At the sounds of shuffling at the staircase towards the boys' dormitories, Hermione quickly snatched her wand from the table beside her and sprung up from her seat in front of the fire. The firelight cast an orange-y hue to everything and the shadows of all the furniture danced eerily upon the walls. Basically, at two in the morning, the Common Room looked perfectly normal, but Hermione knew that something was a little out of place.

Tip-toeing quietly and keeping herself hidden in the shadows, Hermione placed herself in front of the Portrait Hole, blocking any sort of entrance or exit.

Just as she had expected, something collided into her, sending her to the floor. A furious glint came into her eyes as they fixed upon the air in front of her. Seconds later, that air was replaced by Harry Potter's head as he removed his Invisibility Cloak.

"Hermione…" he said quietly, scrambling off of her. He actually had the decency to look guilty, she noticed crudely.

"Harry, what do you think you're doing?" she said in a loud whisper, making it evident that she was not pleased. Harry mumbled something as he stared sullenly at the floor, resembling very much like a five-year-old caught breaking a vase on accident. "'Scuse me? What did you say?" she asked impatiently.

Harry whipped his head up to look at her, his green eyes blazing with anger, very much like hers was doing at the moment too. "What does it look like I'm doing?" he asked.

"Don't play stupid with me, Harry," Hermione said.

"You should do the talking," Harry shot back. "You seem to know exactly what I'm doing, so why bother asking."

"Well, apparently, I find that you're stupid for doing this in the first place. What makes you think that you can just flee to look for Voldemort? Without Dumbledore and the rest of the Order? Without the Ministry of Magic knowing? Without Ron…and me," she added desperately.

Harry's head returned to looking at the floor. The silence was unbearable, but the next words out of Harry's words were even more so. "Get out of the way, Hermione," he said slowly and steadily.

Tears sprung up in her eyes as the words wounded her deeply. She wiped them away hastily and stood her ground, folding her arms across her chest. "I'm sorry, Harry, but I'm not going anywhere."

"Mobilicorpus!"

Hermione's body floated a few inches above the ground and she witnessed Harry gently guiding her to the opposite end of the Common Room. He still looked angry, but with an apologetic look in his eyes, he slipped on the Invisibility Cloak and the Portrait Hole opened and closed, signaling his exit of the room.

It took a few seconds for realisation of the situation to dawn upon Hermione. Never had she expected Harry to actually do this. To run off and think that he had a good chance of fighting Voldemort…to abandon the Wizarding World…Ron…and her. Gripping her wand even tighter in her hand, Hermione set off at a sprint, knowing at the back of her mind exactly where Harry was going to leave the castle.

She beat him to the entrance of the secret Hogsmeade entrance, not exactly knowing how she was able to do so but not caring at the moment.

"Harry. Don't," she said, once again, blocking Harry from leaving. A rustle was heard and Harry's body appeared in front of her, looking furious once again.

"Hermione, would you quit it?" Harry questioned angrily, clearly not believing that someone could be so stubborn. "Just leave me alone! I'm doing this for the good of the Wizarding World. The fight rests between me and Voldemort…even he knows that! So I'm not going to drag thousands of people into danger, you got that? Too many people have died already!" he said.

"That's where you're wrong, Harry," Hermione began, her voice slightly shaking. "This fight rests between Voldemort and the whole Wizarding World. He attacked not only you, Harry, but other people and their families as well. He terrorized the whole Wizarding World for ages…he should have known that if he picks on one of us, he picks on all of us."