Hermione grinned. "Yup. I'll give you a hint for my real ones, though. It's the opposite of what you did."
Harry thought for a moment, and then plunged downwards. Deeper and deeper he went, until finally, he hit the seafloor, which was solid. In fact, it was much more solid than, well, dirt or rock should have been. Harry laughed. "Wait... you're telling me that your mindscape is one of the deepest parts of the ocean, but you still bury your memories under the ground?"
"Well, it's not that obvious, is it?" retorted Hermione. "Actually, it's much deeper than that. You remember our geology lessons, right? I decided to stick my memories under a lot of magma. I figured Wizards would never really know enough about the Earth's crust and inner layers to figure out how deep down they have to go. Where did you get the idea for the Sun?"
"You taught it to me. I also kind of figured wizards don't know much about the sun, either. Muggle astronomy seems to be so much more advanced than Wizarding astronomy, although all the horoscopes are completely inaccurate..."
They both laughed, realizing how incorporating muggle sciences could help make their magic that much stronger.
They continued with their animagus training after they had established a stronger foundation in occlumency. They realized that, technically, Sirius hadn't sent Harry his birthday gift yet this time around. They pored over the two animagus books for the week leading up to Harry's birthday, combining some of the meditation exercises with their occlumency meditation. Harry was having an easier time feeling his instincts- throughout most of their adventures over the years, Harry had been running on emotions, whereas Hermione always seemed to manage to keep a level head, which was apparently hindering her progress. She was already skilled at controlling her emotions before occlumency, but the problem was with letting go of that control.
One of the books suggested that they associate a memory or a situation with a very basic, animalistic feeling. Simple joy, sadness, aggression, fear. Harry knew what brought the most joy in his life right now- it was Hermione. Seeing her smile, making her smile, giving her kisses and hugs, or simply being near her while they sat silently and studied. He could feel happiness and love right down to his very core when he thought of her. But sadness? What made him really sad? The Dursleys? Maybe years ago, but he knew now he only had to deal with them for two months out of the year. It was more frustration than sadness now. His mind floated over to the time when he was dying of Basilisk poison, and Hermione in tears in front of him. She was incredibly fearful, angry, and sad... and it made him sad, as well. He never wanted to see her like that again. Even worse, he was the one that caused that anguish in her. He never wanted to do that to her again. What about fear? And anger? He realized he was feeling both at the same time the night of the World Cup, seeing Hermione unconscious, he feared for her life, and he wanted to utterlydestroy the ones who had done that to her. Hermione. All of his deepest, innermost feelings, revolved around her, he suddenly realized.
"Ummm... Harry?" Hermione held his face with both hands on his cheeks. "What are you doing?"
"Huh?" Harry opened his eyes, and realized he was leaning on Hermione. "What? What was I doing?"
"You were... um... rubbing your cheeks against me," said Hermione. "Not that I didn't enjoy it, you know. But it just seemed to come out of nowhere. And I think you were sniffing, too. You might have been about to nibble on me."
"Oh!" Harry exclaimed. "I... uh... um... well, I think I found the key to my animagus meditation. Or maybe I didn't, but I discovered something important, anyways."
"Really?" asked Hermione excitedly. "Did you discover your form? Can you tell me what it is? How did you do it?"
"Oh... no, I didn't discover my form. I... uh... discovered you, Hermione," Harry said, timidly.
"Me? You discovered me? What do you mean by that?"
"Well... I discovered that... all my deepest emotions... happiness, sadness, anger, fear... they all revolve around you, Hermione. You make me happy, and I'm sad if you're unhappy, I get angry when others try to hurt you, and I'm afraid... of losing you. I feel everything more strongly when it involves you," he said.
Hermione squealed, tackling Harry to the floor again. "Oh, Harry! You have no idea how romantic you just were, do you? I'm going to have to think of you myself... after I finish snogging you silly, that is."
On Harry's birthday, he received very nearly the same letters as he did last time around- except Ron wasn't quite as friendly, and just sent his usual box of chocolate frogs instead of the Quidditch statistics book. Hermione and her parents took him out to a restaurant and had celebrated with cheesecake. Knowing that Harry had already finished reading the curse-breaker book she gave him his last birthday around, she bought him The World's Wildest Wardsthis time around, detailing some of the most intricate and advanced warding schemes, both modern and ancient. Sadly to say, the most advanced warding schemes were also the least detailed, because the owners didn't want to give up many of their secrets to the authors. It was still a very interesting and inspiring read, and Harry nearly thanked Hermione with a kiss until he remembered they were in front of her parents, and he settled on a hug.
That evening, he was hit with a vision of Voldemort once again- being better prepared for it, he focused on remembering the ritual Voldemort was performing, the markings on the ground, the smell of the potions. He could glean very little more information, though. It seemed that Voldemort had finished the preparations before the vision began, and didn't spend much more time looking at it. Afterwards, he still sent word to Dumbledore, but received the same unhelpful reply.
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