A two part story during the beginning of their fifth year...

Pale sunlight filtered in through the grime-filled windows at number twelve Grimmauld place, waking Hermione from her peaceful sleep. She lay in bed for a few moments, staring across the room to where Ginny slept. Finally she hoisted herself out of bed and commenced getting dressed. She threw on a pair of jeans, a light blue shirt, and quickly brushed through her ever-bushy hair. Hermione sighed, checking the clock on the wall, it was almost eight o'clock and Ginny was still asleep.

"Come on Ginny, get up. We have to go down to breakfast soon." Hermione gently shook her red-haired friend awake.

"Alright Hermione, quit shaking." Ginny sleepily pushed Hermione's hand away and dragged herself out of bed.

Hermione sat on her bed and waited while Ginny got dressed.

"Today should be interesting." Ginny smirked, glancing over at Hermione.

"And why is that?" answered Hermione cautiously. Ginny was wearing a look similar to the twins when they were brewing some sort of unpleasant plan.

"Mum said something about having a full house-cleaning day."

"So," Hermione looked slightly puzzled. "There's nothing interesting about that, we do it all the time."

"I'm almost positive that Ron will try, at least once, to get you on your own in the same room as him today." Ginny grinned at the flush that crept into Hermione's cheeks.

"Ginny, you know Ron doesn't do things like that." retorted Hermione, rather hastier than she meant to.

"We'll see." smiled Ginny, as she and Hermione made their way down to the kitchen.

As they walked into the brightly lit dining area, they noticed that breakfast was already on the table, courtesy of Mrs. Weasley, who was vigorously using her wand to scrub some dirty dishes. Fred, George, and Ron were already hard at work devouring the heavenly smelling meal. Ron paused from his ferocious breakfast-eating long enough to give Hermione a large smile as she walked in and sat down next to him. She stubbornly avoided the smirk Ginny shot her way.

"How did you sleep last night?" asked Hermione politely, reaching for a piece of toast.

Ron stopped chewing long enough to answer, "Pretty well. You?"

"As well as anyone can in this dump I suppose." she sighed, taking a sip of pumpkin juice.

"That's one thing we'll be working on today." smiled Mrs. Weasley, coming over and sitting down next to George. "This dump, as you rightly called it, is going to need quite a bit of work if we want to tidy it up before Harry gets here tomorrow."

Ron promptly choked on his juice. "What! Harry's coming tomorrow and you didn't bother to tell us until now?"

"Sorry dear, I only just found out this morning and I wanted everyone to be here when I told you." smiled Mrs. Weasley apologetically.

"It's great that Harry's coming to stay," said Hermione lightly, "It'll be nice for him to get away from his aunt and uncle's house."

"Yes." nodded Mrs. Weasley in agreement, "Especially after having been attacked by those Dementors."

Ron choked on his juice again.

"You know Ron, you should really try swallowing once in a while." smiled Fred, as Hermione pounded Ron soundly on the back, "It tastes much better that way."

Ron chose to ignore Fred, "Dementors! He was attacked! Is he alright? What happened?"

Mrs. Weasley, with a look of concern on her face, answered her youngest son. "From what I heard, Mundungus Fletcher left his post early, and while he was gone Harry and his cousin were attacked by two of those foul creatures. They are both fine, although your father said Harry is going to be put on trial at the Ministry of Magic for the use of underage magic. Which is completely absurd." Mrs. Weasley huffed angrily. "What else was he supposed to do? Die?"

"Anyways," she sighed, regaining her composure, "I thought it would be nice if we did a bit of extra cleaning before he gets here. If you're all done eating we can start on the kitchen."

"Aw, mum. It's Saturday," groaned George, "Can't it wait for a bit?"

"As long as you're back here at 10:30 sharp. And I mean it!" Mrs. Weasley called after them as the twins scampered up the stairs. "Oh, Ron would you please clean your room up a bit and get the other bed ready for Harry."

"Right mum," said Ron. He was about to leave the kitchen but apparently had second thoughts and turned around, "Could you help me Hermione? Some of the boxes I have to move are pretty heavy."

Hermione looked slightly surprised, but then she caught the look in his eyes that clearly said 'we need to talk' and answered, "I'll be right up."

On her way out of the kitchen she stubbornly avoided Ginny's look of 'I told you so'.

Once inside Ron's messy bedroom, Hermione stated what Ron had been hinting at, "We need to talk about a few things before Harry get's here."

Ron simply nodded and sat down on his faded orange bedspread. With a sigh Hermione sat down next to him. "First off, who sent those Dementors after him?"

"Well that's obvious," answered Ron "You-Know-Who probably figured sending a couple of Dementors after Harry might finish him off."

"That's what I thought at first, but when you really think about it... I'm not so sure it was him. You-Know-Who has only just returned to power, it would be pretty risky to steal two Dementors from Azkaban and then send them after Harry. I think someone else did, I just don't know who."

"Maybe Malfoy or his dad did," suggested Ron, thinking hard, "They definitely hate him enough, and Malfoy's dad's a Death Eater right?"

"I guess they could have, but again, it's really risky and there's a good chance they would have been caught by the Ministry."

"What if someone at the Ministry did it then? It would be easier for them to get away with it." Ron was beginning to get frustrated.

"I suppose that could happen. But it doesn't seem very likely." She murmured mostly to herself, staring at the empty picture frame on the wall.

"Well, if you're going to put down every idea I give you then I give up." sighed Ron, falling back on his mattress with a soft 'thump.'

"Sorry," Hermione looked over her shoulder at him, "it's just there doesn't seem to be any reasonable explanation for who it might have been."

They sat in silence for a few moments, each trying to think of another possible culprit on who to place the blame.

Finally, Ron broke the silence by sitting up, "It's no use trying to figure out something that doesn't have an answer. The next question is how is Harry going to react to us not telling him about what's been going on around here."

"Ron, you know that Dumbledore made us swear not to tell him anything important in our letters." sighed Hermione, standing up and beginning to move some of the smaller boxes off of the bed Harry would be using. "We just have to tell Harry that Dumbledore said we couldn't tell him anything; the owls could have been intercepted."

"Sure we can tell him all that," shrugged Ron, coming over to help her, "But I still don't think he's going to take it very well."

"Don't be silly Ron. Harry's sensible. He'll understand once we explain it to him." stated Hermione a bit too optimistically. Ron merely shrugged again and began to lift one of the heavier boxes off of the battered bed. Hermione came over to help him, surprised at the weight of the box.

"What do they keep in these things?" she asked as they set it down in an empty corner.

All of a sudden, something small and black hurtled out of the box and latched itself onto Hermione's hand. She let out a shriek of pain and tried unsuccessfully to detach whatever it was from her hand. Ron grabbed what appeared to be a black box and, with much effort, pried it off of Hermione's hand. He threw it back into the cardboard box and slammed the flaps down sitting on top of them. After a few seconds the movement inside the box stopped and Ron went over to look at Hermione's injury.

"Here, let me see it." He gently pried her fingers open to see a nasty looking gash that ran from her index figure to the bottom of her palm. It was bleeding profusely.

"Hold still," Ron ordered, his voice higher then natural, "I have some ointment here somewhere. Mum uses it on us all the time."

As he rummaged through the cupboard above his dresser, Hermione couldn't help noticing, despite the pain she was in, that pinned to the inside of the cupboard door were three pictures. One of herself, Ron, and Harry during their stay at the Leaky Cauldron in their third year, one of Ron's entire, smiling, red-haired family, and one of her. Just her. It looked like it had been taken during their fourth year. She was in the common room studying, the firelight flickering off her concentrating profile.

Before she could study the picture further, Ron slammed the cupboard shut, oblivious to what had just been visible, and hurried over to where Hermione's hand had now created a small puddle of blood on the floor.

"Give me your hand." 

Hermione obediently held out her bloodied palm, which Ron took and immediately began to rub a green, jell-like salve on it.

"What was that thing?" Hermione sat down on the bed and gasped as the jell stung her injury. Ron sat down next to her and continued to rub the slave in as gently as he could, his voice had now returned to it's normal volume, "It looked like some kind of jewelry box that bits anyone who disturbs it."

Hermione merely nodded and gritted her teeth against the searing pain. After a few moments the gash began to fade due to Ron's consistent rubbing.

Suddenly there were two loud 'cracks' and Fred and George materialized out of thin air. "Well well, what do we have here?" grinned George coming over to examine Hermione's injury.

"Holding hands now are we?" Fred was also grinning mischievously, "Little Ronniekins is so romantic."

Ron self-consciously let go of Hermione's now completely healed hand.

"Shut up." his ears began to glow a light red.

"Not very nice are we?" smiled Fred, taking a step back.

"But seriously Ron, why is there blood on the floor?" George questioned, looking at the red puddle.

"I cut my hand while we were moving the boxes and haven't had time to clean it up yet." Hermione explained quickly, as George took out his wand and cleaned up the mess.

"What do you two want?" Ron glared at the twins, his voice threatening.

"Besides advising you to choose a more romantic setting for your next date, we came to tell you that mum is waiting for you down in the kitchen." Fred leapt away from Ron's fists and disapparated hastily with George following close behind.

"Hermione I'm―"

"You don't need to explain Ron." cut in Hermione, at the sight of his distraught expression "They were just joking around, as always."

"Right," Ron looked relieved that that was over, "We better head down then. I'm sure Mum's got a whole book of stuff for us to do." And together they headed down the creaky wooden staircase toward the kitchen.