Chapter 2

AN: Huge hugs to my beta team on this chapter, astopperindeath and luvsev. Continued thanks to Milton and Rowling.

To all delight of human sense exposed

Of God the garden was

Paradise Lost, Book IV

The flames from Dumbledore's pyre still scented the air. Hermione could smell it, even with her face buried in Ron's shirt and mucus coursing from her nose. It was more scorched ozone than anything; the power of phoenix flame must instantly incinerate, though the marble tomb was a bit of a mystery.

No. Magic, not mystery. Probably a transfiguration spell on the logs. Professor McGonagall would know, I'll ask her...

She choked on the giggle that arose in her throat. Always the researcher, the bookworm, aren't we? Even when someone has died. The giggle turned to a sob. So similar, the two reactions.

The hand that had been stroking her hair stopped. Ron murmured, "Scrimgeour's coming back. Let's go talk to Harry, eh?"

Hermione pulled away and nodded, wiping at her eyes. As they brushed past the leonine Minister, who looked as though he'd been promised dessert and presented with a stale biscuit, Hermione pondered what was to come. Harry wasn't coming back. She knew that. There was too much pain and too little to do at Hogwarts, and action had always been his best relief. Also, he wouldn't want to endanger the other students by returning. Hogwarts was no longer a safe haven from Voldemort. The Dark Lord would tear each and every student apart if it meant killing Harry.

But she was damned if she would let him gallivant off on his own, which, he stated a minute later, was exactly what he planned to do. Even as they returned to the castle, she wasn't sure if he would listen to them. He'd have to be watched, to make sure he didn't try running off to find Horcruxes without them.

A treacherous little voice in her mind pointed out that, without her there to solve puzzles and provide walking dictionary service, he probably wouldn't get very far.

They spent the days after the funeral packing and sitting around. Boredom was a deadly thing, especially when it was self-inflicted. Harry didn't want to talk about Horcruxes or Voldemort, Ron only talked about his family, and everyone else talked of nothing but Voldemort. Hermione retreated into her books, when she wasn't badgering Professor McGonagall to let her help with castle repairs or making potions with Slughorn for the people still recuperating in the Hospital Wing.

Being in the Potions classroom was odd. Even after a year, she still associated the dank dungeon with Snape. As she chopped and stirred, theories regarding the dark man and his true allegiance ran through her head. Snape's work for the Order, his efforts on several occasions to protect Harry, his efforts on others to have him expelled, and Dumbledore's continuous trust in the dark man combined and conflicted in her mind. Always she came back to taking the situation as it appeared, though it irked her to condemn a teacher thus.

But she did promise herself that, if she ever encountered Snape and survived to speak to him, she would ask. Indeed, she probably wouldn't wait to assuage her curiosity. An image of her raising her hand before shouting questions to him as she dodged curses made her laugh. Slughorn gave her a questioning look, which, as it was similar to being silently interrogated by a robed walrus, only made her laugh harder.

Laughing felt wonderful. She was too sensible to feel guilt over laughing in the days after someone had died; memories of Dumbledore's odd sense of humor helped. She spent the rest of the half-hour her potion had to brew (with three clockwise stirs every three minutes) occasionally stifling giggles.

It was a week after the battle when Professor McGonagall came to the common room, holding a sheaf of paper and a small pouch of embossed leather. Harry, Ron and Hermione were the only ones there, having their daily afternoon session of Moping Around and Not Talking, as Hermione had come to think of it. Ron quelled the chess game he'd been playing with himself, cutting off the clanking of tiny armor. Harry and Hermione both put down their books. The older woman sat down in a nearby armchair, and they reshuffled themselves to face her. Hermione ended up on a settee with Ron, and Harry pulled a wooden chair from one of the tables.

"Mr. Potter, Mr. Weasley, Miss Granger," McGonagall said when they were seated, looking at each of them in turn, "I have here Dumbledore's will." She presented the sheets of parchment, covered in the familiar loopy handwriting, and set them on a small table. None of the trio moved to take them.

"The H-Headmaster," she continued, only the slightest catch in her burr betraying grief, "has bequeathed some small personal items of his to each of you. He specifically requested you receive them a week after his death...and no, Miss Granger, I don't know why."

Hermione had indeed been about to ask, and she flushed slightly.

Briskly, McGonagall untied the leather thong that held the pouch closed. When she reached in, her hand made no impression on the shape of the pouch and seemed to go in farther than the small purse should allow. Hermione smiled at the Mary Poppins effect the purse had. Minerva in her youth might well have been like the clever, acerbic governess.

She handed Hermione, who was closest, a slim book. The leather cover left a film of dust on Hermione's hands, and she could just barely make out the runes embossed on the front.

"'To Miss Hermione Jean Granger, I leave my copy of The Tales of Beedle the Bard.'"

Ron got what appeared to be an ornate, silver cigarette lighter.

"'To Ronald Bilius Weasley, I leave my Deluminator."

"Don't click it," Harry said as Ron turned the gift around in his hands. "Unless you want all the lights to go out, that is." He turned back to McGonagall, who reached in to the sack a third time and pulled out a small, golden orb. As it lay in the palm of her hand, wings fluttered weakly at its sides.

"'To Harry James Potter, I leave the Snitch he caught in his first Quidditch match at Hogwarts."

Harry took the Snitch from her.

There was a quiet moment as all three of them stared at their gifts. Hermione flicked through the book, finding nothing but runes all the way through. They were in an old style, a bit different from what she had studied at Hogwarts. In a way, she was glad of it, for a few nights of translation work would be a welcome reprieve from doing nothing. But she doubted that Dumbledore would give her a book simply to provide her a bit of entertainment. Were the runes a kind of code? Maybe he wrote it to explain everything that had happened in a way that not everyone would be able to read.

The battered leather cover held new excitement now. She licked her lips, mentally running through various books that could help her translate these runes.

She jumped when McGonagall cleared her throat. The stately witch was standing up, trying to hide a slight grimace as she did so. She winced outright when a vertebrae popped. It always shocked Hermione when McGonagall showed her age; her dignity and clipped voice always made her seem powerful and younger.

"There is a note here to me, apologizing for any shock I might get when I present these to you. I have no notion what the man is talking about," she muttered, gathering the papers of the will and scanning them.

The clock chimed three.

Hermione felt a great jerk just behind her navel. The last thing she saw before the swirling vortex of a Portkey whisked her away was McGonagall clutching at her chest, white with alarm.

The breath was smacked out of her body as she hit the ground. Gasping, Hermione rolled onto her back. There would be bruises on her right shoulder and ribs in the morning, she knew, but nothing felt broken. Close on her right, someone groaned and shifted.

Fighting the urge to curl into a ball until the ache resided and her lungs worked, Hermione levered herself up until she was sitting upright on the...Floor?

Hardwood panels met her inquiring eyes, disappearing under a plush hearthrug about three feet in front of her. Of course I couldn't have landed there, she thought. She looked to her right and found Ron starting to sit up as well, rubbing his left arm and scowling.

"Ron? Are you all right?"

"Yeah, think so," he said. "You?"

"Fine," she replied. "Ron, we're indoors, in a house or something."

"The roof was a bit of a clue, Hermione."

He stood up, wincing occasionally, and brushed himself off. She followed suit before he had a chance to offer (or not; this was Ron after all) assistance.

They were inside a small sitting-room, nearly square, with a doorway in the walls on either side of them. The polished hardwood floors that that cushioned their fall were a smooth contrast to rough stone walls and a red brick fireplace. A sofa was placed against the wall behind them, and two armchairs had been pulled up to the blue shag hearthrug. Hermione turned around and banged her shin on the edge of a low coffee table, made from a single slab of wood, knots and all, polished until it glowed. The walls behind the couch had bookshelves built into the stones and were packed with varicolored tomes. A single window amongst the shelves shed a square of light over the couch and table

All in all, it was rustic, plain, and completely unfamiliar.

"What," said Ron, to no one in particular, "in the name of Merlin's saggy balls is going on?"

"We were sent here. Those items Dumbledore gave us, they were Portkeys to this place." Hermione planted her hands on her hips and scowled at the room. They had been deposited here like packages in the post and no amount of welcoming interior décor was going to appease her.

"Well," she said, dropping her hands and turning to Ron, "let's have a look around. I don't think Harry's here with us. We'd have heard him shouting by now." Ron snorted at that, but followed her through the door on their right.

It led into a small hallway, with three more doors. Stepping forward, Hermione turned the iron handle of the door closest to her; Ron took the other one.

A bedroom, slightly smaller than the sitting room, met her eyes. The hardwood floor was almost completely covered by a deep green rug, as plush as moss, which in turn peeked out from under a four-poster bed and a small nightstand. The linens were a lighter green than the rug; at a touch, they proved to be fine cotton. Someone had gone to considerable effort to give the impression of rustic luxury.

A wooden dresser stood against the wall that adjoined the other room. The top drawer contained plain shirts in several colors and a few pairs of jeans which, when held up against Hermione's curvy hips, proved to be too large. She frowned as she put them back, wondering why they had been placed there. They were clearly too big for any member of the trio. It occurred to her that they could be Transfigured to fit. A clever way of providing them with near-perfect clothing without having to ask for measurements.

More filled bookshelves and a window in a similar design to the sitting room were all that room contained. Hermione stepped back out into the hall. Ron was already there.

"Bedroom?" he asked.

"Yes. The theme was green. Yours?"

"Blue. What are the gigantic clothes for? Are they trying to fatten us up?"

Hermione snorted as a Hansel and Gretel image came to her. Pushing Dumbledore into an oven was looking better by the minute. "No, Ron. We can transfigure them to fit us, though I do hope they send our trunks. All my underwear is in mine."

Ron's ears went a bit red at that and she sighed inwardly. Getting Ron thinking about her underwear when they were alone in a house was not on high on her priorities. Brushing past him, she inspected the third door--a bathroom, opulent as the rest of the house.

They went back through the sitting room. The other doorway led into a kitchen, fully furnished with the usual Muggle apparatuses. A small breakfast nook was off to the left. On the other side of the room was another door. This proved to be the front door, opening to a small stone path winding through a fenced-in vegetable garden. Outside the white picket line and the clearing the house lay in were widely spaced trees: an open, friendly forest.

"Hermione!" said Ron suddenly. She turned from inspecting the landscape to find him reading a small piece of parchment. She darted to his side and he handed over the paper. The loopy handwriting was entirely too familiar at this stage.

Dear Miss Granger and Mr. Weasley,

Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore (Prof.)

The edges of the parchment were now a crumpled mess, as Hermione's grip had tightened with each paragraph.

Logically, it all made sense. Dumbledore's analysis of the situation was perfect. Voldemort had exploited Harry's protectiveness before now, and with Dumbledore gone, anyone known to be close to the Boy Who Lived was in danger. And the side of the Light could not afford to have its mascot, its only hope, haring off to rescue his kidnapped friends and getting himself killed. Keeping Harry safe meant keeping them safe, and vice versa.

But it would have been nice to be asked about it. They had agreed to reasonable covenants to protect Harry before. True, this way there was no arguing, no doubt about them being safely and secretly delivered to their little holding pen, but Dumbledore's "move pawns first, explain strategy later" actions angered her deeply.

"Well?"

Ron's voice interrupted her thoughts. Hermione sighed and turned back to him, dropping the letter on the counter.

"I don't like it, but it makes sense, in a way," she growled. Ron looked worried, but shrugged his shoulders with his idiosyncratic acceptance of situations out of his control.

"I guess. Well, at least it's not a bad place to be, eh?" Her expression must have shown a tremendous amount of worry, for he stepped forward and gently wrapped his arms around her. She forced herself to relax into the embrace. A few tears escaped her, and she blotted them on his shirt.

"I suppose. But we're going to hate each other within a week," she said. Ron might see this as a paradise, and it was in a sensual manner, but perfection is boring. Hermione knew the monotony and claustrophobia would get to them sooner rather than later.

Add to that the unmistakable swelling in Ron's trousers she was starting to feel pressing against her hip and you had a recipe for all sorts of problems.