Harry was not awake enough to deal with this.

Last night he had stayed up until three o'clock, labouring over the last few inches of his Transfiguration essay, knowing that he had to finish it in time for his morning lesson, or risk a detention from McGonagall.

He had finished it, but he felt half-dead as a result.

And now he had to deal with Hermione 'morning person' Granger.

Wonderful.

The cacophony of chatter, and clattering of cutlery, beat on his skull like an iron hammer, and he could barely open his eyes without a slice of light-induced pain splitting his brain open.

Bloody Transfiguration homework.

Hermione was still talking.

Harry supposed he should be thankful that she wasn't berating him for his last-minute homework efforts. But really... he did value his brain, and Hermione's enthusiastic voice wasn't doing it any favours.

Perhaps her and McGonagall's combined efforts would end up driving him to lunacy.

That'd be nice.

"Harry are you even listening to me?"

"Uh-huh..." he assured her, absently.

He needed coffee.

Or Firewhiskey.

Or both.

Foffee?

Ciskey?

Coffskey?

Harry giggled at the ridiculousness of his own brain.

Merlin, he felt tired.

"Harry, this is a serious matter! It is not something to be laughed at."

"Sorry, Hermione."

She looked sceptically over at him, then opened her mouth to continue on her previous tirade, when Harry had a stroke of genius.

"Where's Ron?" He asked, blearily.

Great! The subject of Ron would stop her saying what she had been going to say, and make her discuss Ron. He was good at discussing Ron. Ron was his friend. Ron wouldn't try to talk to him when he was tired. He liked Ron.

"I don't know."

"Oh."

Silence fell. Blessed, blessed silence. Choirs of angels sang and birds burst into joyful harmony.

But silently.

Lots of silent angels.

And birds.

"So what do you think?"

Harry felt as though every single silent, singing bird had just been murdered.

"Ron's great! I like Ron."

"No!"

Harry winced as her exasperated voice increased in volume.

"Not Ron! Katie!"

Now Harry was just confused.

"Katie Bell?"

"No! Kind Acts Towards Innocent Enemies. K.A.T.I.E. Remember? What I was just talking to you about?"

"Oh, yea, right, that..."

"So what do you think?"

Harry considered this carefully.

"'s a great idea."

"You think so?"

"Yea. I'm all for kindness."

He gave her what he thought was a winning smile.

"Oh." Hermione seemed surprised. "Great!" She beamed. "Well, in that case."

Harry watched Hermione stride over to the Slytherin table, hoick Malfoy up by his tie, and kiss him soundly on the mouth.

Still submerged in sleep-deprivation, Harry just turned back to his breakfast.

Firewhiskey he thought, nodding sagely and trying to erase the sight of Malfoy kissing Hermione from his memory.

Definitely firewhiskey.

A/N So, the original idea for this was based off of Hermione's S.P.E.W campaign - as most of you loyal Potterheads would have guessed. I thought that her activistic streak would probably re-emerge at some point and wanted to write a fic about that happening.

Thus was born K.A.T.I.E.

It started off much more seriously, with exploration into post-war suspicions and prejudices, house prejudices, forgiveness etc. but I never got very far with it. I encountered the common issue of 'the words in my head won't make it to the page'.

In the end I scrapped my 'societal rant with added Slytherin' and wrote this funny little drabble as a birthday present, instead.

So, happy birthday, Katie! Sorry this is so late, and I hope you like it.

On a side note, there is an incredible fic called Pet Project by Caeria that I recently read, which starts along similar lines to this one. I started my story before I heard of Pet Project, so no stolen ideas, and the stories honestly have nothing really to do with each other anyway. (Also their's is much better than mine XD). However, I highly recommend Pet Project to all those who like extended magical lore, arithmancy, Snamione, Ron, and chess.

Much love to you all, and many thanks xxx