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"Disillusioned?" Harry asked.

"The Disillusionment Charm—an invisibility spell," Fred explained. "It’s not as good as the Cloak, but as a backup for somewhere you’re probably not looking anyway, it should be fine."

"That only covers the shoes, though," George pointed out. "So if it goes up a little further, to where you can see your robes or trousers, the kneazle will be out of the bag."

"Got it," Harry said, wondering what a kneazle was.

George took the shoe off Lee’s foot (the snoring returned immediately) and turned it over. "Now, the charms are all tied to these runes on the sole." He pointed to a series of symbols carved into the rubber. "When the sole wears down, of course, the spells will fail—but it’ll be time to get new shoes by then anyway."

"What you need to worry about," Fred said, "is damaging the runes. Be careful not to step on anything sharp that might cut or gouge them. If these fail, they’re likely to fail in a way that grabs attention—which is not what you want when you’re skulking about invisibly."

George put the shoe back in the box, and Harry closed it.

"These look great, you two," Harry said. "Exactly what I need. I’m just gonna run them up to my dorm now. Thanks."

"Any time," George said.

"Glad you like them," Fred said.

"By the way," George said, "I like the new look."

"Yeah," Fred said, "Very great-white-hunter with all those knives. The nundus won’t know what hit ’em."

Harry chuckled, wondering what a nundu was, then ran back up the stairs, tucked the shoes into his trunk, and headed back down.

Hermione was for him at the bottom. She closed the copy of Secrets and Lies, which she was re-reading. "Good morning," she said. "Have trouble getting used to waking up for classes?"

"No," Harry said, "just got a bit of a late Christmas present. I’ll tell you about it on the way down."

She tucked the book into her rucksack and the two of them headed towards the Great Hall and Harry’s bacon.

[Outside the hall, they are delayed again. Snape gives Harry back the forms and a bit of gold for the fees. With much effort, he forces out a stiff "I...apologize".]

[Harry and Hermione try Legilimency for the first time]

[Harry and Hermione stumble across the Mirror of Erised]

During their first year, Harry and Hermione slowly find the same clues they did in canon, but in a different order. The main plot otherwise plays out roughly as it did in canon. Harry probably tries to use his knives against Quirrelmort after going through the trap door, but they are not particularly effective.

Lavender and Hagrid become friends because she asked him about unicorns; when the weather warms up, she braids his beard to help him keep cool.

Harry stays with the Grangers, not the Weasleys, before second year, and in fact he might never visit the Burrow or really get to know the Weasley parents. Dobby still gets Harry in trouble with the Ministry at the Dursleys’, but Harry and Hermione arrive at Kings Cross too early for him to lock them out of Platform 9 ¾. No flying car, no broken wand.

When the petrifications start, there is even more suspicion around Harry because, like, he’s this weird-ass knife fanatic who slaughters trolls and stuff. The Polyjuice subplot probably doesn’t happen because they can use Legilimency on Malfoy. Instead, suspicion falls on this quirky little Ravenclaw firstie named Luna who they discover is an Occlumens, but she is eventually cleared when Harry witnesses her being bullied by her housemates while an attack is going on elsewhere.

After that, Harry decides to pull her into his orbit. Luna immediately perceives him for exactly who he is—more on that later—but feels the person she knows him to be is trustworthy. She is extremely direct with him at all times.

At the duelling club, Malfoy taunts Harry about how he’s forbidden to use his knives by saying something about how he can’t parry with them. It turns out that, because goblin silver "imbibes only that which strengthens it", it actually reflects/deflects most spells. Harry practices this technique and eventually uses it to reflect Lockhart’s memory charm. Then he puts Lockhart to sleep with the sleepy knife. (Dumbledore forgives him this technical violation of the rules because it was a non-lethal use in a legitimate emergency.)

When Harry confronts the basilisk, he is wearing his Sneakers, but he manages to break the runes on the soles and we find out just how spectacularly the spells on them fail when that happens. Harry’s throwing knives are ineffective against the basilisk, so he draws the Sword of Gryffindor from the hat and uses it with a knife in the off hand. When he kills the basilisk, he sees the fang coming and slices through it with the knife, causing the knife to imbibe basilisk venom. He stabs the diary with the knife to destroy it.

Rather than return the Sword of Gryffindor, Harry claims it as an heirloom because it "was bestowed upon a wizard by magic beyond the ken of any who live". After term is over, he goes to Awlthrow to add a scabbard to his baldric, but this kicks off a parallel set of goblin plotlines.

The first is about Awlthrow himself—or rather, herself. Harry learns that she is a woman, and that he has in fact been misgendering many goblin women. Goblin women are a bit shorter and stockier than goblin men and are the only gender with facial hair (usually goatees); most wizards never bother to learn this. (It turns out that Harry isn’t the only one making such a fundamental mistake: Awlthrow notices at this point that Harry is actually quite small for a wizard and realizes he is a child, albeit one who would be considered a warrior by goblin standards.) Although Awlthrow’s lesbian marriage is legal—any marriage is legal among the goblins as long as the partners are warriors who are willing and able to defend it—gay relationships are somewhat disfavored, which is why she and her wife interact more with wizards than goblins. Inkeye’s comment about "their beards rubbing together" was homophobic.

(I swear that I planned all of that while I still thought I was a straight man. Although in hindsight, the fact that I gave the goblin lesbians goatees when I was myself a lesbian with a goatee seems like a weird sort of IRL foreshadowing.)

The second is about goblin property rights. Awlthrow already mentioned that goblins usually only sell items for the buyer’s lifetime; it transpires that the Sword of Gryffindor was sold in this way and Awlthrow will not make a scabbard for it unless Harry becomes its rightful owner. She assumes that he won’t, but goblins everywhere are astonished when Harry not only properly buys the sword from its crafter’s heir, but suggests they lay a spell on it that will let them reclaim it at the end of his life. This unprecedented display of fair treatment makes Harry about as famous among goblins as he already is among wizards.

Harry elects to take Runes with Hermione instead of Divination with Ron. Hermione takes a pretty heavy courseload, but not literally every class, so she does not have the Time-Turner in third year.

When third year starts, Harry already knows that R.J. Lupin was friends with his parents, but is a little standoffish because he doesn’t understand why Lupin never checked in on him. Hermione figures out that he is a werewolf and shares that discovery with Harry; this leads to a conversation where Lupin confirms that the reason he didn’t contact Harry as a child was his lycanthropy, which finally resolves some of their mistrust.

Somewhere during this year, Harry starts working on Ginny. It’s eerily reminiscent of Riddle’s diary.

Either this year or the last, perhaps during Occlumency practice, Harry would find out what Hermione really saw in the Mirror of Erised. It showed her a scene where he came to her for help with something and treated her with complete trust, honest gratitude, and casual intimacy. While that intimacy could be read as romantic, what came across more strongly was that if they were more touchy with each other, it would make her feel more secure. Harry does start treating her more this way, and it really does work.

When Harry receives the Firebolt, Hermione doesn’t even think about going behind his back, but she is much more successful in persuading him to have it examined voluntarily (partly because Harry is too astonished by the gift to take it at face value).

When Black breaks into the castle and they gather the students in the Great Hall overnight, McGonagall proves to have taken some of Harry’s criticism in first year to heart: she orders a head count to make sure all students are present.

Trelawney makes her prophecy; Ron or perhaps Neville hears it and reports it to them.

When Harry finally confronts Sirius, he kills him instantly with the basilisk-venom knife before he can tell his story. Lupin arrives and his presence scares Wormtail into running away before Remus recognizes him, so they all assume the "servant" was Sirius, they have successfully averted the prophecy, and Voldemort will not be returning greater and more terrible and all that after all. What a relief! It’s just too bad that Scabbers ran away again, but hey, maybe he’ll turn up eventually.

(That false belief in their safety ought to influence the events of the next year, but I’m not precisely sure how. Maybe Dumbledore taps someone other than Moody for defense professor, and Crouch impersonates them instead?)

Fourth year, Harry might or might not go with the Weasleys to the world cup. Maybe there’s another way he could get there—the Lovegoods covering it for The Quibbler?

During the Triwizard Tournament, there’s a sort of subplot involving Harry’s fighting style: Harry still feels he doesn’t really know enough combat magic, so in dangerous situations like the three tasks, he tends to fall back on using his sword and knives.

For the First Task, Harry summons both the Firebolt and his baldric. He flies up, harasses the Horntail until he finds an opening, then dives down, lands on her back, and drives the poisoned Sword of Gryffindor between her scales. The dragon drops dead within seconds, and there is total silence in the arena for a few seconds until the crowd starts chanting "Dragonslayer!" Perfect scores and a new title that people start using alongside "Boy Who Lived".

Luna recognizes that Harry is procrastinating about his Yule Ball date and suggests he take [herself/Hermione/Ginny].

For the Second Task, Harry uses gillyweed for underwater mobility and his knives for combat. He does not show Moral Fiber™ as he does in canon unless Hermione is still Krum’s hostage, in which case he waits until she is rescued. This time, though, the judges are unimpressed—they feel that he isn’t really displaying magical prowess per se because he isn’t fighting with his wand. He gets a lower score than he did in canon.

Hermione’s family, not Ron’s, come to watch the Third Task. During the task, Harry struggles a bit because he is not using his wand enough; Diggory saves him, but they end up helping each other, and so Diggory does the "you take it" at the end. This Harry, however, is mercenary enough to not choose to honorably tie with Cedric. Ironically, this is a much better outcome for Cedric.

In the graveyard, Voldemort strips Harry of his blades and forces him to use his wand in their show duel, so he must really lean heavily on his wand in combat for the first time. Once the fight devolves into a melee, Harry will probably summon the weapons to recover them, and fight with a sword and wand for the rest of the evening. In future fights, he’ll favor either sword and wand or knife and wand.

That brings us to the night of our scene. Since Mrs. Weasley is not around, it is Hermione who is watching over Harry while he sleeps.

Harry woke with a cry and another painful shudder. The moon was high and bright in the window, and Hermione was sitting beside his bed, her face swimming slightly under the Sleeping Draught’s influence, with a book in her lap and a look of concern. She waved her wand and whispered [a privacy spell].

"How are you feeling?"

Harry wanted to say "fine", but a badly timed convulsion turned it into "finuuurgh."

"Oh, Harry..." She stood up, setting the book next to his head, running her hand over his brow. "I might have a way to help, but first...we’ll need to talk."

"Okay," Harry said.

Her hand trailed down to his cheek. "Harry...are we friends?"

He stiffened a little at the question. "W-what do you mean? Of course—"

She pressed her finger to his lips. "It’s okay, Harry. The only answer that will upset me is a lie. You didn’t choose me for me, did you? You chose me because you thought I was talented and useful."

Her sad smile made something in his chest squirm, but he could see no way out. At length, he said, "I chose you because you were intelligent and self-assured, and because I could tell that those traits would make you lonely without me."

"You do that, don’t you? You figure out what people need, and you give it to them so that they owe you a debt." She chuckled at his surprised look. "I’ve been by your side for nearly four years, Harry. Of course I’ve noticed. You don’t make friends; you make allies. You find people who could be helpful, and then you bring them into your sphere of influence, all the while honing them into more useful tools."

"I do," Harry said. "I suppose I’ve never really had friends. But...I mean...that doesn’t..."

"It doesn’t mean you don’t like them," Hermione said, "that you’re not fond of them, often out of proportion to how useful they are to you. I know that too. You like Luna more than Ginny, even though Ginny’s more popular. You like Neville more than Ron, even though Ron is braver. And the Twins have probably been more help to you than anyone, and yet..."

"And yet I like you most of all," Harry finished, and a tear ran down her cheek. "You’re right. Per usual."

That earned him a watery giggle, and she leaned down, pressing her cheek against his chest. He reached up, a little hesitantly, and ran his fingers through her hair, but a spasm made him clutch it tightly, and she winced.

"Do you know where the Cruciatus came from?" Hermione asked.

"N-no," Harry said, gritting his teeth.

"It was invented by a tutor in the Dark Arts. He wanted to motivate a particularly lazy student, so he designed a curse that would make him experience unspeakable agony, and made sure it would linger until his student mastered the spell they were working on."

"Nasty bugger."

"Well, it did work...his student was Herpo the Foul."

"So what you’re saying is, if I work some dark magic, the curse will weaken?"

"Not just anything," Hermione said. "It has to be something new."

"I’m in the Hospital Wing, Hermione," Harry said. "I can’t exactly go throwing curses around."

"I know." She leaned up, reaching for the book, opening it to a well-worn page. "I was thinking we could do this instead."

He took the book, and she used her wand to give him light to read it by. It was the book he had bought so long ago—Ninety-Nine Charms the Ministry Doesn’t Want You To Know. It was number 96. The last spell before the Unforgivables.

He read carefully.

"Hermione...this is...this supersedes everything. It eliminates old magical vows and prevents you from forming new ones. You wouldn’t be able to take an Unbreakable Vow. You wouldn’t be able to become a Healer or Unspeakable. You wouldn’t be able to get married."

"And this is not a relationship of equals."

"And you’d die when I did."

"And it’s permanent."

"That’s why I want it, Harry."

"I don’t understand."

She sighed. "Look at my life, Harry," she said, looking into his eyes. "Really look at it. When I make friends—they take advantage of me, they belittle me, they humor me. Every one of them—some are harsher and some are nicer, but all of them take away from me. All of them."

She was trembling now. "And then there’s you, Harry. I’m not your friend. I’m...your tool. And yet you care for me more than any friend I have. You care enough to shape me, to hone me, to make me stronger. To make me confident. To make me happy."

She cupped his cheeks, staring into his eyes, and when she spoke, her voice broke. "I...don’t want...friends. I don’t want love. What I want is to be everything you need me to be. Skilled. Loyal. Trustworthy. And yours. Always."

A part of Harry was rejoicing. You’ve done it, it said. You wanted her for your own, from the day you met her, and now you have her...

And yet, at the same time, his heart was breaking for her.

"There’s no going back," he said, one more time.

"I won’t want to go back," she whispered.

Harry reached under his pillow, withdrawing one of his throwing knives.

"Thank you," Hermione said. She pulled the blanket down to his waist and then climbed onto the bed, straddling him.

Harry examined the knife, checking for the shield on the hilt—the one that indicated it hadn’t been poisoned. He looked back to Hermione to find that the clothes above her waist were falling down to the bed.

He couldn’t help it. He gaped.

"Harry," Hermione said after a moment.

"Sorry," he said, his eyes snapping to hers. She was blushing heavily, though she looked slightly pleased. "I’ve just never, erm..."

"It’s okay," she said, starting to unbutton his shirt. "I’m a little tempted to stare, too." She pulled the halves aside to bare his chest. "Once we start, we must only speak the ritual. I’m ready when you are."

"Okay." Harry spun the knife in his hand to adjust his grip. Then slowly, carefully, he brought it to her chest.

She gasped as the tip parted her skin. Delicately, Harry drew a diagonal line of red across her heart. He looked up to her face; she was biting her lip and wincing, but she nodded to him, so he crossed the first line with another. A Muggle would call the symbol X, but to Harry’s eyes, it was something else: Gebo, the rune for a gift.

Harry pressed the knife into Hermione’s hand and nodded to her. Now it was her turn.

Hermione collected some of the blood now dripping down her torso onto the flat of the blade. Then, instead of cutting his chest, she used the knife to paint a straight-lined loop on it: Othila, the rune for possession.

Once she finished, she held up the knife, and he gripped the blade lightly with his right hand, feeling the stickiness in his palm, smelling the metallic tang.

With his other hand, he lifted the book, and began to read: "Do you, Hermione Granger, give Harry Potter..."

When he finished the line, his eyes met hers again. She beamed at Harry; her eyes were full of tears. "I do," she said.

"Then I declare you bonded for life," Harry answered, his grip on the blade tightening. And as the blade drew blood from his hand, the blood on both of them erupted into red sparks—sparks that flew together, intertwining in an intricate pattern, swirling and multiplying, and Harry gasped as the dark magic flowed through him, washing away the ache that had never really left him since Voldemort’s first curse.