The Road Ahead

The time they spent snuggling and comforting one another was enjoyable and provided them with much needed reassurance, but they were rudely returned to their current reality by a ferret trying to gain access to their compartment.

Harry tensed ready for battle but Hermione's kisses drove all other thoughts from his mind, when she decided to come up for air the ferret and his handlers were long gone.

"It's time to start figuring what we want to achieve here love, if you want to walk into Hogwarts, tell Dumbledore to go screw himself and come straight home with me then I'll be right by your side, but I think we have to decide now."

Her kisses this time were a lot softer, "I know you inside out Harry Potter, you have scars on your soul that we have been given a chance to heal. Sirius is alive, as is Cedric, Remus, Tonks, her father and many more, we can make sure they all stay that way."

Harry held her tight, "I'm sorry love but I can't go through those seven years again, Ron is a dead man walking and nothing you can say will change that. Umbridge, Malfoy and Percy were on the panel that ordered that dementor to feed on you while Molly was the driving force behind the charges, there can be no mercy for them either."

"I don't think they deserve any, they didn't show much in the way of mercy to us! All I'm saying is we need to set some goals and those will do for starters, are we going to take down Voldemort?"

"There is no way I could leave you and stand there while the bastard hits me with an Arvada Kedavra, that's just not happening. We could destroy the horcruxes and keep our options open, the day I gave you that ring I was intending for the four of us to disappear to the Black island off the coast of Bermuda, that still sounds appealing to me, let the rest of them drown in the ocean of shit entirely of their own making."

"That sounds wonderful to me as well but at this point in time we don't have access to Black island, unless we get Sirius out of Azkaban. The reason I stopped you from attacking Malfoy is that his father has the diary, we know what he's eventually going to do with it but not until next summer. We could just ambush them that day in Diagon Alley and take the bloody thing, I have no wish to be petrified or see you fighting that bloody Basilisk to save a Weasley."

"I see what you mean love, me slaughtering the ferret on the train might lose us the diary, though I'm wondering if that might not be a fair exchange?"

"You'll get no argument from me, it all depends on our goals' Harry, if we're going to let Voldemort take over the country then we can throw Malfoy off the astronomy tower tonight."

"I can't make up my mind whether to feed Ron to Fluffy or lock him in the bathroom with the troll, he and Myrtle keeping each other company in a toilet u-bend for the next millennium sounds like a just punishment to me."

"Why settle for just the one, couldn't we let the troll work him over and then feed the leftovers to Fluffy? I think we need to decide on Voldemort and everything else will follow from there, we also have to be careful not to appear too knowledgeable and try to stay out of the spotlight, though I understand that will be difficult for the boy who lived!"

Harry kissed her again, "Well my new philosophy is pretty simple, I trust no one but you and that's the way it's going to stay, we're not two naïve kids this time and anyone treating us as such is in for a rude awakening. Let's just keep an eye on how the 'adults' react around us and see if we can spot who's playing games. Our biggest problem may be that I don't think I can survive without you to cuddle into every night, you Miss Granger are addictive and I can safely say I'm hooked!" This ended any conversation as Hermione showed her appreciation of that comment, after all the man of her dreams had asked her to marry him and she was focusing on that to blot out the earlier incident.

The only time their door was opened the entire trip was to buy sweets from the trolley lady, Harry had just left the Dursleys and as usual was famished. The occupants of the train appeared more concerned with the nonappearance of any Weasleys than the two first years who sat cuddling each other the entire journey.

Leaving the train to the familiar sound of Hagrid calling for the first years tugged on their heartstrings, it was one thing to talk about letting Voldemort take over Britain, seeing Neville standing alone, too shy to ask anyone about sharing a boat, was a whole different matter.

Both headed straight for him, "Hi there, want to share a boat with us?" Hermione asked.

Neville seemed more relieved than anything else and muttered 'sure' before the three of them sat in the little craft and began chatting as it slowly took them to their new life. "I'm Hermione and this is Harry, we're new at this magic malarkey and, although we've both done lots of reading, we're hoping that someone can take us under their wing and help us out."

This was more than anyone had said to Neville since his Grandmother put him on the train, "I'm Neville, are you both muggle born?"

"Hermione is and I might as well be, didn't know about magic until my eleventh birthday. Have you grown up with it or are you just like us?"

"No I come from a magical family though they weren't sure if I was going to be magical, to be honest I'm still not convinced I should be here."