Harry watched as Hermione tied the scarf that Ron gave her, around the trunk of a tree near the loch where they'd spent the night, both of them hoping – and dreading – that Ron would return. If he did, the scarf would give him a cue for where they planned to go next. Hermione walked up the hill and stopped at his side. She turned and faced the tree, just as he was.

His hand reached blindly for hers, clutching at it almost desperately. Then there was that familiar and hated pull, right behind the navel. Suddenly they were somewhere else, Harry had no idea just where that somewhere was and right now, he really didn't care.

He moved around placing the wards that both he and Hermione had become so skilled at. Staying outside and giving her time alone, time she seemed to need, gave him time to think. He felt so angry at Ron, over the last few weeks, it had got harder and harder to tolerate the redhead's jealousy.

Jealousy over the closeness that Harry and Hermione shared. Jealousy over Harry's finances. Jealousy over the ease that Harry and Hermione had with magic. Jealousy at Hermione's mental brilliance. Jealousy over Harry's fame. Jealousy that so many people wanted to help Harry. Jealousy that people saw Harry before they saw him.

But his absence left a huge hole in the tent. Harry would turn, expecting Ron to be there, only to remember that he'd left. Now it was just the two of them. Yes, things were quieter, but quiet wasn't always good. Now there was no Ron filling the silence. With snoring or with inane chatter, it didn't matter. Ron had been the noise in their world of silence.

He startled when he heard music. The radio. Hermione had turned the radio on. Harry made his way, carefully, across the broken rocks of the escarpment towards the tent. He entered and crossed the bare tent to a deck chair, sitting for a bit to listen, his mind miles away. He watched his friend, as she hugged her knees to her chest. Eventually it was too much and he stood, walking to stand in front of her, he extended a hand.

Taking her hand in his, he pulled Hermione to her feet and began to move. He dragged her into motion, the closest he would ever get to dancing, voluntarily. For a bit it seemed to work, a smile graced her face and her limbs lost that heaviness that had been present all day. But only for a bit.

They gradually slowed to a halt, their eyes meeting and leaving. Hermione turned from Harry and took a single step, before coming to a halt.

"Harry?" She asked, her back still turned.

"Yes, Hermione?"

"There's something… you should know. I… I'm not sure… I don't think Ron knows… but…"

"But, what, Hermione?" Harry asked.

"It's about Ginny… and Mrs Weasley." Hermione paused and took another breath. "They… they're planning… they're planning on drugging you." From here on, it was said quickly, like she had to get it all out, in one go. "They're going to put a potion in your food, a love potion. They're going to force you to marry Ginny. I don't know why. I don't understand why. What they get. They know you're gay. What can they possibly gain from forcing you into a marriage?"

It made sense to Harry, though. A sad, sick kind of sense.

"Money, Hermione. It's got to be. If I marry Ginny and then she divorces me or… if there's an accident…?" Harry was thinking out loud. "They know that Sirius left me everything and when you add all the Potter stuff to that…?"

"How could they?" She whispered, turning to face him.

"Do you really think Ron didn't know?" Harry wondered.

"He couldn't have… Or he wouldn't have stormed off, thinking that you and I…" She couldn't even say it.

"Eww…" Harry grimaced. "That's just wrong."

"I know."

"Beside the fact that you're a girl, with the wrong appendages, you're like my sister."

"Yeah?" Hermione brightened up on hearing that.

"Well, yeah. First year, you became my friend, but second year? Standing up to the rest of Gryffindor… that made you my sister… I thought… I thought you knew?"

"I knew you saw me as family, but…" She smirked. "I kinda thought maybe you saw me as the strange nerdy cousin…"

Harry threw his head back and laughed. After a few seconds Hermione joined him. It took the pair some minutes to laugh the stress of the last few weeks away.

"Now, what?" Harry asked.

"What do you mean?"

"I don't want to marry Ginny. Never have. Not since I figured out I like boys. But… when we go back? They're going-"

"If…"

"What?"

"If we go back." Hermione stated.

"If?"

"If..."

"But…? We have to… I mean Voldermort's not dead, we have to go back."

"Let me think for a minute, Harry. I… I may… I may have a solution." Hermione began to pace back and forth across the tent's main room.

Harry watched her for a few minutes, before he got bored… and hungry. He raided the box that they kept their food in and made sandwiches for both of them. Placing the second plate on the table, Harry sat quietly and ate his meal, keeping his eyes firmly fixed on Hermione.

Finally, Hermione came to a stop. She turned, looking for Harry, finding him sitting on a bench at the table, watching her. Sighing, she climbed the few steps to sit opposite him.

"I have an idea… but it's mad."

"Hermione, you're brilliant, mental but brilliant. Any plan you come up with is going to be brilliant… probably mad, but definitely brilliant." Harry assured her.

"Right, well… I need you to hear me out. Let me finish, before you argue. Please?"

Harry studied her, whatever she'd come up with was going to be mad, he just knew it.

"Alright, then." He folded his arms and leant back on one of the tent-beams. "Tell me."

"Harry Potter has to die-" She began.

"WHAT?!" Harry screamed, rising to his feet.

"Listen!" she held up her hands. "You said, you'd listen."

He dropped back onto the bench and waved a hand.

"Go on, then." He snarled.

"Harry Potter dies, but you don't. Wait! We know that Sirius left you… everything. Harry, what if other people did, too? You're famous, you defeated Voldemort when you were a baby. Yes, I know, you were a baby, you couldn't do anything. But the public, the Wizarding public think you did. You know, now, that people sent you birthday gifts and Christmas presents. Right? What if some of them, some that had no family, some that lost family to the war… What if some of them left inheritances for you? We could take some obscure family, and if you've inherited the title, the Head of House title, you can use the familia sanguinepotion to adopt yourself into the bloodline. Then we have Harry Potter declared dead, because you won't be Harry Potter anymore. We make a will for Harry Potter and leave things where it's pretty much expected you'd leave them, but we can plan it, Harry. Take 5 minutes and think about it? Please? We… you and me… we can make this work, Harry. We can, I know we can."

With that Hermione got to her feet and stumbled back outside, only to return within a few minutes, shaking her wet hands. She sat down and, just as quietly as Harry had, began to eat the meal Harry had left her.

Harry meanwhile, was deep in thought. He hated being the Boy-Who-Lived. It made no sense. How could a fifteen month old baby, defeat a highly trained, very powerful wizard and emerge from the incident with only a small scar? Then there was the fame. He hated it, being the centre of attention made him feel almost ill, but no one, other than Hermione and sometimes the twins, seemed to either notice or care. And the Weasley's? Mrs Weasley and Ginny. He trusted them, how could they do it? They knew he was gay, he'd told Ginny way back in third year, while everyone one else was freaking out about Sirius escaping from Azkaban, he told Ginny and Hermione, together. When he found out that Sirius was innocent, both girls encouraged him to tell his godfather, and both girls were present, at the end of the summer before fifth year when he finally plucked up the courage and did just that.

But the downside? He was the last Potter. The Black family bloodline would continue, but the Potter line would die with him.

Unless…

Harry spun about on the bench and looked Hermione, the girl nearly gasped at the force of it. To be the sole focus of those green eyes was almost scary.

"There's more to it than just 'Harry Potter' dying, Hermione, you know that. I'm the last Potter… if I die, then the bloodline, the House of Potter dies."

"I know." She sighed, she knew that he was going to reject the idea.

"If… IF… you take a blood adoption potion to be my sister, I'll do it."

"Wha…?" She gaped. "Harry?"

"Hermione, I hate being the Boy-Who-Lived. I hate it. I'll happily walk away from that. But, to me, you are a sister. You take the potion, you'll be my sister and as an added bonus, the Potter bloodline won't die out. Whether anybody else knows I'm alive or not, you will. My sister will."

"But…"

"Take it or leave, Hermione." Harry folded his arms and smirked.

Hermione's mouth opened and closed a few times, before she leapt across the table and enveloped him in a tight hug.

"Brother!" She squealed. "I've always wanted a brother."

"As your new brother? Can I ask? Please, please, please, don't choose Ron. We both know he's not smart enough to keep up with you. You'd get bored of him in a month. If you have to choose a Weasley, pick Fred or George… no, not George. Fred, George has his eye on Angelina. He may come up with the ideas, but it's Fred that makes them work."

Hermione just blinked, she'd never even given a thought to a romance with one of the twins. But now? Now that Harry had put the thought in her head? Dammit.

"Fred, huh?"

"Fred." Harry tightened his arms and with a jerk pulled a squawking Hermione all the way across the table and deposited her on the bench beside him. He turned and lifted a leg and straddled the bench, one elbow resting on the table.

"But… if you're serious about this, we have a dragon load of work in front of us. We can't do this alone, Hermione. We don't have enough information."

"Gringotts. We need to go to Gringotts." The witch rose to her feet, only to be pulled back down again.

"Yes, but we need a rough plan first. We have to convince Gringotts and the goblins to help us. That's not going to be easy."

With a flick of her wand Hermione conjured a piece of parchment and a pencil.

"Where do we start?" She asked.

"With inheritances. Vaults, titles, etc. We need to know what I've been left. Aside from the Black and Potter estates, that is. And then there's the Will." Harry paused for a moment. "Hermione? I told you that Snape killed Dumbledore, right? But the more I think about it, the more it's not adding up."

"What do you mean?"

"That night… Dumbledore knew that Snape was there, before he appeared. He told me that he trusted Snape, trusted him above all others. He begged me to trust him. Begged me. Then Draco turned up. Oh, Hermione the pain on Draco's face. He didn't want to do whatever it was he was there for. While he might have disarmed Dumbledore, Draco lowered his wand, he wasn't going to kill him. I could see the pain, the reluctance, the fear. Then Bellatrix and the others were there, they were taunting Draco, but he still wasn't doing it. And Snape saw me, he was there, with me on the floor below them. He held a finger to his lips and whispered. I almost didn't hear him."

"What did he say, Harry?"

"I don't want to do this, but the Headmaster insisted and better me than a child."

"Oh, God." She whispered.

"I… I think… I think that Dumbledore planned it. His hand was cursed, remember? I wonder, now, if it was killing him and he used that. Snape killing him would cement Snape back in Voldemort's favour."

"But that means…"

"Neither Draco nor Snape are really as bad as we thought… Yeah, I think so."

"What does that have to do with Harry Potter dying?" Hermione frowned.

"Well… Harry Potter has to leave a Will, right? What if that Will has a letter for the Wizengamot that says that both of them were spies for the Light? That Harry knew that Snape was working for Dumbledore and that Draco was working for Harry? Snape? If I'm right, he's been a spy since the first war, feeding information to the Order for years."

"And Draco?"

"Well, Draco has let slip a few things at Hogwarts, I can say that he gave me information, but was obliviated for his safety, before Bill an Fleur's wedding. And if I word it right… just right… none of it will be a lie."

"None of it? But you just said 'obliviated'."

"Yes, but I don't have to say who obliviated him."

"That's… that's… that's very Slytherin of you, Harry." Hermione was startled.

"Well, the Hat did say I would do well there."

"Oh, God. A Slytherin Harry." Hermione started to laugh. "Hogwarts would never have survived."

Harry just grinned.

"Alright. Enough of that. Back to work." Hermione slapped at Harry's leg. "Where will you go? Will you stay in London? Scotland?"

"I think it would be best to get out of the country, so? I don't know, yet."

"Well, we can work that out later. Let me make some notes. First? Inheritances. Second? Will. Third? Familia sanguine. Fourth? A new name. Fifth? Sorting out the finances. Sixth? Relocation." Hermione hummed. "Anything else you can think of?"

"Letters, maybe? I'd be expected to write letters for my mates, wouldn't I?" Harry wondered out loud.

"Yeah, yeah, you would. Okay… Seventh? Letters."

"We might want to change the order a bit."

"How?"

"Well… First. Yes, inheritances. Second. Sorting out the finances. Third. The Will. Fourth. Should be working out a new identity and decide on a location. Fifth. Letters, not sure who yet, not everyone, though. Sixth? Familia Sanguine. That may not happen until later, but we need to plan it. Seventh? Certification from the Ministry, I have to have OWLS, NEWTS, Apparition licence etc. And muggle paperwork, too."

Hermione just looked at Harry, this wasn't the Harry she'd been in Gryffindor with, this was the Slytherin Harry could have been.

"I have an idea about how to convince the goblins to help, too." He continued, without knowing that Hermione was on the verge of an apoplexy. "The two options I came up with are… One? We buy their help. That may not work, but until we ask, we won't know, for certain. Two? The Black and Potter vaults have a lot of crap in them, if we offered the goblins most, maybe not all, of the goblin-made stuff, in exchange?"

Yeah,Hermione thought,this isdefinitelya Slytherin Harry.

"That might work better, an exchange is something goblins understand. That and details."

"Right. we go with that first and if it fails, we try to pay for it. And we work out as much as we can, ourselves, before we go to them."

"Okay. So… Inheritances? We can't do anything about that here. Same for finances. Identity, too… but… location?"

"I wonder if…? Charlie hasn't been here for any of this and he's always treated me like any other kid… and he's out of the country… in Romania. He works with dragons. After the tournament, well, after the first task was over, I went back down to the forest, I wanted to make sure the dragons were okay. Charlie and a couple of the other dragon-keepers talked to me for a bit, I told Charlie I was a parselmouth, he convinced the head keeper to test if I could understand the dragons and if they could understand me. I did and they did. I spent the next week down there, before the keepers took them back home. After that I kept writing to him. Remember that charm, you helped me with. The one that, if I dictated a letter, the charm would write what I said on parchment, then when Charlie said the incantation it would read him my letter?"

"Yes…?"

"Well, I was trying to teach him parseltongue, it wasn't working real well, but he was trying. Him and the reserve's head keeper. The head keeper offered me a place there. He said that a parselmouth would be a great benefit to the reserve."

"But…"

"I'm thinking that I could use that. I've been writing to him using the name Raven, sending it via a postal serviced vanishing box. So… I could be Raven…"

"Raven? Okay. But Raven who?"

"Won't know that until we get the inheritances. And seeing as we can't hack the records at Hogwarts, I'd have to have been home-schooled. That needs a reason."

Hermione bounced on the bench.

"Ooh. I know, I know… Keeping with the Raven, Charlie, parselmouth theme. We find a family that withdrew a child from Hogwarts, sometime in the four to ten years before we started there. A child that was withdrawn due to illness, but is now dead. We could say that while that child was ill, the family realised that you and the child both speak parseltongue…"

"We need to go a bit further, though. It needs to be a Light family, the parents or the sibling, the last head of House, has to have died in the last few weeks. But because they were a Light family, they didn't want it known that their children were parselmouthes, so decided to keep both of us home and schooled us privately." Harry added.

"If we have a choice, we need a family that's a dead bloodline, no extended family that can take the title. It would be best for a slightly isolated family, preferably not an Ancient and Noble House, but not completely obscure either."

"Something that no one would hesitate to say 'Light'. Something upper-middle class or lower-upper class."

"Lower-upper class maybe even middle-upper class. Not as high as the Potters or the Blacks, but maybe just below the Longbottom's or the Abbotts'." Hermione clarified.

"Alright, we can hash that out further when we have more information from Gringotts. Fourth was the Will."

"Yeah." She pulled a new piece of parchment out and wrote 'Will' on the top.

"Divide it into two. Potter estate and Black estate. Alphabetically we start with the Black's." He waited while she drew a line down the middle of the page. "Who's connected to the Black family? Tonks, Remus, Teddy, Draco, Narcissa. Ahh… Anymore you can think of?" He asked.

"If you're adding Narcissa Malfoy you should put something in for Tonks mother, she is Narcissa's sister, Andromeda."

"Right, right, I keep forgetting that."

"Obviously." She grinned.

"So… sticking with alphabetical… Andromeda first? What should I leave her? Other than… Sirius did mention something about bringing her back into the Family?"

Hermione sat and thought through what she knew of pureblood traditions and was dismayed to realise she didn't know very much at all.

"Maybe we should leave her until we know if Sirius did that, already." She frowned.

"Yeah. Next… Draco... God, Hermione, this isn't as easy as it sounds, is it?"

"No."

"I think Gringotts is the best shot. We can find out the inheritances, get some advice on what to leave people, until we know what I have, I don't know what I can leave them." Harry groaned.

"Well, the upside is that while the goblins hunt everything up, you can write some letters, they don't have to be long ones, just something." Hermione hesitated for a moment. "Harry? Do you think you can fool Charlie? Or should we tell him?"

"I'm not sure… for a while probably, but long-term? I doubt it. Him or the twins."

"Oh. Um… Maybe tell Charlie once we have everything planned and ready, but leave the twins until later? They're likely to want to rip their mother apart. They're very protective of you since the tournament."

"Yeah, might be a good idea. So… Gringotts, then?"

"Yeah. When? We could go now, they're open 24 hours a day. And no one would be expecting you to just walk in the door at midnight."

"No, they wouldn't." He grinned. "But let's wear glamours, anyway."

"Harry, glamours don't work in Gringotts, remember?"

"Damn. Hmm… What about transfiguring? Just slightly change us, an incantatum finite would cancel it, too."

"It would. Alright, let's pack up and go… before I change my mind." The witch muttered.

familia sanguine = family bloodline