Music: Candide!: The Musical- London Cast (?) (on repeat: "Make Our Garden Grow")

Ah! A million apologies for not updating earlier. This chapter has been refusing to be written… not that I have any spare time anyway. Life is really stressful right now, and I have next to no free time.

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Part I:

"Ron, just shu-huh?" Harry was cut off by the fact that he was now staring at, Luna Lovegood- a Luna Lovegood who had put her face maybe two inches from his own. "Uh… heh, hiiii, Luna." Harry said, in a very uncomfortable tone.

"Hullo, Harry." Luna said brightly, as though she saw nothing odd about the situation, despite the fact putting her face in Harry's also meant she was practically eating Ron's shoe. "I'm glad you've finally found some happiness." Her voice had that distant quality it always did, her face had that same dopey smile, and the ever-present twinkle in her eyes was working over-time. She blinked at Harry, and then looked up past him in the direction of Ron's head. Then she continued, in an innocent voice, "Don't you agree, Ronald?" Ron didn't make a sound.

Luna smiled and shrugged. Then she stood, and patted Harry's head absent-mindedly as she stuck her nose in a book, Harry thought the title was Belief Without Proof: A Tell-All Guide, but he couldn't be sure. Before he could call after her to check she had disappeared.

"Right." Said Harry after a few moments silence.

"You attract the oddest sorts, Potter." Draco said softly.

"Get the fuck off of me, Malfoy." Ron growled.

"I would be happy to, provided your friend gets off of me."

"Harry, move!" Harry sighed, and complied. Then reached down to help Ron up, when he turned to help Malfoy, the boy was already up.

Ron turned to say something to Harry, and then stopped- "Would you mind putting a shirt on, Harry?" He said, surprisingly calmly. Then he turned to Malfoy, "and you! Put on some bloody pants!" Ron said, almost shielding his eyes.

Malfoy shrugged, and watched with amusement as Harry rushed to retrieve their clothes, and ran back out, pulling on his shirt. "Okay." He said, in a satisfied voice to Ron.

"Alright, Harry. I don't want to know what you were doing, but I do know that we still have homework to finish. I think we should get it done. Now." He said, glaring at Malfoy.

"Good idea, Ron." Harry forced a smile, and turned awkwardly to Malfoy, and shrugged, "Bye, then." Malfoy looked less than pleased about the whole situation, but tried to pull off a nonchalant shrug, and proceeded to walk away.

Harry turned back to Ron, who was his trademark red color, but who seemed to be controlling himself surprisingly well. Harry decided to stay silent, and move as soon as Ron had regained some semblance of composure.

It took much less time than Harry thought it would. Harry estimated that about two minutes had passed when Ron took a deep breath, "Right. Okay, let's go then, Harry." Harry nodded and mutely followed Ron back to Gryffindor.

Part II:

Upon arrival, Ron collapsed next to Hermione on the couch. "Oh, there you are! Where were you two?" Hermione said cheerfully; then she saw Ron's still flushed face, and Harry's sheepish one. "Oh." She said. "Uh, have a seat Harry?" She said, patting the spot on the opposite side of her. Ron didn't object, which made Hermione very relieved. "Harry your stuff is still here from when you were working last night. I took the liberty of going over both of your Astronomy essays. They weren't too bad, actually." She said, pulling them out of her bag, and handing them over.

Ron beamed at her, and kissed her on the cheek. "You're the best, Hermione!" He said, unrolling his parchment and beginning to reread.

"I hope you're not expecting a kiss from me as well." Harry said, when Hermione gave him an expectant look as she handed his essay over.

"Oh, no, Harry, sorry. I was just thinking about- but, never mind."

"Okay." Harry said, haltingly, taking his essay with the air of someone handling a bomb about to explode.

"And I don't think either of you have done your Divination homework, so you might want to do that." Ron and Harry groaned, "You should've dropped the course long ago."

They knew she was right, and therefore made no response. The trio worked until dinner, and spent the time after sitting by the fire in companionable silence…

Until Ron jumped ten feet in the air, practically throwing Hermione- who had been leaning on his shoulder- onto the floor. "Harry!"

"Ah!" Harry screamed, since Ron had scared him out of his involved examination of the fire, "What?" He snapped, annoyed at Ron for interrupting his "thoughts".

"Malfoy called me Weasley!" Harry looked at him like he was crazy, "Today, when-"

"Shut-up, Ron!" Harry said, casting a nervous glance around the common room, relieved that the only people still there were a few fifth years who were completely absorbed in their work. Still, never know if they're listening, "Keep it down, okay?"

"Oh," Ron said, his gaze flickering to the fifth years and back. "Sorry." Hermione jabbed him in the elbow, "Ouch! Oh, right," Ron attempted an endearing smile. "Sorry, Hermione, it won't happen again?"

"That's right it won't, or I'll jinx you until you're nothing but a puddle of off-coloured goo on the floor." Ron swallowed nervously, and Harry chuckled. "Now, what were you saying?" Hermione continued calmly.

"I was saying," Ron whispered to the other two, making Harry practically lay across Hermione to hear him, "That Malfoy called me Weasley. He's never called me that." He looked pointedly at Harry, "Why'd he do that?"

Harry shrugged, "I dunno'. Maybe he was in a good mood?" Harry didn't know why he was lying, but he did it anyway.

"Wouldn't that make him want to be a rude little git?"

"I guess not." Harry said, as nonchalantly as he could, and leaned back to his original position. Trying to ignore the curious looks his friends were giving him, "What?"

"You asked Malfoy not to call Ron 'Weasel' or anything stupid like that, didn't you, Harry?" Hermione's voice was triumphant, but Harry didn't say anything, having picked up a book to pretend to be interested in after the word 'asked'. Harry had failed to notice that he had grabbed Hermione's ancient runes book, and couldn't understand a word of it. "I'll bet you asked him not to call me a-" Hermione sniffed in a semi-haughty way, "A mudblood." Harry again didn't respond, Hermione reached over and pulled the book down so she could see his face. "Harry, there's no point pretending you're reading, because I know you can't possibly be reading that book." Harry sighed in defeat, and handed it to Hermione who put it in her bag.

"She's right, isn't she, Harry?" Ron sounded a little too happy about this, which made Harry slightly worried.

"I'm not saying anything." Harry said stubbornly, but the smile tugging at his lips gave it away.

Ron chuckled softly, and leaned back into the couch. Hermione giggled, and ruffled Harry's hair affectionately. "Thanks, Harry." She said seriously, catching his eyes for a moment before he looked away.

Hermione leaned back against Ron's propped up knee, a pleased smile on her face. Harry smiled at the couple, and decided it was time to head up to bed. He grabbed his bag, patted Hermione affectionately on the knee, and went up the stairs to his room.

Part III:

Harry awoke with a start in the middle of the night. His scar ached, and he had a strange sense of vertigo. He squeezed his eyes shut to try and calm himself. He massaged his scar gently, hoping to dull the pain.

His occlumency had improved significantly, but he still picked up things from Voldemort… this time he couldn't remember what it was. He pulled open his bed hangings and looked around his room, as if expecting Voldemort to pop out of the corner. He didn't.

Harry sighed, and closed the hangings again. He sat in the middle of his bed, trying to remember what he had been dreaming, but he couldn't remember anything. It was like trying to grab fog, it just slipped through his fingers.

Harry knew that Voldemort must be feeling some sort of strong emotion, but Harry couldn't remember what. Or why.

Nonetheless, Harry was relatively sure that nothing terrible was happening, so he lay back down, closed his eyes, cleared his mind of thoughts, and slowly drifted back to sleep.

Part IV:

"Harry! Harry! Wake up!"

Harry checked his watch, and groaned, "We still have three hours till cla-"

"Harry, that's not… oh, bloody Hell… "

Harry cocked an eyebrow, and sat up. Ron looked very worried, and maybe a little sick. "What? What's going on?"

"Harry!" Harry barely had time to register Hermione's presence before she had flung her arms around him. "I'm sorry, Harry." Her eyes were red, and there were tears slowly traveling down her cheeks.

"Would somebody please tell me what's going on!"

"You mean Ron didn't tell you?" Harry shook his head 'no'. Hermione took a deep breath, and wiped the tears off her face. "Harry, there's been an attack on the Ministry."

Part V:

"What?" Harry looked from Hermione, to Ron and back again. "That's not funny, you two."

"It's not a joke." Ron said, while Hermione shook her head vehemently.

"How many dead?" Harry said with a pang in his heart. There hadn't been any attacks in a while, it made it that much harder to ask- that much harder to know.

"It was late at night, there weren't many casualties, but…" Hermione hiccupped and trailed off, shifting away from Harry as she did so.

"But, what? Tell me, dammit!"

Ron swallowed hard, "Kingsley Shacklebolt, is-" Deep breath, "He's dead, Harry." Hermione sobbed softly, and moved to lean on Ron's shoulder. Harry didn't notice, didn't care. He was too busy trying to make the world stop spinning.

-

I'm a bitch, I know it, but it's the best place to end this chapter.

I've already started work on chapter 7, so I doubt the wait will be as long. Plus, this is my lighter quarter, so I have more time... woot!

Just FYI, I agonized over who to kill, as FireLass can attest to. She had a different, and v. good suggestion, which got me thinking… and I wanted it to hit hard, but not be, like if Lupin or Mad-Eye died… I just killed Kingsley Shacklebolt.

Does it make ya'll happier if I tell you I cried writing that?

I'm, like, one giant tear-duct.

Yar, doesn't allow anything anymore! So, I'm breaking the chapters up into labeled parts, but I'm genuinely curious as to why we can't use dashes, or asterisks, or even parentheses or ellipses to break up our chapters! They do that in books, why not online? YAR! I don't want to post if I only have 100 words, what's the point? So not worth the time of posting it. Grr.

Anyway, I'm going to go back and change all the other chapters to be like this, too, for solidarity.

Thank you to everyone who reviewed! It makes my day!

As always, criticism is encouraged- tell me what I need to do to improve, please!