Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter. I'm just playing with JKR's toys. I've heard that she's finished with them anyway...
Harry Potter, Boy-Who-Lived, watched his breath cloud in the freezing February air. He was shifting from one foot to the other in a futile attempt to keep his blood from solidifying as he waited. Waited impatiently, at that. It's not that he begrudged his best friends their relationship- just the opposite in fact. He really appreciated it if for no other reason than the fact that their fights were far less frequent and less tense now that they were sharing a bedroom. But what he did resent was his new status as lookout because of their newfound unity.
Stupid Ron. Stupid Hermione. Here he was, waiting and watching as they did all the dangerous work. In this case, they were inside 'liberating' several ancient and potentially dangerous books from the former residence of Bellatrix and Rudolphous Lestrange. And all because of this stupid democracy ideal that Hermione had insisted upon.How is that democratic? One person forcing others to accept something that's meant to give them all equal voice? Harry snorted, and shuffled his feet again. In the midst of his silent complaining, he heard the window behind him creak open, and one of his best friends' head poke out.
"Harry? You ready?" Ron's voice was a hushed whisper and he looked slightly anxious.
"Yeah. You get them?" Harry managed to croak out a response from his dry mouth and chapped lips. Ron's response was to drop a large parcel out the first story window and Harry had to jump to catch it. The parcel was followed by an, admittedly impressive, leap out the window from the red head. Luckily for Harry, he'd moved to catch the parcel and therefore didn't end up accidentally catching Ron. Instead, Ron landed safely, flashed a grin in Harry's direction and looked up at the window.
"Any day now 'Mione." His sarcasm was lost on the third of the trio as Hermione Granger leapt deftly out of the window and landed right in front of her best friends.
"Let's go. Keep those books safe Harry, those are the only copies in Europe and they're absolutely priceless." She couldn't hide her delight at the prospect, and he could see her eyes shining in the darkness.
"If they're so priceless, why were they just left here? I can't see Bellatrix Lestrange just leaving them behind her." It was dark, and Harry was preoccupied with not falling over on the slippery grass, so he missed the withering look she shot in his direction.
"Obviously, Bellatrix and Rudolphous didn't know what they had. I told you before- Rudolphous' mother was a Perry, and the books came to her through her uncle Adler." Her tone was classic Hermione Granger know-it-all: exasperated with just the tiniest hint of disdain.
Harry could almost hear Ron rolling his eyes at Hermione, and he grinned and then winced at the pain in his chapped lips. He'd have to have Ron fix that later- Hermione would berate him for not remembering the warming charm, and he really didn't want to listen to her lecture. Again. Especially since she was right. Again.
After walking in silence for a few minutes- a rare feat when Ron and Hermione were within earshot of one another- they finally reached the outer wards of the Lestrange estate, and Hermione produced a ragged tea towel from inside her jacket. With a quickly muttered spell and a flick of her wand, the tea towel became a portkey.
"Grab on. We have sixty seconds until it activates, and I'd really rather not leave someone behind. Especially not here- this place is just a little on the creepy side." She sounded genuinely concerned, and was glancing around as she spoke.
"Just a little creepy? I swear mate, you should have seen some of the bloody stuff that was in there. I'm surprised that it wasn't all confiscated by the Aurors last time, and destroyed." Hermione snorted in response.
"Honestly Ron, it's not like the Aurors have the expertise necessary to break through the wards around all those objects. It could take weeks for a fully trained curse breaker to even get onto the grounds." She sounded somewhat smug, as Harry supposed she had the right to be. What she had said was accurate- the house and grounds were heavily warded and so many protection charms had been laid that he was almost certain he could feel the magic in the air. That being true, he couldn't help but comment anyway,
"Oh, and three weeks is nothing? That's how long we spent on it." Harry could see her blush, even as he felt the familiar pull on his naval. She had opened her mouth to retort when the world began to spin and dissolved around him.
They were back at their Headquarters (a fancy name for the dilapidated two-story house in the outskirts of Leeds that they'd bought under a pseudonym months before) for less than twenty minutes before Hermione retreated to the library (one of the upstairs rooms had been converted especially- Harry still had splinters from the bookcases he and Ron had so painstakingly put together for her) to investigate her new books. Ron had sighed, rolled his eyes again, and headed off to the kitchen to rustle up some food. Ron, of the trio, could at least be relied on to put together something edible. Harry could clearly remember his one and only attempt at making dinner. The scorch marks were still on the kitchen walls (Ron insisted they stay there as a permanent reminder that Harry should never, under any circumstances, be allowed make anything more complicated than tea and cereal) which Harry found a teeny bit offensive, really. It wasn't like he'd done it intentionally. Who knew that Muggle microwaves reacted that badly to tinfoil? And, honestly, it wasn't fair that he got blamed for blowing all the fuses in the house afterwards- Hermione had been the one to use water on an electrical fire. And they called her the brains of this operation.
Harry chuckled (if it could be called a chuckle. Ginny used to insist that it wasn't a chuckle, it was a snort, but he refused to believe that), lounging on the couch in their living room. They didn't use this room often and it showed- no spell damage to the furniture, no lingering smell of burnt hair. Usually, if they had some free time, the trio wandered into the Muggle world- eager to escape the questions of the Wizarding community and the confines of their small house- and did their best to blend in. On nights like tonight, however, when everything was finished far more quickly and far easier than expected, they were left with unexpected free time… And Harry really didn't know what to do with it. Ron was busy, so chess was out of the question and tearing Hermione away from those books would be next to impossible.
He sighed loudly- it was times like this that he really wished that Ginny was there. Shaking his head to force memories of the youngest Weasley out (or some memories in particular anyway- he had no desire to recall their last blazing row at the Burrow, the night before Bill got married, especially), he sighed again. That hadn't helped. Maybe Ron needed some help in the kitchen.