A/N: Written for season 2, round 8 of firethecanon's Quidditch competition.

The Question of the Stone

Partway through her fifth year, Hermione Granger began to spend even more of her time in the library. Of course, for Hermione this wasn't a difference that anyone else noticed - everyone knew that Hermione Granger spent all her time in the library anyway, and in truth she didn't have terribly much extra time to spend there. But what little extra time she had, she did begin to spend there.

If anyone had noticed and asked her, she would have pointed out that it was her OWL year, and she would have insisted that she was just studying extra hard. She would have believed it, too, but in truth that wasn't the reason. No, the reason for this change was a quiet Ravenclaw boy called Anthony Goldstein.

He was quite a good-looking boy, she would have admitted if pressed, but that genuinely wasn't her interest - had it been, she might never have looked beyond her immediate circle of friends to begin with. Actually, the thing about Anthony Goldstein that brought Hermione Granger completely unstuck was his brain. His beautiful, sexy brain. She had gone an awfully long time without friends before she came to Hogwarts, but beyond that she had spent her entire life wishing she could find an intellectual equal. For Hermione Granger that was a very tall order indeed, but early in fifth year she became fairly sure she'd finally managed it. Anthony never stood out - if not for class rankings she would never have noticed his intelligence - but he was consistently second behind her in every subject except Defence and Potions. She really began to notice him when he beat her in Charms in their exams at the end of fourth year - that wasn't supposed to happen. That never happened to her. And once she got past her initial annoyance, she found herself extremely curious about someone who might be on her level intellectually. And so, noticing that he spent almost as much time in the library as she did, she began to spend even more time there herself. She told herself that this was so she could regain her top spot, but that didn't explain why she always sat near him. Not at the same table, of course - that would be far too blatant and in any case she maintained that she wasn't interested in the boy that way anyway - but always she sat near him.

Anthony, for his part, wasn't Ravenclaw's top fifth-year student for nothing. He had noticed Hermione's intelligence years earlier - how could he not - but had quickly worked out that she didn't return his interest. Now that his long-suppressed attraction to her suddenly was quite clearly requited, he found that he had no idea what to do about it. For all his encyclopaedic knowledge, this was a situation for which he had never thought to prepare - he had long since resigned himself to never finding anyone who could properly engage with his intellect, a belief confirmed by Hermione's earlier lack of interest in him.

The worst of it was, he couldn't even ask his friends. Terry and Michael were good mates, no question, but he was keenly aware that the two of them shared a bond which would never include him. Besides that, they were frankly less mature than he was - if they caught a hint of this before the matter was settled, he would never hear the end of it. And, given the delicate nature of the situation at present, their good-natured ribbing might well cost him his one lucky chance at true happiness. There wasn't anyone else, either - he barely knew anyone other than those two, and certainly not well enough to confide in anyone when the stakes were so high. And so once more it was just Anthony and his trusty pen and paper - actual pen and paper, incidentally, since his Muggle father had showed him its advantages over the archaic quill and parchment favoured at Hogwarts.

It took him a solid week of agonising and mind-mapping (his father was a psychologist in the Muggle world), but in the end his path was clear - talk openly (albeit privately) to Hermione, and hope the change in her attitude wasn't mere wishful thinking on his part.

Early the next morning, Anthony found Hermione in the library before breakfast. She glanced up as he entered the otherwise empty library (even Madam Pince had not yet arrived), then looked back down at her books. A hint of colour rose in her cheeks, and Anthony felt his tight-leashed panic ease a little. He smiled as he walked across to Hermione, and for the first time sat at her table.

Hermione looked up in earnest now, blushing furiously as she beheld the object of her affection at close quarters. Her rather excellent mind was suddenly running very rapid recalculations on her feelings for Anthony Goldstein, but somehow she couldn't quite follow her chains of reasoning through to their conclusions - she kept being distracted by other clamours in the whirling maelstrom of her thoughts. She did, however, manage to reach the conclusion that she was in fact interested in this boy - yes, in that way. She did not, on the other hand, manage to think of anything intelligent to say to him.

Anthony, with the luxury of planning in his favour, opened the conversation.

"Hi, Hermione."

"Uh... hi, Anthony."

He smiled nervously. "Um, Hermione... I've never done this before and I know I'm going to mess it up and I couldn't ask anyone and... gah, let me try that again. Um."

He dropped his head into his hands for a moment, as if resetting himself, and then met her eyes again.

"Hermione Granger, I think you're wonderful and I can't stop thinking about you. Will you go out with me?"

Hermione Granger, the brightest witch of her generation, gaped and floundered. She closed her mouth with an audible snap after a few seconds, but it was nearly a minute before she regained sufficient control that she would trust herself to speak. When she did, however, she was back to her usual articulate self.

"First, yes. I would love to go out with you, Anthony Goldstein."

She paused then, partly to marshal her thoughts properly and partly to let Anthony compose himself so that he could listen properly. Then she went on, sounding rather thoughtful.

"In retrospect, I suppose I have felt this way about you since the end of last year - I just couldn't admit it, to myself or to anyone else. Um... Please forgive me if I take a while to fully come to terms with this - it's lovely, don't mistake me there, but it is rather a dramatic change. I've lived my whole life as the smart one, resigned to never finding anyone who could keep up with my intellect. I'm extremely pleased to be proven wrong about that, of course, but it will take some getting used to."

Anthony grinned. "Understood. I feel much the same way, and I had the exact same problem you had - I could never find my intellectual equal. Well, except for you, and you didn't seem interested."

"You were interested in me before? When?"

"A few years ago. I watched you as carefully as I could, but there was no hint that you even knew who I was - thankfully, I was smart enough to drop it. I was even smart enough not to tell anyone, and not to let anyone else figure it out. I'm quite proud of that, to be honest."

Hermione laughed. "You should be."

Anthony suddenly looked thoughtful, and more than a little bit nervous. Hermione raised an eyebrow. "Anthony, what is it? Why are you suddenly so nervous, when I've already said yes?"

Anthony laughed, seeming to relax a little. "Sorry, Hermione. It's just... we know so little of one another, and a part of me is terrified that we'll hate each other really when we get to know each other."

Hermione nodded, but wasn't satisfied. "That's honest enough as far as it goes, Mr Goldstein, but what was your nervous-making plan to deal with it?"

He laughed again, harder this time. "Of course, shouldn't ever try to hide anything from the brightest star of Hogwarts. I wanted to ask you a question, Miss Granger. A decidedly forward question."

She smiled, somewhat reassured. "Well, go on then. Ask me!"

He took a deep breath, calming himself as best he could before he consciously gambled his newfound treasure.

"Say we do work well together, Hermione. Say that, ten or fifteen years from now, I die - completely outside your control or mine, nothing we could have done, I'm just gone. Sorry, but I'm going somewhere with this."

She nodded and gestured for him to go on, but she didn't look very happy about it.

"Say you found the Resurrection Stone, the Deathly Hallow which can temporarily bring back the form (but not the substance) of a dead person. Would you use? Would you call me back?"

Hermione paused, giving the question serious thought.

After nearly five minutes, she met his eyes again.

"No."

He grinned suddenly, relief shining bright on his face. "Good."

Hermione grinned also, visibly relieved, and went on.

"It wouldn't be you, not truly, and it wouldn't be healthy. I might possibly do it once or twice if you died with knowledge that I needed - of course we'll be research partners - but I could never use that to bring you back for reasons of the heart. Better to live and die alone, than mocked by a pale imitation of that which I most deeply desire. I've read the story, you know, and I remember what happened to the second brother."

Grinning broadly, Anthony reached across the table and took her hands in his. "Thank you, Hermione. I think we have a bright future in front of us - together."