Harry looked at the amulet that was the tool to finally defeat Voldemort. The week had gone by slowly, especially the last day had been torture. Thankfully Hermione had had some really good ideas to distract him. Since they had kissed for the first time, she seemed insatiable. And she was a cuddle monster. Not that he minded. He loved curling up with her on the couch, reading a book over her shoulder. They still trained in the gym in the basement every day, as Hermione saw no reason to not do something that was generally good for them. And learning more magic would always be approved by the studious girl.
"Okay, what exactly do we need to do now?" Harry asked Bill and Fleur.
"Just hold the amulet over the horcrux holding the chain it's put onto. The pendant will pull the piece of the soul out of the locket without there being a chance to resist for the soul piece. Once it's trapped in the amulet, we can start the ritual of calling all soul pieces together. And they will come. First the one closest to the amulet, then the ones further away. You'll know when the ritual is done once the amulet glows blue. That means all parts of the soul that was called together are fully trapped in the amulet," Bill explained.
"You mean, it will also hold the part that is in Riddle's makeshift body?" Hermione asked.
"Yes, zat body should fall apart into ze parts zat were used to create it. In a normal, human body, ze effect would be similar to ze effect of a dementor's kiss. A soulless husk," Fleur confirmed.
"And we would need to connect the amulet with the wards of Hogwarts to have them drain the magic of the amulet to fully destroy Riddle?" Harry asked.
"Yes, and thanks to having connected his magic to the Death Eaters, they're going to be sucked dry as well. They'll either become squibs, or die from the strain. Not that it would be a great loss," Bill commented.
"Then let's do it!" Harry declared.
Bill stepped forward and did the job, as he had been the one who had performed this act a few times in the past already. The locket shook and tried to resists, but after one and a half minutes or so, they could see some black smoke slowly pouring from the locket. The whole extraction took perhaps fifteen minutes, then there was a massive wail and the smoke lost hold of the locket and was sucked into the amulet in a swirl of magic. The amulet flashed white once and then simply hung from the chain.
"Good, that was the hardest part. Getting the first piece. Harry, as the one with the most magic among us, it would be best if you spoke the incantation of the ritual. Not to mention that with a prophecy in play, we shouldn't take a risk in who does this part. I'll observe and act if something happens, which it shouldn't," Bill said.
Harry nodded and Fleur held out the incantation for the ritual.
"Omnes pars animae ab Tom Marvolo Riddle, voco. In septemtriones, in meridies, in occidentem, in oriens voco. Convenit!" Harry spoke the incantation.
It was a translation of an old Egyptian incantation and meant approximately: I call all parts of the soul of Tom Marvolo Riddle. To the north, to the south, to the west, to the east I call. Assemble!
Harry felt a rush of his magic flow into the amulet and then it basically exploded outwards and he felt a call inside of him. It had to be similar to how a bat's echolocation worked. Then he felt something stir in his scar. It fought, but the pull of the amulet was stronger. Harry only barely realised it, as the impressions from the call were running through him. Then suddenly some kind of pressure lifted from his head and he felt lighter and cleaner than ever before. It was as if he had lost a burden he didn't know about. The call continued and he felt an echo confirmed to the south. Then another one to the south-east. One to the north and one to the east. Three echoes were weaker, one stronger. Three horcruxes and one main soul piece.
Nagini was to the south, Godric's Hollow, he somehow knew, and the soul piece in her resisted the least, as there was another soul in the body and the soul piece flew north to assemble with the piece in the amulet. One piece had already gone in there, the one from his scar. He only noticed it, he didn't feel anything about this information right now. Then the piece came from Ravenclaw's lost diadem in the Room of Requirement at Hogwarts. Nobody noticed, the goings on at school continued like always. From London, a vault at Gringotts, came the piece that had been held in Hufflepuff's cup. The one to give most resistance was the cup, it held the biggest piece of the three remaining horcruxes.
The last one was Riddle himself. He screamed in pain, but Harry only dispassionately watched how the piece of his soul, the one that had wandered around after having lost its original body, was pulled out, even if Riddle tried to fight it with all his powers in mind magic. He still lost. There was nobody around, as Riddle had ordered a private room at Malfoy Manor. Nobody would dare to disobey. The soul piece finally lost the hold onto the magical construct that was Riddle's body and flew towards the amulet. The body fell apart, leaving on a piece of bloody hand, some blood and white powder, the remains of the bone of Tom Riddle senior, who had unknowingly given part of him to give his son a new body.
Harry felt how each part of the soul was sucked into the amulet until the whole deed was done.
Hermione, Bill and Fleur were shocked when the first piece of Riddle's soul that was pulled into the amulet came from Harry's famous curse scar. Hermione wanted to murder a certain old bastard. Too bad he was already dead. Then again, he would only have messed up things more, had he lived. She swore she would at least burn his portrait in the headmaster's office at Hogwarts. The bastard had known that Harry was a horcrux, even if she didn't know how it had happened, and had planned to let her Harry walk into his death. Now the words 'I open at the close' made a lot of sense. The snitch would open if Harry said anything about his death and another badly thought out crooked scheme of Dumbledore would unfold.
Then another black cloud flew into the room through the window. It was sucked into the amulet like the two before it. Shortly after the next one arrived. She was surprised how easy this seemed to be and how at peace Harry looked performing this piece of magic. By her count they now had four pieces of the soul. Considering the unexpected horcrux in Harry's scar, they only needed two more. One appeared just when she thought that and followed it's siblings into the amulet. The last piece now would be the main part in Riddle himself. They waited expectantly, then a wailing noise came closer. When it was inside the hunting lodge, it cursed Harry to the depths of hell, demanded to be let go or he would kill them, that he was Lord Voldemort and that they had to bow to him.
It didn't change that piece's fate, it was sucked into the amulet and finally, when the last wisps of black smoke were in it, the amulet flashed again and took on a soft blue glow. They had really done it. They had collected all pieces of Riddle's soul and trapped them safely.
"We did it, we actually did it!" Hermione cheered, hugging Harry enthusiastically.
The one problem was that Harry was too exhausted. He had used up a good part of his magic and needed to rest. He basically fell into her arms and she needed the help of Bill to stabilise him.
"You better put him into bed. That's a normal effect if you use that spell. And the longer you have to hold it up, the more magic you use up. After a full night of sleep, he should be back to normal," Bill assured her when he put Harry on the couch.
"'E 'as earned zat rest," Fleur confirmed and smiled at how tenderly Hermione stroked Harry's cheek.
"Yes, he did," Hermione agreed, "Thank you for your help. We would have been lost without your input. We would have hunted the horcruxes down to destroy them, because that was what Dumbledore had told Harry he needed to do. And the bastard planned that my Harry had to die," she growled now, "He knew that there was a piece of Riddle's soul in his scar. That's why he didn't train him properly. Oh, I'm going to burn his portrait to ashes!"
"Want some 'elp?" Fleur asked, "I never liked 'im much."
"Yes, it would be very satisfying to burn him down together. He doesn't deserve a place of honour on that wall," Hermione decided.
"Now zat we 'ave Riddle trapped, I remembered a part of your rant before 'Arry kissed you silent. You said something about love potions? And Ron?" Fleur asked.
"Yes, I was under one. Harry had found out that he had been dosed with several potions at the beginning of our sixth year. He got the idea because he couldn't get why he suddenly, out of the blue, had feelings for Ginny that were beyond friendship. He didn't talk a lot to her before after all, only a few times here and there and never alone. And suddenly he wanted to strangle Dean, her boyfriend at the time, for snogging her? He got suspicious, as he had always got along well with Dean, and went to Madam Pomfrey. I had warned him that several girls had discussed plans to dose him with the love potions that Fred and George sold in their shop. He told her about it and she gave him a full flushing potion. He told me that he had to spend the whole night in the hospital wing, as there was more than one type of potion in his system.
"My behaviour towards him and Ron made him suspect that I too was given potions, but he didn't find an opportunity to give the potion to me, as Ron was always hanging around somewhere, or I stormed off, calling his concerns ridiculous or berated him over the potions book he had that had better instructions. It was totally out of character for me, but I didn't realise it, as I was too jealous that Ron was together with Lavender, when he had at first shown interest in me. When Ron left us in the tent, Harry finally had a chance to get my system free of the potions. I had a shitty night, but after that I could finally think again and felt like myself. And the only way that the love potions could have continued to work on the hunt, was that somebody fed them to me. As I was 'madly in love' with Ron, it can only have been him," Hermione pointed out.
Bill groaned.
"Don't tell me that Mum is up to her old tricks again," he complained, "I thought we had managed to cure her of them."
"What do you mean, Bill?" Hermione asked.
"Mum, as much as I love her, isn't completely there in the mind. The loss of my uncles Gideon and Fabian hit her harder than anybody originally realised. In the beginning she was just overprotective over us kids. She would never let us out of her eyes and the day I started Hogwarts turned into a minor catastrophe. There is a reason why Charlie and I took up positions in other countries, even if we had great opportunities here in England. In my case, I'm twenty eight years old now. Charlie is three years younger than I. I have passed my traineeship as a curse breaker with twenty. That is incredibly early, but the reason for it is that I accepted to be trained in another country on site.
"Normally, you have to absolve two years of basic training in England and then you're sent to gain experience on sites abroad. They teach you intricacies of Runes of different kinds, much more than the ones being covered at Hogwarts, then Arithmancy is a big part, languages of different continents and you learn a whole lot of charms. After four years you are fully qualified and allowed to work on your own. In my case, I had to study for the whole day for two months in Cairo and then I was sent to the sites where the tombs were searched. In the mornings the curse breakers would teach me the theory, in the afternoon I got to see how they broke through the wards protecting the tombs. In the beginning I was only allowed in the less dangerous ones and did assistance work, but after half a year, I was proficient enough that they let me do actual work on lesser curses and wards.
"The goblins didn't care how fast I was learning or how dangerous it was. I had signed a contract that I was Aware of the risks and that Gringotts wasn't responsible for anything that happened to me, due to my decision to take the accelarrated course. As long as the sites brought in enough treasure for them, all was well. They couldn't care less if a human wanted to take an unusual route to achieving his mastery in curse breaking. As I said, it was done at my own risk.
"Charlie was actually offered to play for the English National Quidditch Team. It was his dream coming true. But he decided to go to Romania and study dragons, which was his second great love. But, it isn't so much dragons, as all kinds of fascinating magical creatures that he wants to work with. Now, it would have been easy, thanks to Hagrid liking Charlie, to arrange for him to study part-time under a master in Magical Creatures. He could have played Quidditch for England and worked on both of the things he loved doing. Have you never wondered why both the oldest siblings have left our home as soon as we had graduated?" Bill asked.
"Now that you have given me more of the story, yes, that is strange. I would have thought that you would have taken the basic course, just to be safe and to be properly prepared for the tombs, and then went there. While you like adventure, I didn't have the impression that you take unnecessary risks," Hermione told Bill, "And nearly all Weasleys are Quidditch crazy. If Charlie had the chance to play for the national team and at the same time study for a mastery, he normally would have taken it."
"Correct, normally we would have done exactly that. But that's where Mum's obsessions with a certain mould comes into play. I was a bit of a player during my later years at school. Sure, I always did my school work properly, when Charlie started three years after me, I looked out for him and I did the same when Percy started his first year and I was headboy. My grades were always good and I played keeper for Gryffindor as well. But Mum worried about me not finding a proper girl that would become my wife.
"She got it into her head that there was only one proper way to live your life. To be good at school, I did fulfil that part, get acknowledged and be put into a position of authority, also managed that as prefect and later headboy, and then you get a good position at the Ministry, find yourself a nice and proper girl from a good family and marry her after a while. Then you have children, you work and your wife takes care of the house. She never liked any of my girlfriends. One was from the wrong family, the next dressed too provocatively, the third wore too much makeup, which made her look cheap and so on and so on. It really grated on my nerves and more than one of my relationships failed because of her obsessiveness.
"Then, when I was sixteen, she decided to take things into her own hands. She used one of the Hogsmeade weekends and watched all the girls in my year and the one above and below me to find me a proper bride. She finally decided that a girl from Hufflepuff in my year would be the perfect match. She came from an old family, had good grades, had nothing in common with me, I might add and was too boring for me in all. Not to mention that she had a boyfriend already. Charlie was just discovering that girls were nice to look at and not just mates or some kind of strange aliens that always giggled. To 'not repeat mistakes' she also had a look to see if there were any noteworthy girls around Charlie's age.
"She brewed love potions at home and sent me and the girl she had chosen dosed biscuits. I didn't think anything about it, after all, Mum often sent us homemade sweets. But suddenly I developed an obsession with that Hufflepuff girl and she had more trouble with her boyfriend for always looking at me. They broke up and I swept in and consoled her. That went on for one and a half a years and Mum was as happy as she could be. But we weren't allowed to do more than kissing and cuddling. Her letters were full of lectures about proper behaviour. When I was in seventh year, Charlie got the same treatment and was set up with a girl from Ravenclaw.
"It was actually thanks to Percy that it didn't end in a total catastrophe. He had read about symptoms of those being under controlling potions, including love potions, and reported the things he had noticed to Madam Pomfrey. She was the medical specialist after all, and he was determined to always contact the right person to get help. He had eaten up the rubbish about always listening to the ones in authority and taking problems to them to solve that Mum likes to spew. But in that case it was a good thing. Madam Pomfrey gave both Charlie, me and the two girls a flushing potion, after she had determined that we were under one.
"The outcome of that was horrible. The girls cried all the time about being used and my supposed girlfriend over breaking up with her true love. While they theoretically understood that we were as much victims as they were, they blamed us and our horrible mother for their pain and never spoke with us again. I can't really blame them. Dumbledore hushed everything up, but Dad was really angry with Mum. It was one of the few times where he took control and set very strict rules for her. He also made her see a mind healer and many of her undetected problems were discovered. Part of our debts come from the costs of the healers to get Mum back to a working mental state. She had to spend three months at St. Mungo's.
"After that she seemed a bit better, but she still tried to push Charlie and me into positions that we didn't want. Especially me, telling me that I should think of my future and not hunt ridiculous dreams like curse breaking. That was why I took the option to learn away from England. Had I taken the way to study in England, I would have been expected to stay at the Burrow until I married and had my own place. I didn't want that, I wanted away from her control, so I went to Egypt for the intense training course and I stayed there until Riddle got his body back and I knew that I was needed here to fight. Not to mention that I had met Fleur and we kept our relationship a secret from Mum until we could present her with a fait accompli. Mum only found out that I was seeing Fleur after I had proposed. While she could show her displeasure about it, she couldn't do anything.
"Charlie felt similarly. He wanted to take the position with the Quidditch team and she was always ranting about it not being a proper profession, that he should follow Dad into the Ministry, that he shouldn't follow my irresponsible example and so on. Finally he snapped, told her if she didn't understand his dreams, she wouldn't be part of his life anymore and left that day. I found out later that he had had an offer from the dragon preserve to study magical creatures with a focus on dragons, but that the only way to do it was taking a full-time position at the preserve. He did it just to escape Mum. While she was supposedly cured of her idea of putting perfect couples together with potions, it was clear that she didn't think that any of her children deserved the right to decide what to do with their lives. Only she knew what was best.
"It would have taken more sessions with the mind healer to get her over that part too, but Dad already had trouble paying for the first ones, so it couldn't be done. Thanks to Dumbledore, all Weasley siblings got to study at Hogwarts for reduced fees. Not a full scholarship like it is done for poor magical orphans that get a small stipend next to being allowed to attend for free, but it helped out a lot with our finances," Bill ended his explanations.
"So, basically your Mum is insane, but because it's too expensive she couldn't finish treatment and only managed to appear alright. She deceived you all into believing that while her way of thinking hadn't changed much, she was at least cured of forcing the issue?" Hermione summarized it.
"That's the basic problem, yes. I guess, when she realised that Ron, whom she always babied, didn't show any talent for any class at school, she was worried and hoped that he would come around. What he would have needed was to face reality. But Ron never had to do that at home. And Ginny was worse. Mum basically brainwashed her with stories about the Boy-Who-Lived. I think Ginny never really managed to realise that there was a true boy behind the story character. And with how Mum told stories how love potions were harmless and perfectly alright to use to gain the interest of your love interest, they would think that it was alright to get what they wanted that way, the easy way.
"If I think about it, perhaps she also added some potions to let you feel a basic loyalty to our family. After all, in her eyes, it would be a good deed to make Harry, a poor orphan, part of our family and the best way to achieve it was having him fall in love with Ginny and marry her. Ginny would have a rich and famous husband, one that she had been told she would have since she was a little girl, and the fortune of the Potters would help pay off the remainder of the debts. Of course she had to make sure that Dad didn't find out anything, but that was easy, as he's out most of the day for work. For you, I guess she decided that, as you were the one that made Ron do his homework, you were destined to be together. And giving a muggleborn witch a pureblood family that could support her in our world was also something of a good deed in her eyes. She thinks twisted like that," Bill explained.
"You do know that we won't ever trust her with anything again and that we won't forgive Ron and Ginny for their parts in this fiasco?" Hermione asked.
"Yes. I fully understand. Had I known about this, I would have acted earlier and given you the neutralising potions myself. But I didn't know you enough to know that you were under the potions. And I only saw you occasionally. For me it looked as if it simply developed naturally. I didn't even know about Harry and Ginny having any kind of relationship, except that they knew each other through Ron. Harry never made the impression that Ginny was more than Ron's little sister," Bill stated.
"It was a one-sided fantasy on Ginny's side. She caught him off guard, he tried to tell her that there was nothing romantic between them, even after she kissed him in the common room after the last Quidditch match of the season, but she didn't let go, telling everybody that they were dating. Harry is too nice to really put somebody down harshly, so he let her follow him, but prevented any kind of actions that couples did, except one other kiss where she surprised him again. He used the chance when she was not in denial to break up at Dumbledore's funeral. He told me that she still thinks that he will come back to her once the war is over," Hermione informed them.
"Perhaps you should send 'er to a mind 'ealer as well, Bill," Fleur suggested, "Zat isn't normal behaviour."
"I'll see what I can do, but I agree, Fleur," Bill nodded.
Harry slept through all of this and Hermione simply put a blanket over him to let him recover from the spell he had used.
When Harry woke up again, he was disorientated at first, but then, after a little while, he recognised the hunting lodge. He sat up and looked around. It was still fairly dark, he would guess either shortly after sunset or a bit before dawn. He spotted a light blue glow a bit to the side and when he looked there, he noticed it coming from the amulet. The amulet that held all pieces of Riddle's soul. He couldn't help but feel satisfied. The task was nearly done and now he only had to put the amulet in a place where the wards of Hogwarts could absorb the magic to finally end the terror of Tom Riddle. He wanted to do it as soon as possible, as every day that the Death Eaters were allowed to run wild, was a day where people died.
But still, they needed to have a good plan. It wouldn't do to be killed because they were careless. That could thwart their mission on the last short part.
He also needed a bit of time to sort through the information that he had got when he had called the pieces of Riddle's soul together. Especially the one that a part of it had been hidden in his scar. He felt completely betrayed by Dumbledore. Especially as he knew that all the hurt and pain in his life, that Dumbledore probably justified with him not being able to survive for Riddle to die anyway, had been totally needless. Had the old bastard just asked a curse breaker that he swore to secrecy for an expert opinion, he could have found this way years ago.
Hermione was right in her rant. So many things could have gone differently, if only Dumbledore hadn't kept information secret until it was too late. Sirius could have been alive, had he known that Riddle would try to lure him into the Department of Mysteries at the Ministry. A proper warning would have been all it needed for Harry to be more suspicious. But he was the one that got the information last. And then the so-called occlumency training with Snape. All the ridicule and headaches trying to defend his mind. No information about the how was given, no preparation. And if he had asked for help, they wouldn't have even been necessary.
Dumbledore had said that he had got confirmation about horcruxes being Riddle's secret to cheating death in his second year. Had he then asked a curse breaker, and the topic seemed to be common knowledge among them, he would have been able to search for one of them, or even have simply used Harry's scar, which he suspected was one at the time, to make an amulet like the one that was resting on the table. That would have ended Riddle early on and saved so many lives. Cedric, Sirius, Mad-Eye, George wouldn't have been injured and so many, many more.
All because an old man wouldn't give up his secrets and didn't believe that anybody could know more than him. In a way he was like Riddle. Always convinced that he knew best, even if Dumbledore hadn't caused a reign of terror. But he certainly was arrogant in his own way and horded knowledge. Harry stood up and walked over to the window. There was going to be snow soon, going by the dark clouds and the temperatures around this area. Scotland was cooler than the south of England where the mansion was located.
And Harry had to admit, he liked the area. He and Hermione had taken some long walks, simply enjoying an evening together after having worked during the day on finding the horcruxes or studying magic. The working out together in the morning was also a very nice aspect of their days. It was something he didn't want to give up. Or the day trips they had made to places where they did a bit of sight-seeing, or something simple like seeing a movie at the cinema. It was a simple life that wasn't boring and he liked that. And without Ron grumbling about too much studying all the time, it wasn't a chore like it had appeared to him in the past. The potions put aside.
He, perhaps for the first time in his life, allowed himself to think what he wanted to do with his life in the future. He was close to being rid of the nightmare that had held his life in its grips forever. He now had a future. Secretly he had always doubted that he would come out of the war alive. Despite the training with the DA that he had done, his personal training in the Room of Requirement in sixth year and his normal studies. He didn't really believe that he could defeat Voldemort and come out alive. But now, Tom Riddle's soul was trapped and his makeshift body had fallen apart. There was still a large number of Death Eaters and corrupt bureaucrats to consider, but the Death Eaters would fall as soon as the amulet was connected to Hogwarts' wards to be sucked dry of any magic. The connection through the dark mark would doom the Death Eaters.
It wasn't a nice prospect, but they had at least a chance to survive, even if they would lose their magic. That was more than their victims ever had. And it felt less horrible than having to kill them to prevent them from killing others again and again. If they only used their magic to harm others and make their lives miserable, they didn't really deserve it. In his eyes magic was something wonderful and it shouldn't be tainted like that. He was so deep in thought that he didn't hear the soft footsteps behind him until he felt slender arms wrapping around his waist and a soft body pressing against his back.
"Morning Harry," Hermione mumbled softly, "Did you sleep well?"
"Yes, I did. Thank you. Do you know what time it is?" Harry asked.
"Around eight in the morning," She answered, "What were you thinking about? You seemed deep in thought."
"Mainly the changes that have happened recently. The chances that we have for the future. How we now only need to get the amulet connected to the Hogwarts wards and let them do the job of getting rid of Riddle and his followers without us or others having to risk their lives. How I finally seem to have a future," He whispered in the end.
Hermione hugged him harder, not wanting to think about the chance of losing him.
"I have always felt as if I didn't really have long to live. While I have told Professor McGonagall that I wanted to become an auror, it was mainly because that seemed to be along the lines of what I needed to do. Riddle was always after me and I would need to know how to fight to be able to stop him. In the end I only needed to ask the right people and call the soul pieces together. I know so little about the magical world outside of Hogwarts. Talking to Bill and Fleur made it more obvious. The only places that I've ever truly seen are Hogwarts, Diagon Alley, the Burrow and the Quidditch World Cup.
"I also learned more about the muggle sights in the weeks that we stayed at your uncle's mansion with you, during our trips, than all the time I lived with the Dursleys. It made me think that soon I could experience all the things that others have experienced. I can simply go out and be a normal teenager. I can meet friends without having to worry about safety, being basically imprisoned in one place or the other, because there are people out there that want to see me dead. I can go to an amusement park, can go on vacation, learn driving a car and so many other things," Harry listed, "I don't have to be afraid that any girl I like would be made a target of a maniac that would kidnap and kill her just to get to me," He looked at her saying the last part.
"This will soon be over. We have all the pieces of Riddle's soul. There aren't any horcruxes anymore and as soon as the draining of the amulet has started, we're going to get rid of the threat of the Death Eaters as well. We'll be free," Hermione said, "What do you plan to do after Hogwarts, once we have got our NEWTs?"
"I don't really know. Travelling for a while would be nice. Learning how magic is used in other countries. Bringing back things that I think could modernise our society. The pureblood elitism has blocked too many attempts for progress. I'm sure that there have to be ways to modify concepts from the muggle world to work in the magical world. We could take the starting points of development of everyday items that muggles use, like mobiles, movies, tellies and so many others to bring things forward. I mean, when movies started, they were just some pictures put after another. We learned how to make a miniature cinema that we could play with in primary school in our arts class. The first movies were short sliding shows of pictures put behind another in front of a source of light. Take that idea and use magic to achieve it. It would be an absolute hit," Harry said excitedly.
"It could be possible. It sounds like a great idea. And the twins could help marketing items that are modified enough to work on magic, like for example the principle of the two-way mirrors instead of a mobile that only allows speech," Hermione agreed and spun the idea further, "I mean, they already have expanded their product line to include interesting aspects beyond being pranks. They would be open to that."
Harry nodded happily and Hermione shifted her position to hug him from the front and he returned the gesture contently.