Thresholds

A teacher's personal study is hardly ever a comfortable place to be in for any student of any school, for there is hardly ever a reason to be there besides trouble. For Hermione Granger, things tended to be a bit different, for she really only ever found herself in trouble whenever her friends got her into it, and so instead she had spent quite a few pleasant hours in this very room over the years, having many a cultivated discussion or even plain, amicable conversations with the good professor. About philosophy, the history of wizarding and Muggle culture, Hogwarts in general or the curriculum and Hermione's numerous ideas to improve it, even about their lives in- and outside of the school. About Harry and Ron, and Harry, her fears and worries that, somehow, more often than not ended up revolving around him.

Minerva McGonagall had very much become a person of trust for Hermione, someone to confide in. The older woman had once told her that under different circumstances she would be apprehensive about keeping such an unusually close relationship to a student, but since Hermione always had perfect grades as it were, there wasn't much room for the professor to favor her in any inappropriate way.

Therefore, on most occasions Hermione would have surely felt invited and comfortable here, and not the least anxious or embarrassed. Alas, this was not one of those occasions.

There she sat on a chair that never before had made her feel so queasy, wrapped in a blanket with nothing but her night gown underneath. Next to her, on a second chair identical to hers, sat Harry, who even under McGonagall's furious eyes had been resourceful enough to summon a shirt from his own dorm before following the seething professor into her study. Other than that, however, he only wore his boxers and a pair of slippers, which he seemed to be very aware of.

In front of them, behind her neatly organized desk, sat Professor McGonagall, scribbling away on a piece of parchment with unusually rough, decisive strokes, the sharp scratching sounds of her quill the only noise to disturb the silence in the dimly lit room. Harry and Hermione threw each other a fleeting sideways glance, but each of them looked away just as quickly.

A sudden thump! made them both jump in their chairs and violently jerked them out of their thoughts. Professor McGonagall had pushed a drawer shut without the slightest effort to be easy on either wood or the teenagers sitting before her. She looked at them for the first time since they had entered her study minutes ago, but now she did nothing but and bore right into them with those piercing eyes of hers, wherein the flames of the candles on her desk appeared to flicker most dangerously. Even though the warm light illuminated her tired, sleep-deprived features and she herself wore a strikingly colorful dressing gown over her regular sleeping attire, she somehow managed to not look any less threatening.

"So," she said, and rarely had that single syllable sounded sharper, "would anyone care to explain to me what exactly happened here?"

Harry and Hermione threw each other another glance, unsure of who should speak and what should be said. Hermione was really only present there right then because she hadn't wanted for Harry to go alone and had vaguely insisted to Professor McGonagall that she was somewhat involved in what had happened, though to be perfectly honest she didn't even understand what exactly had happened, let alone if or how she was actually involved.

"My patience is wearing thin," Professor McGonagall warned them icily.

Harry cleared his throat and shifted in his chair. "Well," he began hesitantly, "this really isn't what it looks like, Professor."

"Is that so, Mr. Potter?" she practically cut him off. "Because from my perspective it seems to be exactly what it looks like."

Harry rubbed his neck, which still felt pretty sore after his close encounter with wall and floor. "So, uh, what does it look like, exactly?"

McGonagall inhaled sharply, her nostrils flaring. "Such… reprehensible behavior. By two of my most exemplary students, no less. I am shocked. Shocked!"

"I… I really think there's some sort of misunderstanding here, Professor," Harry tried carefully.

"Yes," Hermione spoke up, if somewhat meekly at first, "we didn't do anything, Professor McGonagall."

"Oh?" the professor snapped at her. "Is that what they call it these days?"

Another clueless look was exchanged between Harry and Hermione, yet when their eyes met McGonagall's meaning finally dawned on them, and they hastily turned their heads again.

"Professor McGonagall!" Hermione protested, sorely shocked herself now. "We did not do any such thing, and I must say I find the accusation alone rather preposterous."

Harry was surprised enough at Hermione's reaction alone, but when he saw how suddenly it was their teacher's turn to look abashed, he was even more confounded.

"Oh," McGonagall said, rubbing the back of her hand with a nervous finger. "I see. No, actually I don't. You told me you were involved, Miss Granger."

"Yes," Hermione admitted slowly, "because it was my bed he was in."

"Excuse me?"

Even in the flickering candle light Hermione's blushing was, against her inner hope, quite visible.

"That's where I found Harry when I woke up," she hastily explained. "And that's as far as my involvement goes."

Professor McGonagall raised her eyebrows, making her glasses slip an inch down her nose. Harry cleared his throat uneasily, instantly drawing the professor's attention back to him.

"Hermione," Harry mumbled sideways, feeling the blood rush to his head, "you aren't exactly making me look good here…"

"But I just meant—"

"Would someone around here please start making sense?" Professor McGonagall interrupted the exchange.

Both teenagers shrunk back into their chairs. After a moment of tense silence, McGonagall eyed Harry with an outright inquisitorial look.

"Were you or were you not within the confines of the seventh year girls' dormitories tonight, Mr. Potter?"

Mr. Potter gulped. "Yes."

"And were you or were you not in Miss Granger's bed?"

Harry hesitated, unable to recall ever having felt more embarrassed. His head felt so hot he thought it should be starting to melt right about now.

"Yes," he nonetheless said truthfully.

"And what exactly were you doing there?"

For the first time this night, Hermione watched him intently, too interested in what he had to say to pay much mind to the generally embarrassing nature of the whole situation.

"Sleeping?" Harry said with an innocence in his voice that was so genuine it actually managed to seem completely feigned again.

Rarely had the Professor's notoriously thin lips looked thinner, and not a drop of blood seemed to be left in their white lines.

"Let us pretend we are all willing to believe that for a moment," McGonagall said doubtfully. "That still leaves the very pressing matter of how you managed to breach the magical security measures that are, as is well known, installed around the girls' dormitories, making it impossible for any male student to enter them, and why exactly you would walk into someone else's bed to sleep therein."

"Wait," said Harry pensively. "So male teachers actually can enter them?"

"Mr. Potter!"

"Sorry," he apologized ruefully. "What I meant to say was I didn't breach them. Not consciously, at least."

The professor raised an eyebrow at him. "Would you care to elaborate?"

"I wish I could," Harry answered sincerely. "But there isn't much I can tell you. I went to bed as I always do – my own bed, mind you – and fell asleep. When I woke up, I was in… in Hermione's bed. Instead of mine."

Professor McGonagall looked at him unblinkingly, scrutinizing him with utmost intensity.

"So, we are talking about spontaneous, subconsciously triggered Apparition into a magically sealed and protected area," she stated tonelessly.

Harry shrugged his shoulders. "Sounds about right."

He flinched when the professor huffed loudly in frustration.

"That is not a thing, Mr. Potter!"

Harry looked over to Hermione in search for help, but even she looked disturbingly stumped.

"It's not?" he asked, facing Professor McGonagall again.

"No," she flatly replied. "I'm disappointed to say the barrier has been breached before, in recent years only by some especially… inventive scoundrels, but it happens less than once per decade. At least since Professor Dumbledore was named Headmaster. Not once, however, did anyone manage to apparate into an area that was protected against it by any competent witch or wizard."

"But you apparated there," Harry remarked. "Right after… my impromptu gymnastics."

"I'm a staff member, Mr. Potter, and it was the hallway, not the dorm room," the professor explained. "Would you want poor Madam Pomfrey to climb the countless steps of the castle every time there was a medical emergency in one of the common rooms?"

Harry merely mumbled something along the lines of "I'm the one with the blunt trauma here," and sunk back into his chair.

Professor McGonagall exhaled a heavy sigh. "And you are absolutely sure that you had nothing to do with this?" she asked Hermione, giving her the same scrutinizing look to which Harry had found himself subjected moments before.

"Yes, of course not," Hermione answered, drawing the blanket around her just a little tighter, then adding in a sheepish voice, "Why would I do that?"

McGonagall gave her another kind of look over the frame of her glasses. "Uh-huh."

She took her quill from its inkpot again and wrote something on her parchment, and while continuing to write and without looking up at them inquired, "Was this the first time this happened?"

"Yes," Hermione immediately replied.

Harry, however, remained conspicuously quiet, and two seconds later the professor's scribbling stopped dead and she looked up at him. He was playing around in his unruly hair with one hand and looking towards the ground with a wide-eyed expression that under different circumstances would have made Hermione laugh. Now it merely served to make her very, very suspicious.

Feeling both women's eyes on him, Harry wanted to sink even deeper into his chair, but its stupid solid matter made that quite impossible. He coughed once or twice.

"Well," he set out to ruin his life, "that whole thing with the violent ejection was definitely new, but, uh, technically… in principle… the other thing, with the impossible Apparition stuff, well, that… also happened the night before."

Harry threw Hermione a timid glance and found her gaping at him in utter disbelief. "But only that once," he hastily added. "So, uh, now twice."

That did not stop the gaping. "I'm sorry," he said, looking at her apologetically. "That's what I wanted to talk to you about… today. I couldn't know it would happen again…"

Professor McGonagall harrumphed and the two abruptly turned back to her. "I take it Miss Granger did not wake up to take note of your presence in… her bed the first time?"

Hermione was barely able to shake her head in what seemed to be a trance-like state.

"And you," the professor asked Harry, "managed to leave unnoticed?"

He nervously scratched the back of his head. "It really doesn't sound very decent when you say it like that," he murmured.

"I have yet to decide if anything about this can be called decent," the professor assessed.

"But I didn't do it on purpose," Harry said, much more emphatically this time. "It just happened. I was just as confused as we all are now, probably more so. And nobody is more embarrassed by any of this than I am. But I did not break into the girls' dormitories like some pervert. I didn't even breach any barriers, I was flung into a bloody stone wall by one! Thanks for asking, by the way. I'm fine."

He crossed his arms over his chest, somewhat defiantly.

"Calm down, Mr. Potter," McGonagall told him with half-forgotton softness in her voice, a touch of sympathy permeating her strict demeanor. "I believe you, and I can assure you that at no point during this affair did I mean to insinuate moral misconduct on either your or Miss Granger's part. It is not for me to judge you in that regard, at any rate. What falls under my responsibility to deal with, however, is the obvious infringement of Hogwarts rules and, as it seems, the rather peculiar and as of yet inexplicable manner in which it transpired.

"Hence my necessary interrogation. Even though any sort of punishment is currently not applicable given the state of affairs, both of you, I'm sure, will understand that with the information provided by Mr. Potter I cannot keep this incident under non-disclosure, either. I will have to consult with the Headmaster and those professors involved in the security measures that appear to have been circumvented in an unprecedented manner. And you, Mr. Potter, as sorry as I am to say this, will probably have to become the subject of some sort of examination eventually."

If Harry would have had another pair of arms at his disposal, he would have crossed those too right now.

"Great," he just grumbled through clenched teeth.

Professor McGonagall looked at them for another moment, then said, "For now there is nothing that can be done about this. I will call upon you as soon as I have discussed the matter with the staff," and looking at Harry she said, "You may leave, Mr. Potter. Get some more sleep, which we are all in dire need of."

Harry nodded slowly and stood up without another word, simply feeling too exhausted to talk anymore. With a last shy glance towards Hermione, who was wrapped in her blanket up to her nose and looking anywhere but at him, he turned and walked to the door with scuffing steps.

"In your own bed, if it is at all convenient," McGonagall added when Harry was just about to step out into the corridor. With slumped shoulders he left, closing the door behind him with a sigh.

A rather forlorn looking Hermione was left wondering in apprehension why she was not dismissed as well, her concern only lessening a little when Professor McGonagall gave her a warm smile, probably very aware of her student's almost haggard condition.

"Miss Granger," she said, "I will have to ask of you to inform me promptly about any further developments and obviously any potential recurrence of an event even remotely akin to what happened tonight. I will bring this to the Headmaster's attention as soon as he returns from London, but until then there is only so much we can do."

"Of course, professor," Hermione acceded naturally. "But why would you tell me this in private, if you don't mind my asking?"

To her puzzlement, the professor looked oddly bashful, fidgeting with her quill and for once avoiding eye contact. She cleared her throat.

"Well," McGonagall said, plainly flustered, "call me old-fashioned, and please note that I have the utmost respect for Mr. Potter and never had a student I was fonder of, but… he is a boy of a certain age, and... well, let me put it this way: hormones don't help honesty."

It was Hermione's turn to blush and recede just a little further into her woolen wrap. Nervously sweeping a stray strand of hair back behind her ear she said, "I really don't think that hormones play much of a roll in any of this, professor."

"Oh?" McGonagall looked up at her, then – although Hermione couldn't quite be sure – seemed to smile the faintest secret smile, and going back to her deskwork said, "Well, if you say so."

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The great thing about dormitories, as Harry and Hermione were lucky enough to independently learn the following day, was that, regardless of whether magical barriers were preventing one gender to enter the dorm rooms of the other or not, it was virtually impossible to do so without the whole school finding out about it. Sure, everyone had their magically sound-proofed bed curtains, but those worked only to block outgoing sounds, so that everyone would be able to fall asleep without having to suffer a cacophony of multiple snoring throats torturing one's eardrums. Sounds from the surrounding dorm room itself were very much able to reach anyone behind their curtains, and so it was as unlikely that anyone would be able to pull off the hubbub Harry and Hermione – and Crookshanks – had caused the night before without waking every other person in the room as it would be in a completely mundane, Muggle dormitory.

So much for the advantages of attending a school of magic.

Considering the girls Hermione had the pleasure of sharing a dorm with, the phenomenon itself might not have come as the biggest surprise, but the speed at which the rumors spread throughout the school, and even more so the multitude of forms they took, did not fail to astound. Even on his way to the Great Hall early in the morning, having overslept no more than a quarter of an hour, Harry was already met with more than one nosey gaze, a few pointing fingers and some especially irritating giggling behind raised hands. None of that, as Harry had yet to find out, was more than a light introduction to the things to come.

In Hogwarts, the Great Hall was to gossip what airports are to viruses, although mutations are much more common among the former. When Harry arrived things still appeared to be agreeably normal, for the most part. Not a single head seemed to turn his way from any of the house tables except for Gryffindor. Passing his fellow house mates on his way to his usual seat, he practically silenced every conversation he came upon with his presence alone, only for the excited chatter to pick right up again once he had moved barely two steps along. Desperately trying to ignore the whispers and the glances, he finally arrived at his place next to Ron. Quickly letting his eyes wander about in search for Hermione, he found her nowhere to be seen, and for once he wasn't quite sure if it was disappointment he felt, or relief.

Sitting down he exhaled noisily and avoided looking at anything that might look back, wishing he could just vanish into thin air. From the corner of his eye he noticed Ron gawking at him with unswerving attention, chewing on his food incessantly. Harry rolled his eyes and gave off an unnerved groan.

"So I take it you've heard, too?"

"Hermione shares a dorm with Lavender Brown, mate," Ron answered, blatantly amused. "Everyone's heard."

"Brilliant," Harry said flatly. He took a careful look around the Hall again, then worriedly asked, "Surely not everyone?"

"Nah, not yet," Ron answered good-naturedly. "But it's not even eight o'clock. See over there?" He nodded towards another part of the table, a dozen heads away from them. "See how Parvati Patil is leaning over to her sister at the Ravenclaw table?"

Harry saw. Harry didn't like what he saw.

"Yep," Ron commented solemnly, "and that's how privacy dies."

Harry's head plopped straight into his crossed arms on the table, a muffled and thus luckily unintelligible tirade of curse words escaping from underneath the pile of misery that was Harry Potter in that moment.

"Have some cereal," said Ron. "It's delicious."

Harry raised his head, if only to throw his friend an appropriately disgruntled look.

"Have you seen Hermione?" he asked, ignoring all things cereal-related.

"As a matter of fact I have," Ron answered. "She was here just a few minutes ago, but apparently some Head Girl stuff came up and she had to leave."

Harry doubtfully raised an eyebrow at him.

"Convenient, I know," Ron admitted. "But it's true. Maybe it's karma or something."

"What about my karma, then?" Harry asked sulkily. The pitiful look he received in return wasn't exactly comforting in nature.

"You're the bloke who apparates into unsuspecting maidens' bedrooms," Ron told him blithely. "Your karma's pretty much on its way to being written on a wanted poster in a six-figure number."

The day did not improve from there. Merely fifteen minutes later, when the Great Hall was slowly clearing and, at some point, Harry and Ron were amongst those stepping through the high arching two-winged door out into the entrance hall, the frequency of disturbances had already increased significantly for Harry. By now so many people were throwing more or less clandestine glances his way or sometimes even outright staring at him that he felt thrown right back into his first few weeks at Hogwarts, when he had empirically learned what animals in zoos must feel like.

Many of the boys merely nodded or winked at him in what seemed to be some sort of acknowledgment, others combined their nodding with a knowing smile that supposedly was meant to tell him something, although he wasn't sure what it was. Others, quite to the contrary, appeared to be kind of angry at him for some reason unknown to him. He was bewildered to see even some of those he tended to be rather friendly with were giving him wary looks, and Cormac McLaggen was blatantly seething with rage when he saw him passing by in a hallway. One phenomenon he at least could easily shrug off, since Harry had never much liked the bloke, anyway.

The girls, to Harry's increasing irritation, were not all that different in their general demeanor towards him: the variables changing, the formula staying largely the same. There were many who didn't seem to do anything but giggle whenever they saw him, but more than a few of those he had never seen do much but giggle, anyway. Over him, over everybody else and, ironically enough, probably never over themselves. But – and he really couldn't say which group he preferred – there were also those who seemed to be mildly annoyed, positively resentful or outright upset with him, throwing him harsh looks of condemnation. At one point he saw someone with a striking resemblance to Ron's little sister running up a flight of stairs, sobbing violently. Harry strictly refused to believe that this could have anything to do with him, but he was getting seriously paranoid by that point.

It might have been Harry's personal epitome of irony that today, of all days, marked their first official lesson in Apparition. Had that not been the case, leaving the confines of the castle – that today possessed a distinctly suffocating quality – at half past eleven with Ron and Neville by his side surely would have been a welcome relief, especially on this particularly pleasant late summer day, a mild sun giving its last farewells to its longest days over the northern hemisphere and a refreshing wind bringing the first gentle signs of cooler times to come.

Now, however, the irony seemed downright obscene to Harry. Not only would it be their first Apparition lesson, but he would also very likely see Hermione for the first time since their rather unpleasant sojourn in Professor McGonagall's study the night before. To top it all off they were also paired with the Slytherins, as for some sadistic reason it so often seemed to happen. Harry's last remaining glimmer of hope was that at least they would get a good teacher who would not make this any worse for him than it already was, like—

Snape.

"Are you kidding me?" Harry groaned in equal frustration and disbelief when he saw who was expecting them from a distance. "Have I insulted the whole bloody cosmos or something?"

"I hope you didn't apparate into Snape's mum's bed as well," Ron said flippantly. "Wait, does Snape even have a mum?"

"Of course," Neville replied. "Who else would be doing his laundry?"

"Kill me now," said Harry, but no one did.

When they arrived where most of the other students had already gathered, Hermione amongst them, Snape eyed Harry with an ominous smirk. Harry ignored him and instead moved a little closer towards Hermione as casually as he could. Trying to talk to her under Snape's supervision would have been foolish, though, so getting her attention would have to serve for now, and when she finally looked at him he was dismayed to see how harried she looked. It seemed her day hadn't been much better than his up to now and he could only imagine the kind of gossip she had to deal with. Even though a billion neurons told him he should be embarrassed to even look upon her, the bold few neurons who made him give her his most comforting smile, trying to let her know that she wasn't alone, were his favorites. He was glad to see her reciprocate his smile, unsteady as it was.

"Your attention, please," Snape's voice jerked them out of their moment, cutting enough, as always, to make it unnecessary for him to speak very loudly to be heard – his natural ability to keep all other mouths around him shut tight doing its part as well.

"As you all know, this will be your first lesson in the advanced discipline of Apparition," Snape went forth in his familiar drawl, "challenging for the adept, dangerous for the uninitiated and potentially fatal for the perpetual amateurs amongst you."

"He should do his own motivational program," Ron mumbled under his breath while pretending to scratch his nose.

"Some of you, as has come to my attention," Snape continued with overt smugness, "have already gathered some experience in the field."

A snicker went through the crowd. Hermione seemed to diminish in size a little, while Harry made another instinctive step towards her.

"It is my responsibility to try and bring all of you to the same level as those pioneers amongst you," Snape spoke, relishing every syllable, "who seem just too eager when it comes to certain things in life."

Some of the Slytherins laughed out loud at that, while the Gryffindors remained unanimously quiet, their animosity towards the Slytherins outweighing their own amusement with the rumors going around the castle. Even Lavender Brown gave a commendably solidary performance, but Lavender Brown was one of those poor creatures who always dance along and never set the rhythm.

"In today's lesson," Snape went on, strangely enough never really savoring the reactions he always seemed so determined to provoke from his Slytherin students, "we will be going through the theoretical basics of the procedure and then, in the end, hopefully have some of you, or at least parts of some of you, in that marked area over there."

As usual, Snape was annoyed when he noticed a raised hand in the group of students, disrupting his beloved monologues.

"Yes, Miss Granger?" he asked in a way that would rob most students of their will to live, let alone ask a question.

"Are you utilizing Tesla's Localized Apparition Field here?" Hermione asked, and only Harry noticed that asking questions did not come quite as naturally to her as on any other day. He was happy to see that she was not feeling bad enough to surrender her curiosity, though.

"Yes, if you must know," Snape replied as if actually teaching something was physically hurting him. "You will only be able to apparate into the marked area, and not from any distance much larger than ours. So no Death Eaters will be joining us today, I'm afraid."

"No worries, Granger," Malfoy sneered. "Once we're done with the lesson I'm sure we'll all be able to apparate into your bed all right."

Roaring laughter erupted from the Slytherins, with Daphne Greengrass – to her questionable credit –probably looking the least comfortable. Harry, in what seemed to be a reflex, stroked Hermione's hand with his own, and when he noticed that she didn't flinch away from the touch, took her hand into his.

"I would be surprised if any of you were to be able to apparate at all without leaving your tiny heads behind," Snape remarked sullenly. He never seemed to like it much when anyone but himself was being a complete jerk. Frankly, he just didn't seem to like very much in general.

"Well," Harry couldn't help but say, "luckily for Malfoy he's the only one here for whom that wouldn't make much of a difference."

It was the Gryffindors' turn to laugh, and Ron gleefully added, "He would be a little nicer to look at, though," which made Seamus pretty much double up with laughter. Malfoy not so much.

"Order, now," Snape snarled menacingly. "I strongly advise you to listen carefully, for I guarantee you I will not be picking up your limbs if you imbeciles should manage to lose them."

For the next thirty minutes or so, Snape proceeded to introduce them to the expectably intricate workings of Apparition, including an admittedly impressive display of his own skills in the art when he easily apparated back and forth between the two areas in quick succession. The funny thing about Snape was that, when you just let him do what he liked best – showing off and hearing himself talk – he could actually be rather pleasant to be around and not the worst of teachers, in a Do as I say or die kind of way.

Hermione did not ask any more questions throughout the lesson, although Harry felt her hand – which, as he didn't seem to consciously realize, he was still holding – twitch on more than one occasion. He threw her sideways glances from time to time, yet not once did she take her observant eyes off of Snape, listening intently to every word he spoke.

When it came to the practice-oriented part of the lesson, beginning with one or more Side-Along Apparitions with Snape for every student, not even Malfoy found the time to make his usual spiteful remarks anymore, for Slytherins and Gryffindors alike were too busy worrying about the risk of losing their limbs and concentrating too hard to avoid it to pay any mind to their juvenile rivalries.

At some point Seamus actually accomplished the rare feat of disapparating nothing but his left pinkie somewhere into the designated area, where the Gryffindors then collectively went to look for it. On his way to the infirmary he had the severed finger plucked behind his ear, joking hilariously about it with his friend Dean, who escorted him on Snape's command. More successful could only be called those who didn't manage to disapparate at all.

When it was Hermione's turn to try on her own for the first time, Harry gave her hand a soft squeeze before she stepped forward into the area marked for Disapparition. Ignoring the sneers and snickers and a few obscene gestures coming from the group of Slytherins again, she closed her eyes and took one deep breath, which Harry involuntarily mirrored. Then, with the familiar sound of the softest of thunders she was gone, reappearing with barely perceivable latency in the Apparition area less than twenty yards away from them.

And as if that hadn't been enough, a mere two seconds later she apparated back to Professor Snape's side, who was utterly unable to hide his amazement, an expression hardly ever seen on his stern features. Hermione herself looked slightly disoriented and somewhat relieved for just a moment, before quickly regaining her composure.

"Well," she said, straightening out her skirt, "I believe I'm done here. If you'll excuse me, Professor Snape, my presence is required elsewhere."

And with that she marched off towards the castle, two dozen disbelieving pairs of eyes following her and more than a few mouths hanging stupidly agape. It took the Gryffindors just a second longer than usual to erupt into cheers, and even Snape needed a moment to recover before he was able to silence them.

At the end of the lesson, nearing one o'clock, no one but Hermione Granger had accomplished a perfectly executed Apparition, let alone two – much to the chagrin of Draco Malfoy and his fellow Slytherins.

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After that unexpected highlight Harry was quick to realize that the day was not yet done, and far from it. When he returned to the castle after their Apparition lesson for lunch, the Great Hall was abuzz with secretive whispers, surreptitious glances and some more or less ambiguous, but unquestionably inappropriate gestures. By now, as it turned out, truly everyone knew – or at least their own version of it. It might have been merely due to Harry's paranoid state of mind, but at some point he could have sworn even Argus Filch was eying him more suspiciously than usual.

To Harry's great dismay, Hogwarts' nosey populace grew bolder as well and some began to shamelessly approach him right there at his table, asking him all kinds of dubious questions. Was it true? How had he done it? Could it be taught? Some especially disturbed specimen actually seemed willing to pay him money for what he could only describe as a shortcut to Azkaban. The first one to approach him was slightly annoying at worst, the second one managed to increase his irritation and the third and fourth one made him downright livid. Even Ron had enough at that point, angrily telling them to bugger off and warning them that they did not want to be caught standing between a Weasley and his lunch.

Finally, when a seething Harry was just on the brink of having an outburst after some bloke from Slytherin he had never even taken note of before asked him why of all options he would choose Granger's bed, Professor Sinistra, who was overseeing lunch today – a responsibility that sounds much more important than it actually was on most days of any given term –, stood and spoke up, declaring that no one was to rise from their seat for any other reason than to leave the hall for the remainder of lunch break. After that, Harry, Ron and Hermione could at least finish their meal in relative peace, although all but one of them barely had any appetite to begin with.

Yes, Hermione sat next to Harry just as she always did, and they also shared all their remaining classes in the afternoon, but suffice it to say that their interaction was limited at best, and certainly strained under the disconcerting circumstances. All the looks they shared were timid in nature, all the moments they touched unintentionally were clumsy and led to nervous smiles being exchanged, like when they both reached for an inkpot at the same time or when they shared a book during their Charms class and they both simultaneously tried to turn the page and instead ended up halfway intertwining their hands. Harry did not care to count all the times they said Sorry to each other over the course of that single afternoon. Virtually everything seemed to be something to feel sorry about today, which was something Harry definitely felt silly rather than sorry about.

It was, basically, the exact opposite of how they usually behaved around each other, and it frustrated Harry more than anything else. He could take the ridiculous rumors and endless gossiping, the stupid questions and even the petty-minded insults, but having his friendship with Hermione compromised was completely unacceptable. Contributing immensely to his general unrest was the fact that maybe for the first time ever he had not the slightest idea what Hermione was thinking and feeling and the need and simultaneous inability to talk to her were threatening to drive him mad over the course of the progressing day. He hadn't even told her how sorry he was for the mess he had put her in. There just never seemed to be the time and opportunity. There was too much noise all around and they always seemed to be in a rush to get from class to class without being too exposed to the curious eyes and busy tongues in the hallways.

So instead he was left sitting quietly next to her in Charms, Magical Art and Ancient Runes, the last of which he even had to endure in the absence of Ron, who had never taken Ancient Runes since – sadly – he suffered from acute dyspnea whenever faced with any rune that was older than Professor Binns, as he liked to say. Magical Art, on the other hand, had become something of a personal favorite of Ron's, for there was just no other subject where he could get a grade of A or above for simply creating something that apparently resembled a rhinoceros. Professor Salvadore was really fond of those.

Harry, however, was unable to care much for either rhinoceros or anything else going on in their classes, really, and he was just relieved when it was finally all over for the day. Stepping out into the hallway after their last class of the day had ended, Harry was just about to say something to Hermione when she forestalled him.

"I'm off to my French class now," she told him, much to his puzzlement.

"You're taking French lessons? At Hogwarts?" Harry asked accordingly. "I thought no one here cared about any kind of education that is actually of any use in the greater part of the world."

"I'm not the student, I'm the teacher," she explained, nervously eying the people around them who would just not stop gawking at them. "Hagrid is trying to write a letter to his… French half-giant lady friend in her mother tongue, and I'm helping him with it."

"Oh," was what Harry had to say to that, disappointed that again there would be no chance to talk to her. Unless…

Say something. Say something!

"Well, uh…"

Something else!

"Bonne chance, as the French hopefully say?"

You idiot!

"Merci beaucoup!" she said, smiling faintly and barely looking him in the eye.

With that she swiftly turned and walked away from him, her steps quickening until she vanished from sight when she turned a corner, leaving Harry behind to lean back against the wall and silently curse himself some more. It was quickly becoming one of his favorite activities.

<3<3<3<3<3

At the end of the day, late in the evening, Harry found himself sitting once more in his favorite armchair in front of the fireplace in the common room, staring bleakly into the calmly flickering fire. He hadn't seen Hermione again after she had gone off to Hagrid in the afternoon. Then again, he had hardly left Gryffindor tower himself, avoiding dinner in the Great Hall and instead opting for a more private and undisturbed meal up here in the common room. Ron had offered to stay with him, but Harry had asked him to go to the Great Hall instead in case Hermione would show up there. She did not, as Ron reported after his return. Maybe she had eaten at Hagrid's.

Harry had met Professor McGonagall on his way back to the tower at some point, and she had enquired about his wellbeing. Physically he felt perfectly fine, if a little bruised, and that's just what he had told her. She had smiled knowingly at him and advised him not to pay too much mind to the idle gossip going around the castle like a flu epidemic. When he had replied that it wasn't just that, she had smiled even more knowingly and said that she had no doubt things would all work out just fine with Miss Granger. Sometimes, in her own caring way, the old woman really creeped him out. Apart from Hermione, no one else had ever given him that indescribable feeling of having the book of your own self read by someone else while you yourself were still trying to figure out what language it was written in. Except maybe for Dumbledore, but he was literally capable of reading minds at his leisure and that was just plain unfair.

Then, of course, he had come to realize that he had not merely met the professor on a chance encounter, for she had also given him something. The thing that came in the shape of a rather ordinary looking wristband was apparently a magical device Professor Flitwick and Madame Pomfrey had come up with on short notice, and it was supposed to detect various bodily functions while he was sleeping and would also let Professor McGonagall know if he should abruptly change his whereabouts by means of Apparition. All in all, it seemed to be something Muggle governments would be really keen on, and though Harry didn't exactly like the idea of being monitored during his sleep – or any other state, for that matter – he saw the use of it under the circumstances.

"Have you ever wondered what gits like Malfoy think about?" Ron's voice pulled Harry out of his train of thoughts.

"I'm not so sure I would want to know," Harry answered doubtfully.

"Nah, I mean like, do they know they are puny little buggers?" Ron wondered, obviously in a very philosophical mood tonight. "Do they think of themselves as pricks? Are they like, 'Oh, it's so great to be a prick,' or do they actually believe they are perfectly nice people? And, consequently, do they think of us as the actual arseholes? Are we the actual arseholes? Is Malfoy a good person and are we the puny little buggers? Are we all seeing the world upside down? And what is wrong with this Butterbeer? It tastes weird."

Harry looked at his friend with both his eyebrows raised up to his hairline, which admittedly – disheveled as it was – was somewhere all over his forehead.

"I think it's long past your bedtime, Ron."

Ron looked at him with the funniest expression frozen on his features, his eyes narrowed to slits and his lips puckered to the extreme, and then he suddenly said, "Yah," and stood up in one quick motion. After a few steps he turned around again, saying, "Oh, and Harry?"

"Yes?"

"Be a good lad and wear your contraceptive bracelet."

Harry threw the next best pillow at him, which Ron caught in front of his chest and was just about to carelessly take with him, when suddenly the portrait hole swung open and Hermione entered, making Ron pause and turn. At first Harry was relieved to see her, but when she stepped into the light and he saw the condition she was in, his heart sank. She was about to hurry straight past him on her way to her dorm, but he bounded from his chair just in time to catch her.

"Hermione!" he exclaimed, grabbing her arm gently even in his swift motion. "What happened?"

She reluctantly turned around halfway and Harry was shocked to see the tears glistening wetly on her worn out face.

"It's nothing, Harry," she uncharacteristically denied the obvious, her voice near its breaking point. "I just want to go to bed now. Will you please let me go?"

For a moment he was stunned, unable to react. When her pleading, bloodshot eyes met his, his hand dropped to his side, and she left with a weak 'Thank you.'

Frozen still Harry watched her go. He had never seen her looking so frail before, and the pain he felt as his eyes followed her was not his own, and yet more his own than any other he had ever felt. An awkward silence had taken the common room, but those few who were still left there had the decency to look anywhere but at Harry.

He couldn't have said how much time passed before the first sound to reach his ears through the beating of his own heart was Ron clearing his throat uncomfortably.

"You think there's any chance Hagrid's French is really, really bad?"