The Wand of Ravenclaw

All Hell-ows Eve

Hermione took Harry's hand, leisurely smoothing it with her silky smooth fingertips. Harry loved it when she did that. It was small, a largely insignificant act, but wholly intimate to them. In some ways, Harry preferred it to the more grandiose gestures of passion often exchanged between them. It told him she was thinking tenderly of him when they were engaged in something totally unrelated. He thrilled at the thought of that. It stirred such intense things in his heart, tingled so electrifyingly over every inch of his skin, that he felt wildly euphoric when the sensations overtook him. It made him deeply thankful for having her.

And it made him want to kiss her senseless.

But on this occasion, he refrained. The patrons of the Three Broomsticks might not appreciate such an outpouring of affection.

It was a busy lunchtime and the first Hogsmeade visit of the year was in full swing. The students had abandoned their stuffy school robes and were in their casual winter wear, all clustered around the tables of the cosy pub. Harry and Ron were happily sipping foaming tankards of butterbeer while Hermione, now 18 and feeling brave, had decided to sample mead. The honey based wine was sweet and viscous and Harry was weighing it up as he snuck a sip without Madame Rosmerta catching him.

"Hmm," he said, quaffing the heady liquor as if he were a sommelier. "Bit weird, isn't it?"

"Its very sweet, almost sickly so," Hermione agreed. "But it is warming. A bit like medicine."

"Who ever thought drinking medicine would be a good thing?" said Ron, after accepting Hermione's offer of her glass. "I like it, though. Nicer than firewhiskey for sure."

Harry looked around the pub. It was a remarkably pleasant afternoon and he found himself taken in by it. It had been nearly a week since they had destroyed Slytherin's Locket and Harry was finally starting to feel pleased with himself. Hermione had only been angry with him for a day or so after the episode, which was far shorter a time than he had expected. For not waking her, as he walked towards a possible death, he had expected at least a month of grief. But she had found him so cute, after seeing him as a baby, that she found it hard to be mad at him for too long. Harry might have thought she was feeling a bit broody, if it wasn't for the almighty row she gave him in the immediate aftermath.

Still, the making up sessions after it were hugely enjoyable, not to mention insanely intense.

But it was when he tried to describe the experience that his latest problems started. Ron was the first to ask the obvious question, and as soon as he did Harry felt the change in himself.

"What was it like? Being a baby?" Ron had asked.

Harry had to analyse the event for an answer, and the result altered him. For it equated to the deepest, darkest, most helpless sense of fear and terror he had ever experienced. To be totally defenceless, against a Voldemort at the height of his powers, had been such an intensely terrifying episode that Harry was fundamentally unsettled.

Sleep was now near impossible. He saw visions of his mother's death, of Cedric being so callously murdered, of Hermione being ripped to pieces by Voldemort's hands. This was the most gut-tearingly alarming piece of it all. For he was now convinced that Voldemort knew about Hermione, knew how important she was in Harry's life. And Harry couldn't shift this unfathomable conviction that Voldemort was now plotting an attack against her. The idea lodged in Harry's stomach, a deep and potent sickness that didn't leave him through his waking hours and haunted what little sleep he managed.

He had told Hermione about his fears a few days after destroying the Horcrux. He had barely spoken to anyone since the event and Hermione had coaxed him into a walk around the now snowy grounds of Hogwarts to get the truth out of him. Reliving the event, and his terror, reduced him to tears. Showing such weakness in front of Hermione was permitted; he felt safe with her and knew she would soothe and calm him. But his concern and worry would not abate, and he feared letting her out of his sight for even a moment.