life threatening problems, but they more or less had a clear direction to investigate. Nicholas Flamel, the Stone, Salazar Slytherin and his monster in the Chamber, Dementors and Sirius Black - they always had a pretty good idea of what they were walking towards. But this tournament? The threat could be anything. It could come from anywhere. They were going in blind and had a target on their back with the date of the First Task looming over them like some ominous countdown timer. Hermione had never been more terrified, nor felt more vulnerable.
So when Harry told her that he discovered he’d have to face off a dragon, her heart sank, but the tension it held eased. As horrific as it was to pit teenagers against dragons, they now had a direction. She knew how to help him.
But now there was this ludicrous screaming golden egg that supposedly held the next clue. Hermione wasn’t going to give up trying to figure it out, but the unknown taunted her, and the Second Task was fast approaching. She didn’t know if they were going to figure it out in time.
And on top of that, Harry was hiding something. At least since Christmas - something happened, she knew it, and he wasn’t telling her. Whatever it was, it wasn’t figuring out the clue like he claimed before going out to Hogsmeade on Saturday. She thought he knew better than to lie to her, and the fact he did so after all she had done for him? It made her blood boil.
She had been watching him closely since their day in Hogsmeade, and finally today she saw something different in him - a resolve. So she had pretended to go to bed, but came back down to the Common Room when it was almost empty. Soon, she was the only person there, sitting by the fire as she waited.
She didn’t have to wait long. Footsteps sans body echoed from the boys dormitory stairs, and started to make their way past her.
‘And where do you think you’re going?’ she asked sternly.
Feet appeared in a stumble and a mutter of curse words.
‘Language,’ she admonished.
‘Geez, Hermione, you scared me!’ Harry exclaimed, emerging from the Cloak, holding his wand, the Map and the egg.
‘So you figured out that clue, huh?’ she said, raising her eyebrow at him. He made an unpleasant expression. ‘Got a pretty good idea what it’s about, do you?’
‘Shut up,’ he grouched, guilt and humiliation taking over his posture.
‘Don’t think I will,’ she countered, standing up and walking over to him, taking the egg easily out of his grasp. ‘So where are we off to?’
Harry leaned back and shook his head, as if struggling suddenly to understand English. ‘What?’
‘You don’t know the clue, but you clearly know how to figure it out, and you evidently can’t get the solution from inside the Tower, so where are we going?’
Harry’s cheeks flushed and he looked uncomfortable.
‘No, not we - me,’ he corrected stupidly. Honestly, when was he going to learn?
‘You don’t get to do that to me, Harry,’ she told him. ‘You lied to me. After everything I’ve done for you, you lied straight to my face, so no, I’m not being left behind for you to lie to me again. Where. Are. We. Going?’
He stared at her sternly, as if trying to get her to back down. As if she was going to do that.
‘The bathroom,’ Harry muttered eventually.
Hermione scoffed. ‘Nice try. Pull the other one, why don’t you.’
‘I’m being serious,’ Harry protested.
‘I don’t believe you,’ she countered, holding the egg tighter.
Harry let out an exasperated sigh, rolled his eyes and pulled the Cloak over the both of them and led them out of the Gryffindor Tower. She stuck close to him as they weaved through the corridors and down two flights of stairs to the fifth floor, only coming to a stop by the fourth door to the left of Boris the Bewildered’s statue. With a muttered “Pine Fresh” from Harry, the door opened and they slipped inside.
As Harry pulled the Cloak off of them, her eyes fell upon the most gorgeous bathroom she had ever seen. White marble softly lit by warm candlelight, she took in the swimming pool sized bath that was sunken into the floor, the hundreds of bejeweled golden taps, each jewel a different colour, and a diving board on the far side of the enormous bath. A golden framed painting of a sleeping blonde mermaid sat in between long white linen curtained windows, and a pile of white fluffy towels sat neatly in the corner.
Hermione exhaled softly. ‘Wow.’
‘Yeah,’ Harry agreed. ‘I’d become prefect just for this.’
So that’s where they were - the Prefect’s Bathroom. She had read about it, of course, but Hogwarts: A History failed to mention how beautiful the room was.
‘Wait, how did-’
‘Cedric,’ Harry admitted, bowing his head. ‘I didn’t want to believe him, but-’
‘Cedric?’ Hermione asked, cutting him off as she turned to face him. ‘When was this?’
He stayed silent, staring holes into his shoes.
‘Harry,’ she said warningly, putting her hands on her hips.
‘Yule Ball,’ he mumbled.
‘The YULE BALL?’ she yelled, her voice amplified by the marble, and he flinched. ‘Harry! That was a whole month ago!’
‘I know,’ he groaned.
‘Why haven’t you done anything about it until now?’ she demanded. ‘Do you have any idea how infuriating this is? How scared I’ve been? I’ve been going out of my mind trying to do everything in my power to keep you alive and survive this madness, and you’ve avoided taking action all this time for what, exactly?’
Harry had curled in on himself. She’d feel bad but she was too angry to care.
‘Nothing,’ he uttered.
‘Utter bullshit,’ she seethed, and he startled at that, clearly shocked that she would say such a thing, given her distaste for foul language. ‘What’s the reason, Harry?’
‘Cho,’ he choked out. ‘I… I was jealous of Cedric and his relationship with Cho.’
That sent her through the roof.
‘Cho?’ she spat incredulously. ‘You were putting your life on the line, decreasing your chances of survival, made me worried sick that I wouldn’t be able to find a way to save you and would be forced to watch you die because of your inane jealousy over Cho?!’
She ignored the tears that spilled down her cheeks in favour of glaring hellfire at him. The fury inside her was glad to see him so taken aback by her anger. Good. Maybe he’d finally understand how she had been suffering all year.
‘I have nightmares for nights on end that I couldn’t help you, that I couldn’t do enough to prepare you, and that I’d watch you die in front of me, looking at me to save you and I couldn’t. Every night for months, I’d watch you die over and over again, terrified that one day it’d no longer be a nightmare but my reality, and… and you… you…’ her breath caught for a moment, ‘you risked that nightmare becoming my reality, for what?’
Silence fell, only broken by her heavy breathing and her sniffles as she held herself together, waiting for his answer. He stared at her, a myriad of emotions flashing in his emerald eyes too fast for her to properly read.
‘I- I…’ he stuttered, visibly reeling. ‘I didn’t think- I… I didn’t think-’
‘No, you didn’t,’ she said, finally breaking eye contact with him, and turned away and walked over to the towels. Sitting down, she picked up a big fluffy towel, set down the egg and buried her face into the soft fabric, finally letting her composure break.
She let the tears flow. She let the sobs burst forth. She let her agony scream at full volume into the towel. She didn’t know how long she sat there, crying her heart out, and frankly, she didn’t care. For too long, she suppressed how she felt because she prioritised Harry’s survival, she prioritised her dorm mate’s sleep when she woke up from her nightmares, she prioritised everyone else except herself. It was good to stop holding back for once.
‘Hermione?’
She looked up to see Harry standing a couple of metres away from her, looking ashamed, guilty, remorseful. Clearly uncertain, he took a couple of steps forward and knelt down.
‘I’m so sorry, Hermione,’ he apologised, holding her gaze. ‘It was stupid - I was stupid. You’re right, I shouldn’t have held back on his advice just because he has Cho.’
‘Cho’s not some prize to be won, Harry, no one is,’ she said softly, her voice hoarse. ‘We all have feelings and we all make choices - and Cho’s made hers.’
Harry nodded solemnly. ‘I know. And I need to respect that. It’s just…hard.’
Hermione bit her lip to stop herself from making a snarky comment such as “yeah, tell me about it. I’ve been suppressing my feelings for you for the past four years - how do you think I feel?”
Instead, she just nodded in agreement, hugging the towel to her chest.
‘And I’m so sorry for hurting you, Hermione, I had no idea this was affecting you so badly,’ he continued. ‘Why didn’t you say anything before?’
Hermione shrugged, curling inwards. ‘Because I didn’t want to freak you out…or to have you dismiss my fears baselessly. And my nightmares weren’t going to help us, but me researching and finding solutions would, so it was easier to throw myself into research and exhaust myself to the point where I was too tired to dream.’
‘Hermione…that’s horrifying,’ Harry exclaimed, aghast.
‘It’s survival,’ she countered, avoiding his gaze. ‘I couldn’t afford to crash out - I’ll do that when the school year and this blasted tournament is over.’
‘So…this wasn’t you crashing out?’ Harry asked, and Hermione looked up at him tiredly.
‘That was the tip of the iceberg,’ she said, and he visibly paled.
Then he did something he had never done before. He hugged her.
Though shocked at his forwardness, she immediately returned the hug, burying her face into his shoulder, tears silently bleeding into his shirt. She felt him pull her closer at that.
‘Hermione,’ he murmured into her ear, ‘I promise you that I will do everything in my power to make sure your nightmares don’t come true. I promise you I will live.’
She held him closer at his words, trying to wrap herself up in his promise. They stayed like that until her tears began to subside, and she lifted her head to rest it against his own.
‘I’m holding you to that promise,’ she told him firmly, before leaning back and wiping her eyes of the lingering tears. ‘Now, can you please do whatever Cedric told you to do so we can be at least somewhat productive tonight?’
Harry chuckled and started to detangle himself from her when he paused.
‘Uh, Hermione?’
‘Yes, Harry?’
‘Cedric told me to take a bath with the egg,’ he said.
‘Your point?’
‘Well, I wasn’t expecting company when I had said bath,’ he elaborated. Now, if Hermione was in her usual state of being, she would’ve immediately picked up his inference, but seeing as she had just undergone a bit of a breakdown, she merely stared blankly at her blushing friend.
‘So I was going to be, you know, naked,’ Harry spelled out, his cheeks getting redder by the second. ‘Because it’s a bath.’
‘Oh. O- Oh,’ Hermione replied, her brain finally kicking into gear. ‘Right. I see.’
‘Yeah.’
‘Well… well then I simply won’t look when you’re getting dressed or going into the water,’ she decided, a strange confidence taking over, and as Harry spluttered, she continued, ‘well, I’m not going another night without knowing that clue, Harry, so what’s it going to be? Are you going to do it, or will I have to go in myself?’
Harry became impossibly redder, but his eyes wandered over her, making her smirk slightly. So there was some hope after all.
Feeling somewhat emboldened, she stood, shucked off her robe and went over to the taps and turned a bunch of them on. Sumptuous fragrances wafted through the air as bubbles formed above the rising water. As the bath began to fill, she undid her tie and dumped it with her robe, and began unbuttoning her shirt.
‘Nonononono,’ Harry exclaimed, jumping to his feet and held her wrists, stopping her from continuing. ‘No, you don’t have to- I’ll do- okay? I’ll do it.’
‘Well, we’ll just both go in then,’ she declared. Harry’s eyes widened in shock.
‘Us both- naked, Hermione?’ he all but squeaked out.
Hermione huffed, undoing another button before his grip firmed up, preventing her from going further.
‘In our underwear, Harry,’ she clarified, and when he made a face, she added, ‘after Scourgifying them, obviously. Come on, Harry, there’ll be nothing to be embarrassed about - it’ll be just like wearing swimwear to a pool or a beach.’
‘Oh, uh, right,’ Harry said, stumbling over his words as he stepped back, letting go of her. ‘Sure.’
Hermione frowned. ‘What is it, Harry?’
‘Nothing,’ he replied, as he walked over to the towels and discarded his own robe on the opposite side of the towels that she had left her clothes.
He was hardly convincing, and she’d had enough of him lying to her.
‘Is it that I’m a girl?’ she asked, newfound confidence wavering as she forewent her shirt in favour of removing her shoes. ‘Or that I’m not pretty like Cho?’
‘What? No!’ Harry objected, whirling around to face her, tie loose around his neck. ‘And don’t say that, Hermione - you are pretty.’
Hermione made a disbelieving sound as she walked over to her clothes pile and placed her shoes with them, her confidence dissipating rapidly.
‘Hermione,’ Harry said strongly, and she looked up at him. ‘You’ve always been pretty.’
‘But-’
‘Always,’ Harry insisted. ‘Cho’s just as pretty as you are, not prettier than you.’
‘I sense a “but” there,’ she said as she looked away and continued unbuttoning her shirt.
‘A what?’ Harry asked, confused. Hermione sighed.
‘Your sentence was unfinished,’ she said, exasperated. ‘“Cho’s as pretty as you are, not prettier” but…’
‘No “but,”’ Harry rebutted. ‘My sentence was finished.’
Hermione dumped her button up on her pile of clothes, toying with the long sleeve thermal shirt as she went over to turn the taps off. At least the aromas from the bath were wonderfully pleasant.
‘So why didn’t you even think to ask me to the Yule Ball, then? If I’m pretty enough, what stopped you?’
‘Because I didn’t think you wanted to go with me?’ Harry replied, bending down to undo and discard his shoes. ‘Besides, isn’t a ball an event you take a romantic partner, not your best friend?’
She ignored how his words stung. Was she not even on his radar then? Would she always be his bushy-haired bookworm best friend?
‘So was Parvati a romantic prospect, then?’
‘No, she wasn’t,’ Harry answered firmly, practically yanking his socks off as he spoke. ‘I would’ve asked you, but you had your mystery date in Krum, and Professor McGonagall was insisting I had a partner to open the Yule Ball with.’
Hermione hummed noncommittally as she removed her thermal shirt and dropped it.
‘Woahhh.’
Hermione paused the unzipping of her skirt to find him staring at her wide-eyed before he came to his senses and slapped a hand over his eyes.
‘Sorry,’ he apologised, his cheeks immediately colouring. She looked down and saw her sweet yet modest lace ivory bra and then back at his bright red face.
‘Thank you for showing me that respect, but so long as you don’t objectify me, I’m fine with you looking,’ she told him, removing her skirt.
‘Are you sure?’ Harry asked, his hand still over his eyes. ‘Because that feels a bit like a trick statement.’
‘Are you planning on objectifying me?’ she asked, removing her heat-charmed stockings.
‘No!’ he protested instantly.
‘Then there’s no problem,’ she replied, stepping out of the stockings and dumping them at the top of her pile. ‘There’s a difference between admiring someone respectfully, and objectifying them. The former is appreciative and complimentary, whereas the latter is degrading and dehumanising.’
‘Right, okay,’ he replied, hand still in place, unsure.
'Besides,' Hermione added, 'if you don't look, how are you going to move around the bathroom safely? You could easily slip and fall, or trip into the bath itself.'
'That's true,' Harry agreed, opening his eyes just as she cast Scourgify on her matching undergarments. She liked this set - age appropriate, perhaps a little simple, but it made her feel pretty.
His eyes fell on her body, but quickly snapped up to meet her eyes, as if asking for permission. She gave him an affirmative nod, and with that, he finally let his gaze wander. The way he looked at her made her skin buzz pleasantly and her heart race; it gave weight to Harry’s words from earlier, like he meant it when he said she was as pretty as Cho. Merlin, her self-confidence was going on quite the roller coaster tonight, wasn’t it?
She put her wand down on top of her clothes and walked over to the diving board, feeling Harry’s gaze follow her as she moved. It was a nice feeling, and she held herself taller because of it. Climbing onto the diving board, she turned and smiled at him, her smile grew bigger when she registered how enraptured he was, and she dove in. When she surfaced, she wiped the water from her eyes and pushed her hair away from her face, and spotted Harry, still frozen with his clothes still on.
‘Well? Aren’t you coming in?’ Hermione asked, and giggled when he scrambled to his feet, yanking his tie off and began to attack the buttons on his shirt. She turned to float on her back, letting the soaps and fragrances melt the tension out of her body. She was already tired before all this, but now she was mentally and emotionally fatigued. This bath was exactly what the doctor ordered.
She closed her eyes and let herself relax as she floated around the bath, half-listening to the muffled muttering and stumbling Harry made as he removed his clothes. She picked up his “Scourgify” before hearing the splashes of him entering the bath. She ignored him in favour of floating peacefully; if she became a prefect, she would definitely be using this bath as often as possible to destress - Merlin knows she would need it.
It was only when the warm water was tempting to lull her to sleep that she opened her eyes and came out of her floating, feeling far more relaxed than she had in months. She quickly found Harry sitting on the steps of the bath, glasses missing with his own eyes closed as he relaxed into the water. He looked rather fit, his muscles lean with a subtle definition to them that hinted to the strength he held. He was on the skinnier side, though he had been for as long as she knew him, but now that she was getting a better look at his physique, there was something… off about him, like he was too skinny or something. Or perhaps he was too skinny and had been putting on some weight recently. It was hard to tell…or maybe she was reading too far into it?
'Hey, Harry,' she said softly, as to not startle him. He opened his eyes slowly before spotting her, and then pushed off the step and started dog-paddling towards her.
'Yeah?' he asked as he paddled.
'Do... do you know how to swim?'
'Uh, no, not really,' he admitted, coming to a stop in front of her, making an awkward attempt of an egg-beat underwater, and she reached out to support him. 'Thanks. Why do you ask?'
'You're dog-paddling,' she replied, guiding him back to where the steps are so he wouldn't waste energy attempting to tread water. 'Did you have trouble learning?'
'I never got taught,' he said with a shrug, as if it wasn't a big deal.
'But we live on an island,' Hermione pressed, 'how could you never be taught?'
'I have the Dursleys for guardians, remember?' Harry rebutted with an eye-roll clearly directed at his relatives. 'They didn't see the need for me to learn.'
'But you could die if you don't know how to swim,' Hermione responded, struggling to compute what he was saying.
'I know, but I think some part of them were hoping for that to be the case,' Harry said in a tone far too calm and dismissive for what he was telling her. 'Look, how about I go get that egg so we can see if Cedric's suggestion actually works.'
As he got up to go get the egg, all her protests about his very overt segue disappeared with her breath as it was stolen from her chest. Part of her brain registered the tattered state of his underwear that was clearly too big for him and had been repeatedly mended by an inexperienced hand, but the much larger part of her brain was silently screaming at the multitude of scars that latticed across his back. There were so many scars, some older than others, some overlapping preexisting ones, some thicker and others thinner.
'Hermione? What's wrong?' Harry asked, and then he came back to sit on the step with her, his eyes squinting slightly as he tried to read her face without his glasses. 'Hermione?'
'Turn around,' she told him with a quiet firmness. His expression changed, as if he realised what she saw.
'Hermione-'
'Turn around.'
He sighed, but complied. Her hands shook as she lifted them to his back, slowly tracing each gruesome line with horror.
'Who did this to you?' she asked, her voice shaking about as much as her hands were.
'Who do you think?' he replied, his voice unnervingly and unnaturally even.
The Dursleys, her mind supplied.
'For how long?' she asked, her fingers finding a nasty scar just below the middle of his back.
'Hermione-'
'How. Long.'
'...for as long as I can remember.'
"For as long as I can remember." The words bounced around her brain, yet she struggled to absorb them. How was this possible? How could anyone be so cruel? She knew there was no love lost between them, but this? This... she knew there were despicable people in the world who committed the most heinous of crimes, she knew that and yet... she didn't expect to discover such monsters were so close, for these monsters to be hurting someone she loved.
'Oh, Harry...'
'I'm fine-'
She wrapped her arms around his middle and hugged his back to her chest, ignoring the water as it sloshed around them as she rested her chin on his shoulder.
'You're not fine, Harry,' she interrupted. 'This isn't fine. This is abuse, Harry, and you're not safe with those monsters, and you won't be fine until you're free from their clutches.'
'I haven't got anywhere else to go,' he said quietly. 'If Sirius was free, I would live with him in a heartbeat, but he isn't, and as great as Ron's family is, I can't impose on them like that. It's either I live with them or the streets, and I'd rather have a roof over my head.'
He had considered becoming homeless to escape them? And had decided their abuse was worth putting up with for the sake of shelter? She could barely breathe. No wonder he was so eager when Sirius had offered to live with him back in June.
'Or me,' she said, and he turned his head to look at her. 'You could live with me.'
'Hermione, I couldn't do that to you or your family-'
'Please. We have the room and you'll be safe there. We'll look after you. We'll teach you how to swim and how to ride a bicycle and do our darnedest to make sure we can give you everything the Dursleys never did. I know my parents would agree with me on this,' she promised. 'You'll be safe with us.'
'But your parents hardly know me,' he said, 'why would they help me?'
'Hardly know you?' she repeated with a scoff. 'I may have edited my stories about our time here at Hogwarts, but you underestimate how much I tell them about you. In case you weren't aware, you're my best friend - my first ever best friend, and they were very keen to learn about you.'
The breath seemed to leave him and he turned to face her more, almost bumping noses with her. 'I'm your first-ever best friend?'
'Yeah, you are,' she admitted with a small smile, 'and you can bet that I will do everything in my power to help you, and that will include convincing my parents to let you live with us, not that they'll need that much convincing once they know.'
'I know you would, and...thank you,' Harry said, seemingly at a loss for words. 'You do so much for me, and I'm so grateful, and...and I owe you a million times over.'
'How about you just start with taking a bigger interest in your academic life,' she teased him, 'and maybe save your own ass from the next big-bad we come across without me having to do all the prep work for you.'
Instead of laughing at her tease, he nodded solemnly.
'I will, I promise,' he vowed. 'And that's the second time you've sworn today - are you feeling alright?'
'I think today can fall under the "exceptional circumstances" banner, don't you?' she joked. 'Don't expect me to make a habit of this.'
'Would never dream of it,' he retorted with a smirk.
She hugged him tight, their cheeks pressing together side by side, before she released him and went to go get the egg. When she returned, she found Harry sitting stiffly on the step, facing forward, resolutely not looking at her as his face turned as red as a strawberry.
'Harry?' she enquired. 'What is it?'
He made a weird sound. He looked rather embarrassed.
'Harry?'
'How mad would you be if I told you my thoughts weren't entirely of the "admiring respectfully" kind just now?'
It took her a half second to catch on.
'Depends,' she replied airily. 'What was the thought?'
His face became impossibly redder.
'I was thinking about how beautiful you looked and how nicely your...your underwear suited you, a-and then...'
'And then?' Hermione coaxed.
'And thenIwonderedwhatyouwouldlooklikeifyouweren'twearingthem,' he blurted out, shifting uncomfortably where he sat, his hands firmly covering the center of his lap. His admission made her feel a little giddy inside.
'We're a bit young for that, so ask me again in a few years,' she responded in a tone much calmer than she felt. His head whipped around so fast to look at her that she worried he'd get whiplash.
'What?' he asked disbelievingly.
'I'm not going to be mad at you for a natural curiosity such as that - it'd be hypocritical of me if I was,' she told him, and watched as his brain tried to make sense of her implications. 'You can have an active imagination whilst still being respectful of the imagined people. But we're too young for me to indulge your curiosities, so if you're still interested in a few years time, ask me again, preferably after you've taken me out for a dinner date.'
Harry's mouth opened and closed repeatedly, as if impersonating a fish, before eloquently responding, 'Uh, yeah, okay.'
Suppressing a smirk at his response (and ignoring her own confusion about how she was able to have that entire interaction without freaking out something severe - at least she’d ignore it until she was back in her bed), she turned to the egg.
'So Cedric said to take a bath with it, right? Does this need contact with water or something?' she wondered, touching the base of the egg onto the surface of the water.
'Your guess is as good as mine,' he replied slightly belatedly, clearly still thrown by their previous conversation. 'Give it a go.'
She instantly regretted opening the egg. It screeched and screamed in that horrid way it always did, but it had startled her so much that she accidentally dropped it and it fell to the bottom of the bath.
'Well, shit,' Harry said, watching the egg sink, and Hermione decided she'd give him a free pass on the whole language front for tonight - it had been too intense and turbulent for it to not be warranted, besides the fact it'd be hypocritical of her.
'I'll get it,' she said, getting out of the bath to go back onto the diving board. Harry tried to fight the thick layer of bubbles by pushing them as far away from the drop zone as possible and pointing out to her where the egg fell. With a nod, she jumped off and dove into the water. Her blurry vision registered the egg was still open, but instead of the dreaded cacophony of wailing, she was greeted by a beautiful melody coming from the egg. She picked it up and pushed off the floor of the bath to surface, being careful to keep the egg below water.
'Wow, that was amazing, Hermione,' Harry praised.
'Thanks,' Hermione said with a blush, 'and you're going to have to thank Cedric later - he was right.'
Harry frowned. 'He was? How?'
'Can you hold your breath underwater?' she asked, putting the egg on the step he was sitting on and he nodded. 'Ready? Going under in three, two, one!'
It took them a few goes to learn the clue.
'"Come seek us where our voices sound, we cannot sing above the ground,"' Harry quoted, pondering the line.
'Wait - I might have some spare parchment in my robes!' she exclaimed, jumping out of the water, trying not to run across the tiles towards her clothes pile.
'There's a quill in mine,' Harry informed her absentmindedly, before muttering the first lines of the clue again. 'I've got to go and look for people who can't use their voices above the ground... who could that be?'
'Dunno,' Hermione replied, grabbing her wand before roughly shifting through her clothes pile to get to her robe. She was sure she had some spare parchment somewhere here... ah! There! 'Gotcha! You said you had a quill, right?'
'Yeah,' he uttered, and she dove into his clothes pile. She accidentally knocked the still-active Marauder's Map, and it showed... Bartemius Crouch? In Professor Snape's office? What was he doing there? Wasn't he supposed to be sick? What was he... he seemed to be searching for... something. Or somethings. With a quick Tempus charm, she filed away the timestamp for later. She'd need to mention this to Harry after they transcribed the clue.
'You don't reckon this has got anything to do with the Black Lake, right?' he continued. 'What lives in the lake apart from the giant squid?'
'Uh, well, there's a whole ecosystem down there, with a variety of creatures and plant life,' she rambled as she continued her search, when her fingers felt the familiar texture of a quill's feather and pulled it out. She raced back to where Harry sat, and manipulated a small puddle of water and froze it to make a bowl, before filling it with more bath water and transfiguring it into a darker, ink-like liquid. She dipped Harry's quill into the faux ink and began to transcribe the clue.
'Well, does anything in there have a human voice?' Harry asked out loud. 'Hang on... Hermione, there aren't merpeople in there, are there?'
Hermione's head shot up, almost causing her to scratch across the parchment with the quill. 'There are! That's wonderful work, Harry!'
Harry grinned brightly. 'That's it, isn't it? The second task is to go and find the merpeople in the lake and... and...'
His face dropped and he paled considerably.
'Hermione, how am I supposed to breathe?' he asked, panicked. 'I can't even swim!'
Hermione put down the quill and crawled over to hold his hand. 'We'll figure that out, like always. And I'll teach you how to swim - I already promised you I'd do that, remember? Let's just focus on the clue, yeah?'
Harry let out a breath. 'Yeah, let's do that.'
With a smile and a squeeze of the hand, Hermione let go and resumed her position at the parchment.
'Okay, so the first two lines are: "Come seek us where our voices sound, we cannot sing above the ground..."' she said as she scribed.
'"And while you're searching, ponder this: we've taken what you'll sorely miss,"' Harry recited. '"An hour long you'll have to look, and to recover what we took. But past an hour - the prospect's black, too late, it's gone, it won't come back." Bit grim, isn't it?'
'Just a bit,' Hermione replied as she finished transcribing. '"We've taken what you'll sorely miss." Like... an object?'
'Maybe,' Harry conceded. 'You don't think they'd take my Firebolt, right? Or my Cloak?'
'The Cloak is a family heirloom,' Hermione pointed out. 'While you'd definitely "sorely miss" it, it's highly frowned upon to take a family heirloom from someone under any circumstance, so for once I think the system of wizarding society will actually work in your favour on that one. Your Firebolt, on the other hand, I'm less sure of. But... then again...'
'Then again what?' Harry asked, drifting to the edge of the step closest to her.
'But then again, wouldn't taking something like your Firebolt seem a bit...tame? In comparison to the First Task,' she clarified. 'The First Task had dragons - nesting mother dragons - to steal an egg from her hatch. It was dynamic, dramatic and extremely dangerous. But above all, it was entertaining. Where's the danger or the entertainment value in rescuing a broom? Especially with this time limit element?'
Harry frowned, folding his arms against the tiles and leaning onto them.
'So what are you suggesting?' he asked.
'I...' she began uncertainly. 'What if it's not a case of what you'd sorely miss, but who?'
Harry sharply sucked in his breath, and got out of the bath.
'Fuck,' he swore. 'Fuck.'
'Yeah,' she agreed.
He spun around to face her, his green eyes boring into hers.
'I won't let them take you,' he vowed. 'They can't do that - I won't let them.'
'What?' Hermione blurted. 'Me?'
'It's obvious,' Harry stated, starting to pace in front of her. 'You're my best friend. You've been the only person who's wholeheartedly believed me the entire time and stood by me when no-one else did. Rita Skeeter has most everyone believing we're having some sordid love affair, which colours the public's perception of us. But most importantly, you are the most important person to me, and "sorely miss"? That wouldn't even begin to cover how I'd feel if you were taken from me. Even just thinking about it makes me feel...'
He was clearly struggling to find the words to describe how he felt, but he didn't need to. His body language screamed of vengeful fury, and she could feel his magic rolling off him in thick waves, and she didn't just mean that figuratively - the previously calm waters in the bath were starting to ebb and flow, rising and falling with artificial waves much like a tide pool at a water park.
She stood and walked over to him, wrapping him up in a hug, holding him close, ignoring for now how acutely aware she was of the feeling of his scars under her hands.
'Don't think about it then,' she said. 'I'm still here, I'm still with you, and we still have time. We have five weeks to find solutions to this, okay?'
She felt him reel in his magic as he relaxed in her arms.
'Okay,' he agreed. 'Okay.'
They stayed like that for a moment, until Harry felt calm enough that Hermione could pull away a bit to look at his face.
'We'll figure this out together, okay?'
'Together,' he concurred, 'but promise me you'll stay vigilant - this tournament is insane, and there's not many people we can trust.'
'Aye aye, Professor Moody,' she teased with a mock salute. 'Constant vigilance!'
That earned her a snort of laughter from Harry and she smiled.
'I promise, Harry,' she said more solemnly. 'I'll be careful.'
Harry sighed in relief. 'Thank you.'
They disengaged from their hug, and as Hermione picked up her parchment and Harry's quill, Harry went back into the bath to retrieve the egg. Her eyes drifted back down to his underwear.
'Harry?'
'Yeah?' he responded, standing up with the closed egg in his grasp.
'When you come to live with me, we're going shopping,' she declared. 'We need to overhaul your entire wardrobe. You need nice clothes that fit you - your own clothes, not hand-me-downs.'
Harry smiled at her. 'I'd like that.'
They grabbed fresh towels to dry up, before Hermione hit their underwear with drying spells and they got dressed. Hermione also went to the extra effort of towel-drying the egg to make it less slippery to carry while Harry drained the bath, and once they had all their belongings, they left the Prefect's Bathroom.
As they made their way back up to the Tower, Hermione spotted Professor Snape's dot moving frantically in the corridors surrounding his office. Did that have anything to do with Bartemius Crouch's presence in his office earlier? Once they had made it back inside their Common Room, Hermione voiced her observations to Harry.
'That's... why would Crouch want to be in Snape's office?' Harry asked. 'Percy made it seem like he was really ill, so why would he come all this way to, what, steal from Snape? Not that I object to stealing from Snape, but what's the reason?'
Hermione shrugged. 'Haven't the faintest idea. Should we tell him?'
'Snape?' Harry asked incredulously. 'Why on earth would we do that?'
'Because he'd probably want to blame us for whatever was stolen, not that such an accusation wouldn't be without merit - we have stolen from him in the past,' she pointed out. Harry nodded, conceding her argument.
'And the excuse for us noticing this on the map?' he asked. 'I'm rubbish at excuses.'
'I'm not that much better,' Hermione countered. She looked over at the coffee table by the fire, where she had left her copy of Hogwarts: A History open when she confronted Harry about sneaking out of the Tower all those hours ago.
'What if…’ she began, ‘what if…you couldn't sleep, so you came down here and found me reading and decided to join me, trying to do research for the Second Task. We fell asleep on the couch, and you woke up from a nightmare about something to do with the dungeons - maybe something like the giant squid breaking the windows of the Slytherin Common Room, flooding it - and so when you woke up, shaken by the realism of the nightmare, you checked the map, and happened to see Bartemius Crouch in Professor Snape's office.'
Harry scrunched his nose. 'Why do I have to have the nightmare?'
'Because Professor Snape knows you own the Map,' she stated, and Harry grumbled, but acquiesced. So they went up to their dorms, grabbed some of their textbooks and returned to the Common Room, arranging the books to make it look like they had been researching all night.
'And we're going to all this effort because...?' Harry asked, followed by a large yawn. Hermione had to stifle one of her own.
'B-Because, uh, we need people to witness a scene that makes them believe we were up all night studying - it gives our story to Professor Snape weight,' she explained. 'Especially considering our roommates would've noticed we haven't been in our beds all night.'
'Fair enough,' he agreed, flopping onto the couch, and she followed his lead. 'What- what about the fact we smell the same? From the bath?'
'Mmm... mum recently sent me some soap samples she got from Harrods,' she muttered as she sunk into the couch cushions, exhaustion quickly setting in. 'We can just say you liked the scent and asked to borrow it.'
'O- Okay,' he said through another yawn, his glasses drooping down his nose. 'Wow, 'm tired.'
'Same,' she mumbled, pulling the blanket off the back of the couch and draping it over them before snuggling into the couch. As chaotic as tonight had been, she was beyond relieved that they now had a direction for their research, they now had a plan. Things could- things would probably be okay.
'Night, Harry.'
'Night, Hermione.'