Dangerous Assumptions

A/N: I've had some fun in slashy fic land, but it's lovely to get back to my favorite pairing. I'm having a great time writing this fic, and I hope that you enjoy reading it as well. I do want to say one thing before we carry on. Some post-HPB writers are making an attempt to write what they think may happen in book seven. They carefully study all the clues from the first six books, and arrange their plot accordingly. This is not that kind of story. In fact, I can practically guarantee you that my fic will have absolutely nothing to do with what happens in book seven. I'll leave book seven to JKR. In the meantime, I plan to have some fun! I hope that you do as well! ;)

As always, big thanks to my intrepid beta, Vaughn. I couldn't do this without her. Well, I could, but it wouldn't be very pretty! Thanks for all your help, Vaughn. You rock!

Disclaimer: I don't own them; I only take them out to play.

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Sanity calms, but madness is more interesting.

-John Russell 1921-1991

Waking with a start, Hermione realized that she had no idea what had awakened her. Looking around her childhood bedroom by the soft glow of the streetlight showed nothing amiss. Hermione waited for what seemed like an age, listening intently for any clue as to what had brought her out of a deep sleep. Eventually she heard the soft sounds of footsteps from the ground floor. Ah, that must be it; her parents must have come home. Though she'd been surprised to find them away when she arrived, it hadn't worried her. It was summertime, and her parents often went visiting on weekends in the summer. Now that Hermione had left school and was living on her own...well, on her own with two roommates...she and her parents had gotten out of the habit of telling each other their plans.

Still terribly sleepy, Hermione decided she could wait until the morning before letting her parents know she was there for an unexpected visit. To be honest, if she went downstairs and appeared suddenly in the middle of the night, she'd likely frighten them to death. A sudden thump from below caused her eyes to open again. It was her parents, wasn't it? Of course it was; who else would it be? She was just being silly, jumping at bumps in the night. Rolling onto her back, Hermione dozed as she thought about what had caused her to run off to stay at her parents in the first place. It had all started five days ago.

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Sitting in the kitchen of number twelve, Grimmauld Place, stacks of leather bound tomes and scrolls almost hiding her unkempt mane of hair, Hermione plucked a stray quill from her head and wrote furiously in a Muggle tablet of paper. At the moment, she was researching Godric Gryffindor in her fourth such attempt to figure out what sort of object Lord Voldemort may have acquired from the founder to add to his collection of Horcruxes. This fourth attempt was going no better than the three previous, and Hermione was beginning to contemplate an answer to the Horcrux dilemma that was grim indeed. Taking a break from her intense scribbling, Hermione rubbed at weary eyes while she thought about her situation.

This should have been her final year at Hogwarts...she should be studying for her N.E.W.T.s instead of frantically skimming ancient books about the founder of Gryffindor. However, even the studious Hermione knew that now was not the time for education. The war between the Death Eaters and the forces of Light had never been fiercer. At the end of his sixth year, Harry had decided to leave school and dedicate his time to tracking down the remainder of Voldemort's Horcruxes. It was inconceivable that Ron and Hermione would do anything other than help him, so they had all moved into the grim house that Harry had inherited from Sirius.

The move itself had caused its own problems. The Order had stopped using the house as its headquarters shortly after Sirius' death. When Albus Dumbledore had been killed, the house's Unplottable status and Fidelius Charm had ended. There had been much arguing amongst Harry and the Order about what was to be done. Molly Weasley in particular had been dead set against any of her brood living in a house that the traitor, Snape, knew the whereabouts of. Harry, with the help of Moody and Shacklebolt, had solved this problem by redoing the spells with Harry as Secret Keeper. Now no one could find the house without Harry's personal invitation--not even those who had known its location through Dumbledore. The Order once again set up headquarters there, and Harry, Ron, and Hermione had moved in permanently.

Their first order of business had been to try and discover what had happened to the real Slytherin locket. It had been a shock to Harry when the locket from the cave was so obviously a fake. The mysterious note hidden within that locket had puzzled them all for far too long. Quite frankly, Hermione had been mortified when she realized that the note enclosed in the false locket had to have been from Sirius' brother, Regulus. She should have known sooner! After she made the connection, there had been a very tense week where they all worried if Mundungus had stolen and sold the locket when he had been pilfering Sirius' house. It seemed that Dumbledore had stopped Mundungus from nicking it in time. Even when Shacklebolt questioned him under Veritaserum, Mundungus swore he had never even seen such a necklace.

This confession resulted in Harry, Hermione, and Ron's first month at the house being spent ransacking it while they frantically looked for the locket. In the end, it was Ron who figured out what to do. Catching Kreacher skulking about one day while they searched, Ron said, "Harry, I bet that nasty excuse for a house-elf knows where it is. Why don't you ask him?"

It had taken some arguing, some shouting, and a lot of patience. In the end, Kreacher had no choice but to obey his new master. Scuttling off into his nest beneath the boiler in the kitchen, Kreacher soon returned with something wrapped in a dirty old handkerchief. Embroidered on the handkerchief, quite plainly in dark green thread, were the initials 'R.A.B'. Opening the filthy wrapping with shaking hands, Harry found the locket. It was most definitely the same one he had glimpsed in the Pensieve when he had been studying with Dumbledore.

Now they had it, but they had no idea how to destroy it.

In the end, Moody had taken on the task. After refusing all offers of assistance, Moody took the locket out into the small backyard of number twelve, Grimmauld Place. The locket had indeed been destroyed that night, but Moody had not survived its unmaking.

Now, during breaks in her research of Godric Gryffindor, Hermione searched through the pitiful amount of information she possessed on Horcruxes and tried to think of some way to destroy the remaining talismans that would not destroy the wizard making the attempt. Of the known Horcruxes, it looked like Nagini would be the easiest. Apparently, there was good reason that a wizard should not choose a living thing to use as a Horcrux. All they had to do on that score was kill Nagini and the Horcrux would be destroyed. However, Hermione did not find this information very comforting. Indeed, based on her current research, she found it horrifying in the extreme.

Putting the idea that so frightened her resolutely out of her mind, Hermione thought about the known receptacles for Voldemort's seven pieces of soul. Firstly, there was Voldemort himself, proud owner of one seventh of his soul. Then, of course, there was Nagini. Three of the remaining receptacles had already been destroyed, Salazar Slytherin's ring, his locket, and the diary that had caused Ginny so much trouble her first year at Hogwarts. They knew that the Hufflepuff item was a cup. The cup had not yet been located, but Harry was working with the rest of the Order to track it down.

That diary that had been the catalyst of all their trouble during second year had definitely been a Horcrux, but its involvement was a source of argument among the order. It hadn't been an object of any especial worth; it was a simple Muggle diary that Voldemort had bought in a shop. It was generally speculated that Tom Riddle must have made it when he was fairly young. Hermione's personal theory was that he made it while still a student, and used the death of Moaning Myrtle to do so. Perhaps Riddle had meant to replace that object with something loftier, but he fell before having an opportunity to do so.

That left one receptacle unaccounted for, and it was clear that the object in question either belonged to Godric Gryffindor or Rowena Ravenclaw. Two Ravenclaw items had been discovered, a mirror and an elaborate hair comb, but both tested clean. Perhaps the last item was associated with Godric Gryffindor, yet no such item had ever been discovered. Indeed, the only known Gryffindor relic was the sword that Harry had used to kill the basilisk. Thorough testing of the sword had shown that it was not one of the receptacles. Harry spent weeks searching Godric's Hollow, convinced that the death of his parents had been the perfect opportunity for Voldemort to split his soul for the final Horcrux. Since Voldemort had lost his body that night, it seemed conceivable that the object in question might still be hidden there. Harry's searches had turned up nothing; and now Hermione was afraid she knew why.

Later that evening, after Harry had returned from another fruitless search of his parent's ruin of a house and Ron had returned from an equally uneventful search of a small, hidden library at the Ministry that his father had smuggled him into, the three friends sat eating dinner in morose silence.

Eventually, Hermione broke the silence. "Harry," she began hesitantly, "I know that Minerva gave you the headmaster's Pensieve." While Hermione had eventually gotten used to calling her former professors by their given names, she still resolutely referred to the late Albus Dumbledore as 'the headmaster' or 'Professor Dumbledore'. To do less seemed disrespectful to his memory somehow. "Did she also give you the memories that the headmaster shared with you?"

"No, Hermione. She looked for them, but she couldn't figure out where Albus had hidden them."

Though Hermione flinched a bit at Harry's familiar address, she would never chastise Harry for it. Knowing that Harry and the headmaster had grown much closer during Harry's extra studies the previous year, Hermione could understand that Harry would want to call the headmaster by more familiar terms than she was comfortable with.

"In that case, Harry," she continued, "could I ask you to put your own recollection of those memories in the Pensieve so that I could have a look at them?"

"I suppose I could," Harry said simply, a puzzled expression coming over his face, "but what's the point, really? I've already told you all about them."

"Harry, I don't mean to be beastly, but your memory of conversations leaves much to be desired."

"What do you mean I don't remember things?" Harry snapped.

At the same time, Ron chimed in with, "Here now, Hermione, why are you taking the piss? You talk like Harry's dim or something!"

With a sigh of exasperation, Hermione tried to explain, "I know Harry's not dim, but you both have to admit that neither of you have the memory that I do, especially when you are talking about spoken words. Harry, honestly! You're always saying to me 'how do you remember that?' Has it never occurred to you that I remember practically everything?"

"Well, you've talked about your eidetic memory, I know you remember everything you read, but we aren't talking about reading..."

"Harry," Hermione interrupted, "I've got aural memory as well. Remember how amazed you were that I remembered the Sorting Hat's song...Umbridge's speech at her introduction...any of this ringing a bell?"

The blank expressions of her two mates were seriously trying Hermione's patience. After a brief pause while she counted to ten under her breath, Hermione began to repeat, word for word, the short conversation Harry and Ron had shared when they first entered the kitchen. When she finished, the blank expressions had turned into surprised ones.

"I thought you said your dad stopped on the way to that library to talk to Bill?" Harry asked Ron.

"No...no, it was Charlie...he was in from Romania. Hermione's got the right of it."

For another moment, both Harry and Ron stared at Hermione as if she had suddenly sprouted a second head. Eventually, Harry roused himself enough to speak. "It's obvious that you're right, Hermione. You remember things better than I do. But why now? Why do you want to do the Pensieve now?"

"I've got a hunch about the last Horcrux." Holding up a hand to quiet the questions she knew that they would ask, she continued. "I'm not going to explain it yet. I'd rather be more certain before I say anything more. I'm hoping your memories of what Professor Dumbledore told you will clear up some of my doubts. Will you do it?"

"Of course I will. It won't be easy...but if you think it will help..."

"I wouldn't ask you, Harry, if I didn't think it was important. I know it will be hard for you. I think we're both too tired to start tonight. Let's give it a miss for now and start first thing in the morning."

The sun rose to shine upon a warm summer morning. Tired from their various endeavors the previous day, the three friends slept in a bit later than usual. Shortly after a late breakfast, Harry and Hermione started the first of many journeys into the realms of the Pensieve. It didn't take long for Hermione to sort out an efficient plan of attack for the endeavor. By the second day, Harry would put a memory into the Pensieve and he and Hermione would go in to view it. Hermione would pull them back to reality every half hour so that she could furiously write down every word Dumbledore had spoken. The days passed as her stack of notes grew.

Then, on the fifth day, Hermione wanted to see both the trip that Harry took to the cave with the headmaster and what exactly happened on the tower the night the headmaster had been killed. Completely helpful until now, Harry suddenly balked. Despite Hermione's rational assurances, Harry stubbornly refused to show her either scene. To say that Hermione was upset by this was an understatement. Hurt by what she perceived as Harry's lack of trust in her, and made furious by his stubbornness and refusal to discuss the matter, Hermione had left the house in a fury. Only taking enough time to stuff her notes in her knapsack, she left, slamming the door behind her. When she heard the portrait of Sirius' mother begin her rant, Hermione had been rather childishly pleased by the trouble she'd caused.

Tired, unhappy, and angry, Hermione had Apparated to the one place she thought she might be able to find enough peace to think clearly, her childhood home. Finding no one there, she'd taken a quick, relaxing bath, put on an old nightgown which now barely covered her bum, and gone directly to sleep.

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Another thump, louder than the first, woke Hermione from her dozing thoughts. Suddenly she was frightened. What was she thinking? She wasn't three years old anymore, and she wasn't magically safe just because she was in her parents' home. Loud footsteps echoed on the stairs; a far heavier tread than either of her parents. Now worried, Hermione thrust her hand under her pillow to retrieve her wand. As the door to her bedroom began to slowly open, Hermione's hand closed on empty air.

Ohgodohgodohgod! It's in my knapsack! What the hell was I thinking? If poor Moody weren't already dead, he'd kill me himself for having the pure audacity of being too stupid to live!

The door swung completely open and the soft light from the streetlamp disappeared into heavy black robes and glinted sharply off of a silver mask.

Death Eaters! In my home! Thank god my folks are away...I am so dead.

In a reflexive action, Hermione opened her mouth to scream, even though she was aware that it would do no good. The Death Eater in the doorway flew into the room, kicking the door shut behind him. Falling on the bed and crushing Hermione under his full weight, it took but a moment for the larger, stronger man to pin both of Hermione's wrists in one strong hand while he clamped the other firmly over her mouth.

"Don't move...don't speak...don't even breathe," the man whispered viciously, looking her directly in the eye for an instant before his gaze slipped down to her nightgown covered breasts.

The look in his eyes reminded Hermione of a dog she had once seen that had rabies. The man's eyes were wild, restless, and intense. Her fear increased as she could feel his manhood stir against her trapped thighs.

Oh please...just let him kill me...just let me die.

The man's wild gaze traveled up as far as her mouth, but he would not meet her eyes again. "I am going to take my hand away from your mouth," he hissed, his voice suddenly eerily familiar. "There are a dozen Death Eaters downstairs...I suggest you hold your tongue if you don't want them all to join in the festivities."

When he removed his hand, Hermione stayed silent. Certainly she might scream later, but at the moment she wisely chose to try to deal with one Death Eater, not twelve. The man pressing her into the mattress used his free hand to grasp his wand. His murmured incantation surprised her; she had thought that he meant to magically undress them so that he could use that hard rod she still felt pressing into her legs. Instead, the silver light of a Patronus leapt from his wand. At first, the Patronus looked like a small dog-like creature, but at once it began to morph into something different.

Its legs lengthened to those of a brace of chickens and then small bat-like wings grew from its shoulders. Before that change was even completed, the dog's snout melted down to something almost bovine. The chicken feet changed to hooves as the back legs morphed into those of a hare. The changes continued with increasing speed. Hermione had to drag her eyes from the grotesque, dizzying sight to keep from becoming nauseous.

"Fetch the boy," was all the man holding her down said, before tucking his wand away and again clamping his hand over Hermione's mouth. Still changing in its sickening fashion, the monstrosity of a Patronus disappeared through the door.

As it left, Hermione gave up all hope of escape. There was only one reason for a Patronus to behave so, and that was the complete and utter insanity of the person it belonged to. She was being held down on her bed by a madman with a hard-on. And she knew exactly who the madman was. She was going to be raped and murdered by the traitor, Severus Snape.