Sitting down on the hard mud next to Hermione, Harry said,"Down at the lake - after you'd passed out - I saw some...well...I think they were Patronuses. Proper ones. One was a stag - y'know, a male deer - and the other one looked like a doe."

"Did you see who cast them?" Hermione looked fascinated.

"I...I think so. I know it's not possible, but I definitely saw my dad. I think the other person must have been my mum. I couldn't see her properly. I'm certain it was a woman, and her hair looked sort of red in the dark."

"But...but, Harry, your parents are..." Hermione was trying so hard not to hurt him that she had no idea what to say.

"Dead, I know." Harry breathed,"It's just what I saw."

The pair sat in silence for a few more minutes before a thought struck Harry. "Hermione, that Stupid-fy thing you were doing earlier...what does it do?"

"Stupefy." Hermione corrected him gently,"It knocks out whoever it hits. I read it in an old spell book in February. I discovered tonight that it is as useful as the book told me it would be. I'll teach you it one day."

"Thanks." Harry smiled at her.

Hermione slid her hand into his and asked,"Are you going to go and stay with Sirius soon?"

"As soon as he asks me properly again, when he's ready. We can live in the countryside. Somewhere you can see the stars. That'll make a nice change from all those years in Azkaban."

"Brilliant." Hermione breathed,"He'd love that. And so would you."

***********

"Ah-wooooo!" Hermione cupped her hands to her mouth and howled,"Ah-wooooo!"

Harry put his hands on top of hers and clapped them together,"What are you doing?"

"Saving your life." She wrestled free from his grip,"Ah-woo-"

"Great. Now he's after us." Harry moaned,"Run!"

Sprinting without Buckbeak in pursuit was easy. They had left the Hippogriff on the far side of the Forest, where they had been sitting for hours. Harry and Hermione were running fast, but no one could outrun a werewolf.

Stopping to prevent them both from crashing into a large tree, Harry spun around. Hermione was about ten paces away from him, but Lupin was only five from her. Lunging forwards and grabbing Hermione's hand, Harry pulled her behind him so that she was almost against the tree. He lay his stomach over her back as she trembled and he wrapped his arms tightly around her, shielding her and preparing to take the full impact of a werewolf attack himself. Hermione let out a very loud sob and tried to turn him around, but he was stronger. Feeling Lupin's breath down their necks, Hermione wailed,"NO!" and gave one final vain attempt at turning Harry around before she gave in to the seemingly inevitable.

The impact never came. Buckbeak launched himself at Lupin to protect his saviours as they raced back into the thicker trees to save Sirius.

Harry and Hermione reached the opposite side of the lake to which they had been on before. Nobody was on the other side.

"Why would you do that?" Tears were streaming down Hermione's face as she shoved Harry hard in the chest, causing him to fall backwards.

"Because!" Harry stood up irritably.

This answer apparently didn't suffice for Hermione. "What were you thinking?"

"I was thinking,'I don't want Hermione to get killed by a wolf. Let's stand in front of her so she doesn't die.' You've saved my life enough times: I owe you."

"You don't owe me anything!" Hermione stomped her foot, still sobbing,"Th-that was stupid and thoughtless and dangerous and I'm not ever letting you do that again!"

"Well, what was I supposed to do?"

"Oh, I don't know, keep running?"

"And leave you with him?"

"If it had come to that. Which it wouldn't have if you had just kept on running!"

"There was a tree in my way!"

"You could have gone around it, Harry!"

"Then there would have been a tree in your way too!"

"I'd have gone around it!"

"You wouldn't have had time! He'd have killed you!"

Hermione started crying again. Not just sobbing, though, properly crying. Full on red-eyes, constant tears, runny nose sort of crying. Harry put his arms around Hermione and let her cry into his chest for as long as she needed to - which was about ten straight minutes.

"I'm s-so sorry." She whispered afterwards,"I sh-shouldn't have gotten angry at you. Y-you saved my life and I wasn't g-grateful."

Harry smiled sadly at her,"But you were grateful. You were just angry at the same time, and anger tends to rule over all your other emotions when it's there. You don't need to apologise to me."

Honourable, Hermione thought to herself, very honourable. Too honourable. "B-but I pushed you over because you t-tried to save my life."

"Everyone does stupid things. I stood between my best friend and a werewolf, and you pushed me over for standing in between my best friend and a werewolf. Same thing, at the end of the day." Harry said.

"No, it's not the same-"

Hermione was cut off by a distant moaning. The pair stood up and dived behind a tree so as not to be seen. Sirius was stumbling down the hill on the other side of the lake, and dementors were swarming in from every direction. Not long after, Harry and Hermione's past-selves followed Sirius down the hill. Their Patronus shields appearing and vanishing in the space of two minutes. The pair waited, but no one came to save them. All of a sudden, a thought struck Harry.

"Hermione..." he began slowly.

"What?" Her voice sounded panicky.

"I don't think it was my parents I saw conjuring the Patronuses."

"Oh." Hermione caught on,"Oh."

They both ran to the bank of the lake and cried,"EXPECTO PATRONUM!"

The silver stag and silver doe clicked their hooves happily as they erupted from their respective wands.

***********

"Oh, I wish Summer didn't have to come every year." Hermione moaned as she and Harry climbed off of the Hogwarts Express.

"Me too." Harry sighed,"You should ask your parents to sign your Hogsmeade permission slip again. Now that I've got mine from Sirius, we could both go."

Nodding, Hermione set down her trunk. "Do you know the Dursleys' home phone number?" She asked.

"I think so. Why?"

"Well, I just thought that - if your uncle, aunt and cousin go out - maybe you could call my home phone. It's upstairs next to my room, so I'll be able to get to it before anyone else."

Harry grinned at her,"Brilliant idea! I'll write it down." He pulled out an old receipt from his pocket and made for his quill and ink, but Hermione stopped him.

"I have a biro." She pulled an old clicky-pen out of her pocket,"It should still work."

Harry scribbled the Dursleys' phone number down, and Hermione wrote her home number on the bottom of the receipt, before tearing it in half and handing the bottom section to Harry.

Two over-excited looking first year Hufflepuffs ran into Hermione's trunk, causing it to bust open as they landed on the floor. Hermione helped the two red-faced girls up.

"Sorry!" One said.

"We weren't looking where we were going." The other added squeakily.

"Sorry!"

They handed Hermione some of her escaped clothes before she told them to be on their way.

Bending down to help Hermione pick up her things, Harry's eyes fell on a small typewriter that had broken upon impact with the ground. It was - he decided - the colour of vomit. "Is this what you used to write those revision notes?"

Hermione nodded.

Once they had packed all of Hermione's things back up, Harry hugged her tightly,"See you next year."

"Thank you, Harry." She whispered, kissing him on the cheek.

Harry grinned,"What was that for?"

"Nothing." Hermione smiled,"Everything."