“And what of the Mudblood?” a cold, cruel voice asked.
“She will be here within the next 24 hours,” replied a man with a drawling voice, “I guarantee it.”
“Good. Then it’s only a matter of time.”
“Yes, my lord.”
“You may go, and send Nagini in.”
“Yes, my lord.” The man smiled to himself as he left, it was only a matter of time, only a matter of time before the power held by that weak personage would be his, and he, as ruler of all, would not make the same stupid mistakes, he would not lose fights to babies only to have them become his worst enemy. No, he would do the job properly.
Lord Voldemort watched the man walk out from his chair in the middle of the room. He sneered, this would be traitor did not even have the brains to mask his thoughts in front of Lord Voldemort. He was of little threat. Still, he must be punished,
Harry woke to siring pain in his scar. Slowly it passed and he lay there catching his breath. Soon he became aware of someone lying next to him. This startled him a bit, even when there were together he and Ginny had never even shared a bed, so who was this? He looked over to find Hermione Granger fast a sleep and showing no signs of waking. He racked his brain, why were he and Hermione in the same bed, his bed? The events of the past night came back to him very slowly and he had a hard time believing he had not consumed any alcohol, yet that seemed to be the case, despite his apparent hang over.
As he lay there puzzling this out the word Nagini crossed his mind. Finding nothing to connect with it left, only to be replaced with Mudblood. This too went in and out, though it did sound as though it should ring a bell. Voldemort flashed in red letters before his eyes and he sat up so suddenly that he got dizzy. The dream came back so vididly he pinched himself to make sure he was awake.
“Ouch, crap!” He shook himself mentally and got out of bed. It was going to be a long day, he could feel it already. He looked down at Hermione and had to stop himself from leaning down to kiss her cheek. He headed out and at the doorway he looked back. He sighed, Kurm had her all to himself, the luck bugger.
Hermione woke to find herself alone. Quietly she made her way to the bathroom and then on to the kitchen where she found Harry cooking bacon and eggs.
“You can cook?” She was impressed, Viktor had never cooked for her. She reminded herself that he was in danger and needed her but she couldn’t help noticing how cute Harry looked when he was trying to take care of some one.
“Well, when you’re living on the Dudley Diet you tend to learn to fend for yourself.” He said with a rueful smile.
They ate breakfast in companionable silence, neither wanting to disturb the other’s thoughts. When they had finished Harry started to load the dishwasher and Hermione broke the silence.
“Ummm…Harry, I need some help.” He didn’t answer, nor did he look up from his task. “I need to go after Viktor, you know, like rescue him. Ummm…and I was wondering if you might…help?” She ended rather lamely and waited for a reply, she wasn’t all that sure how he’d take it.
For Harry time stopped, did she just ask what he thought she asked? “Sorry Hermione, it’s not my fight.”
“Not your fight,” her tone was icy, “Not your fight! Harry every fight against Voldemort is your fight!”
“Dumbledore said I would know when””
“Dumbledore’s last fight wasn’t his fight, it was yours!” Harry’s eyes flashed, she was on dangerous ground, but she continued regardless. “And where were you might I ask?”
“I” he said coldly, “Was saving your ungrateful life.” He said it calmly and softly, showing just how truly angry he was.
Hermione reared back as though she’d been slapped, “So you’re willing to just let my fiancée die at the hands of Lord Voldemort just because it’s not your fight or maybe you just don’t have the balls?”
“How would you know? You never bothered to check before you ran off to Krum. Never bothered to give us a chance!”
“US! Us! Harry there never was an us! You burned that bridge when you didn’t bother to open the damn package!”
Harry stood speechless while Hermione stomped off to the bedroom. She slammed the door, and then came back out, holding her ball dress and slammed the door again, just for kicks. She stormed to the front door and wrenched it open.
“Where are you going!?”
“To get Vicky!” she screamed as she stormed out.
“In my Irish boxers?” Harry yelled back. She glared at him and slammed the door in his face. He heard a “pop” from behind the door and knew she was gone.
Harry stared down at the package. What the hell was with this package? Because of “it” Hermione had stormed out. A little voice of reason in his head told him that the package was the least of the reasons why she’d left, but he didn’t feel like being reasonable.
He picked it up as though “it” was a bomb. He held it at arms length and shook it. He thought he heard a metallic clink but he couldn’t be sure. He brought it closer and shook it again, this time it rattled. He sighed, three, no four years he’d been avoiding this moment and now there was nowhere to run. He broke the tape on one end of the package. Taking off the paper, he found another layer of wrapping. He continued to take this off and found…even more wrapping paper.
“For god sake Hermione, give me the Fort Knox of presents why don’t you?” he mumbled to himself.
A voice form inside his head said, “First sign of insanity, talking to your self.” It sounded oddly like Hermione.
“Oh shut up!”
“There you go again.” He didn’t bother to answer. Harry went through five more layers of paper before he got to a box. It was white with a symbol of the cresent moon on the front. He lifted the cover to reveal a golden chain. Dangling from the chain was a golden ring. Holding the ring between his fingers, he saw words engraved along the band. He recognized them as French:
For always. For always. For always…until Krum.