II

Between two Tuesdays…

With a deep breath she gathered the substantial willpower necessary for overcoming her reluctance to enter the one room in all of Hogwarts that she had the least desire to be in – ignoring the existence of anything even remotely related to Slytherin, or Mr. Filch. Then she knocked, three times in quick succession. With a delay Hermione could not help but deem deliberate and artificial, the only voice that by its oscillating sound alone could make her roll her eyes eventually bade her enter, even from behind a solid door exuding an air of grave importance. And with her mind fully focused on her set objective, she did.

"Miss Granger," the haggard woman greeted her from behind her desk, the apparent surprise in her eyes magnified tenfold by her comically large, horn-rimmed spectacles. "If I had not been aware of the omens of your forthcoming arrival, I might have said that you are just about the last person I would have expected to ever see again in these halls of providence so woefully alien to you."

Hermione swallowed back the bile, hoping she would not suffocate on it. The stagnant air in the cramped room and the heavy, pungent odor of a dozen ill-mixing aromas didn't exactly help, either. "Yes, indeed," she replied forcedly, her eyes briefly lingering on a selection of tattered dreamcatchers dangling from the ceiling. "And I guarantee you I would not be here if it were not an imperative necessity. I… I know we've had our differences in the past, but I implore you to indulge me." She paused and dropped her head, diffidently fiddled around with her fingers and then looked back up at the ever-flustered woman. "Help me Professor Trelawney, you are my only hope."

The Professor was visibly flummoxed to see young Miss Granger so distressed and nervously readjusted her glasses a little, her fingers shaking so much the result ended up less orderly than the outset had been. "My dear child," she thinly exhaled. "Of course, of course. Please, have a seat."

Hermione sat down on the single, flamboyantly cushioned chair in front of Professor Trelawney's cluttered desk. Apart from its unconventional color scheme it was just an ordinary chair. Nothing Hermione would ever consider scheduling her timed relaxation on.

"Now, my dear," Professor Trelawney caringly spoke as her restless fingers flittered across the numerous utensils on the tabletop, "let us pretend that I know nothing of your reasons for seeking me out, so that you may speak your mind freely and naturally."

Once again it took Hermione some considerable effort to refrain from challenging the woman to reveal to her those very reasons she was claiming to be so aware of, but she withstood the temptation. This was not the time to pick a fight with the perpetually unarmed. And so instead Hermione exhaled an unsteady sigh through trembling nostrils, her eyelids nervously aflutter.

"It's… it's about Harry, Professor," she finally cast the fishing rod. As per Hermione's expectation, the name alone was irresistible bait to the alleged seer of Hogwarts. So far, so easy.

"Harry Potter, yes?" Professor Trelawney eagerly inquired, leaning forward in her creaking chair. Hermione confirmed with a weak nod, her eyes averted. "Oh, that poor boy. The Fates must be capricious indeed to burden such an innocent little soul so heavily. Alas, the black shadow of doom is his constant companion, trailing him voraciously on every step, looming over him like a shapeless harbinger of—"

"Yes, yes," Hermione impatiently cut in, "looming all over the place." The Professor was flustered – more than she generally was, that is – at the interruption, and Hermione quickly realized her misstep, put her demeanor back into place and demurely continued with regained gravitas, "Forgive me, Professor, but even to speak of it saddens my heart to the point of being unbearable."

It took the older woman a second to collect herself and contain her irritation. "Why, of course it does. The mistake is fully mine, my dear. Those few of us blessed with the gift of clairvoyance at times forget ourselves amongst the more mundanely-minded, speaking all too freely of things that may be too much to take for the uninitiated."

"Understandably so," Hermione soberly – if somewhat ambiguously – replied despite that unpleasant feeling seething somewhere in the pit of her stomach. "Now, as for Harry… oh, I couldn't speak of this to anyone but you, Professor."

"Go on, go on."

Hermione took a deep breath, building up some suspense. "It's just that… I cannot shake off this feeling that I have, you see? Like a great disturbance in the Force—the qi, the chakra, the feng shui! Uh… the fabric of magic, I mean. It's well-nigh impossible to describe for a hopeless layman such as myself. It's a sense of disquiet and of dread… vague and nebulous, yet so intense at the same time."

The woman behind the desk eagerly nodded her onward. "I don't know what it is, but I have a bad feeling about this, Professor Trelawney. It's like I can feel that Harry is about to lose something that is very dear to him, and that no matter how fast he runs he'll never get there in time. Now, we both know that the gift of the Sight has so regrettably eluded me, and maybe that's why I can't make sense of these strange and unfamiliar but indubitably real sensations. But I'm scared, and I need your help."

"Clearly, my dear," the Professor agreed, her forehead wrinkled with concern. "Most clearly."

"Will you take a look at—or rather, into him, then?" Hermione asked her pleadingly, her eyes beseeching. There were almost tears. "Will you look where no one else can look and see what forever remains shrouded in darkness to the ordinary rest of us?"

Professor Trelawney seemed to be at a loss for words, though the reasons for that may have been manifold. Her twitchy eyes portended impending vocal activity. "This is not a matter of choice, Miss Granger, but one of obligation," she told her solemnly, her right hand hovering shakily in the air for some obscure reason. "Those few of us endowed with the Third Eye should never forget that for all our spiritual preeminence, we are but servants to the common people whenever they call upon us in their times of need."

Nodding slowly Hermione once more swallowed hard, forcing a potential fit of rage back into internal suppression. Professor Trelawney naturally misread her body language completely. "Now, now, my dear," she offered encouragement. "Rest assured, we will shed light into the darkness. You may send Mr. Potter to me at any time."

Hermione shook her head. "I fear that would be a rather futile undertaking. You know how he gets whenever someone shows concern for his wellbeing. It's hard enough to get him to the hospital wing when he's in some sort of actua-uh-physical pain, and if I were to approach him about this particular matter he would probably not even believe me, if you can believe that."

"Ah, yes," Professor Trelawney answered. "Frankly, though, your vague insights into the multifarious world of premonition certainly come as a surprise at this point in your life. To the uninitiated, I mean. Personally, I had my suspicions, of course. Perhaps not all hope is yet lost in your case after all."

"Mh," Hermione equivocated with almost painfully pinched lips. "Well, I was thinking more of an old-fashioned opportunistic kind of approach, if you will. Instead of calling him here out of the blue, I think it would be more advisable to take him for a personal and very thorough session of palmistry or whatever you may deem purposive when he's already with you as per curriculum. You could, say, respectfully ask him to stay with you after class at the next given opportunity."

"Indeed, indeed," the professor agreed. "That is a very considerate plan, my dear. I would never deliberately expose him in front of his class mates, of course."

"Naturally," the student soberly uttered in affirmation. "You know better than anyone that Divination is not a matter of showmanship."

"Well, yes. Yes, I do," Professor Trelawney proudly concurred. "I believe I'll have Mr. Potter again… on Tuesday, if I'm not mistaken."

Hermione smiled the sweetest of smiles. "Oh, I believe you are not."

~•~

Tuesday, consequentially…

Harry was almost livid enough to punch his way through the portrait of the Fat Lady, or just as well the wall next to it. What made him seriously consider that potentially ill-advised course of action, however, was the part of his anger that was directed at no one but himself, which may just have been most of it. How could he have been so clueless? How could it have taken him so long to even suspect what was going on? A spontaneous session of palm reading for the sake of his protection? In private? Yeah, right!

He was already trying his hardest to forget that he had been stupid enough to approach that uninviting chair at her round table, semi-consciously intending to actually sit down and deliver himself to Professor Trelawney's face to face codswallop. And only then, when the woman had told him how terribly concerned his poor girlfriend – girlfriend! – was for his wellbeing, had it finally clicked, and he had legged it straight out of there without so much as another word.

Far too late, of course. At least of that much he had immediately been aware enough, and so instead of rushing the whole way back like a bat out of hell and therewith making an even bigger fool of himself, he had instead stomped through the corridors with steps so heavy they would have suited Hagrid a lot better than his scrawny physique. Incessantly shaking his head throughout his angry march, he had almost suffered a minor case of whiplash by the time he arrived back in Gryffindor Tower.

He stepped inside with furious purpose, acquired his target and marched onward. Stopping right in front of the expectedly occupied armchair, he stemmed his hands into his hips and glowered at the oh so innocently grinning occupant, her immaculate innocence further underlined by the purring ball of cat in her lap.

"Don't you just love it when a plan comes together?" she rhetorically asked, unabashedly gleeful.

Harry deadpanned the response. "Just precious."

She tapped a fingertip against her chin. "Granted, it's probably not quite as glorious when it's not your own plan—"

"Do you have any idea what you've put me through, lady?"

"The fact that you're here already indicates that it can't have been enough to warrant much complaint," she retorted blithely.

"Do you have any idea what you could've put me through?" Harry rephrased right away. "She was ready to do the full palm reading routine, for crying out loud!"

"Aw, she even went with my random suggestion? How adorable. She truly has no idea what she's doing, does she? If that woman had worked for NASA in the sixties, the moon would've landed on us."

Harry inhaled as if to reply, yet nothing came of it at first. Instead, he simply gaped at her for a moment of speechless consternation. "I had no idea you could be so devilishly devious."

"Underestimating your opponent is a short route to defeat."

"I wasn't underestimating your abilities," Harry gave back. "I'm questioning your methods."

A snort was all the answer she deemed pertinent, which prompted him to exhale an elongated sigh.

"Don't you think we've taken this a little too far?"

"Sure," she said in monosyllabic sarcasm. "The moment I'm back on top after completely outmaneuvering you and your unfair advantages we claim some arbitrary moral high ground and play the victim card."

"I—I'm not playing any cards," was his first line of defense. "It's just… that poor woman…"

"Oh, please!" Hermione exclaimed. "I'm all too aware of the things that barmy old hag keeps saying about me behind my back, and how I've basically become her all-purpose scapegoat for every calamity in the world ever since I left that absurd class of hers. I have a very reliable source too, you know? Namely, you."

"Great," said Harry, rather deflated. "So now it's my fault?"

"I didn't mean to insinuate anything of the sort," she calmly stated. "I'll willingly and gladly take all the blame for pulling some strings above the dear Professor's clueless little head and for making her feel like the super special snowflake she yearns so much to be. For the execution of poetic justice, I stand guilty as charged and thus justly convicted. I'd like a cell with a view for my life at Azkaban, please."

Even as he shook his head he could not at all avoid the smile that simultaneously insisted on curling up his mouth. Where had all that anger gone so quickly – and what had it wanted, anyway?

"At any rate," he said, "maybe this is nevertheless a good time to end this little game of armchairs. Not that I haven't enjoyed it, but at this rate you'll have taken over the school by the end of the year."

Hermione lowered her gaze at that, quietly following the motion of her hand through Crookshank's thick orange fur. "If that's what you want, sure," she eventually spoke. "Ending the game, I mean. Not my quest for world domination. It's only understandable that you'd wish to forfeit in the face of this crushing defeat. For your sake, although with a heavy heart, I will accept being declared the winner."

"Wait, what?"

She looked back up at him. "I'm two to one in the lead."

Harry's most prominently scarred forehead showed crinkles of puzzlement at that. "No, you're not," he objected after a moment of inner recapitulation, years of studying the deepest intricacies of mathematics finally coming to fruition. He used his fingers, too. "We're tied at two."

Hermione's brow at once mimicked his. "Then you aren't counting right."

"How much room for miscounting can there possibly be between one and two?"

"There's an infinite amount of numbers between one and two," answered Hermione. "I'd call that room enough."

"But," said Harry, and for an idle moment that seemed to be all. Meanwhile, his cerebrum wondered what his larynx was doing – or maybe it was the other way around. He shook himself. "We're still tied."

Hermione seemed unfazed. "Beginning from what point in time are you counting?"

"Three weeks ago, of course," he expounded. "The first time I disrupted your routine relaxation by being here before you."

"But the game only started officially after that."

"Officially?"

"Well," she mumbled, her voice growing a bit meek all of a sudden as she returned her attention back to the languorous cat sprawled across her lap. "When I said so."

"Oh, come on!" Harry protested energetically. "That's like saying a game of Quidditch only officially starts after one of the teams has scored the first goal and the other one is like, 'Hey, whoa, what's that all about, fellas? You wanna play, or what? Oh, we're gonna play!'"

Hermione considered that for a moment, and Harry fully expected her to continue picking his argument apart, since – as even he was aware – the analogy didn't fully hold up to scrutiny.

"Fine," she said instead, much to his subsequent surprise. "But I won't agree to leave it at this. A tie is completely unsatisfactory."

"Meaning what, exactly?"

"Meaning that we need some sort of a tiebreaker."

Harry pondered that for a couple of seconds. "You mean… like an epic pillow fight?"

Hermione grimaced at the silliness of the idea, though the conspicuously hopeful tone in his voice didn't fail to intrigue her as much as it amused her.

"Not quite," she was sorry to disappoint him. "I was thinking more along the lines of that thing they had during that big football kerfuffle back in June."

"What thing?"

"That thing they did to make sure there's always a winner."

"A Golden Goal?"

"Exactly," she replied, pleased. "It happened in the final too, didn't it? I'm sure I read it in a paper once, at a cursory glance."

Harry's eyes darkened. "Yes," he grimly muttered. "Bloody Germans scored it…"

"Ah, yes," an uncommonly oblivious Hermione replied. "Wonderful!"

He pursed his lips, not quite partaking of her enthusiasm. "After kicking out England, Hermione…"

"Oh," she said in the manner of someone who almost forgot their keys before leaving the house on an altogether pleasant day. "Well, I suppose it's all relative. Anyway, that's what we'll do. One last round, basically. The winner of which will be crowned winner of the game itself."

"And thereby earning—"

"The irrefutable armchair prerogative, of course."

"Very well," Harry gave his consent. "Next week, then. Same place, same time. Winner takes it all."

"Loser's standing small," added Hermione, which was the closest thing to a Swedish proverb she knew.

"They won't be sitting down, that's for sure."

"Indeed, he won't."

Harry narrowed his eyes at her, but already she giggled into a cupped hand in so endearingly a fashion that the daggers he had intended to look at her turned into chocolate frogs instead as his scowl vanished in favor of a brightening smile.

"It won't count if you just keep your delectable butt cheeks planted there for the whole week, though," he then impressed on her, raising an admonitory finger.

"Well, where would you prefer for my butt cheeks to be, then?" Also, what had he just called them?

"Uuuuh," it came from Harry's throat quite stupidly, his eyes momentarily glazed over.

A stroke of crimson spread rapidly on Hermione's cheeks. The ones that were part of her face, that is. Abruptly she stood erect in unconscious disregard for the unsuspecting cat that was all but catapulted straight from her lap and that in consequence complained most stridently. By the looks of it Hermione was as flummoxed to suddenly be standing there as Crookshanks had been at being hurled through the air without any sort of forewarning, which would at the very least have been the polite thing to do.

"My ten minutes are up," she blurted out.

"Right," said Harry, having some presence of mind to regain. "So now would be the time for…"

"Stuff," she said. "And things."

"Right."

And so it was that stuff and things were indeed done that Tuesday afternoon, none of which directly involved cheeks of any kind or quality.

Seriously, though. What had he called them?

~•~

The Tuesday to define all Tuesdays, maybe…

One day Hermione surely would in hindsight wonder whether her Muggle Studies class of that particular day had been the one hour of her academic life of which she had the least bit of recollection, provided that she would even remember enough of it to have something to wonder about in the first place. Her notes were as sparse as her nervous glances at her watch were frequent. Already she had discussed with the once more slightly befuddled Professor Burbage her intention – her unquestionable need, that is – to leave class early. Again. Just this one last time and then nevermore. It was, after all, of paramount importance.

For Harry, Divination was business as usual: an exercise in endurance and a test of fortitude against an unremitting assault of nonsense and corresponding boredom. If prior to this day he had thought that Professor Trelawney's class would eventually proof useful to him insofar as it would teach him how to reliably sleep with his eyes open, today the additional adversaries of tension and impatience made the otherwise familiar undertaking all the more challenging.

Three minutes. That was all she had asked for and exactly what she and Harry had agreed on. No more schemes and tricks and subterfuge. Just an old-fashioned race for the decisive win. It didn't exactly cater to her preferred set of skills, but so be it. Three minutes would be all she needed. The armchair was practically hers, as it should be. The last sixty seconds she watched ticking by almost as if hypnotized, her heart beating nearly twice as fast as the clock's lazy second hand was moving on its constant course. Her bag had long been packed, now was shouldered. Three, two, one…

"Where are you off to?" Hannah Abbott confusedly asked her on the quiet.

Already Hermione was standing on her feet, feeling the sudden and entirely unbidden attention of every last pair of eyes on her. Apparently, standing in the aisle in the middle of a class room with the lesson still underway was not as clandestine a thing to do as one might have thought. It had all gone a little more smoothly two weeks earlier.

She straightened the front of her blouse a little, avoiding eye-contact, then almost inaudibly cleared her throat a little. "I'm afraid I have some very important business to attend to."

And with that she turned and – eyes kept strictly on the ground – headed straight for the exit, her stride quick and purposeful yet not too hasty. As soon as the door fell shut behind her, however, she instantly broke into a run, and she ran as if her life depended on it. Or maybe just an Olympic medal.

Thirty seconds now. She would already be dashing through the hallways like crazy, because – truth be told – that's exactly what they both were being. No excuses on that front. They had agreed she would get a headstart of exactly one minute to compensate for her longer route back to Gryffindor Tower. It was fine. No problem at all. He was almost a respectable four inches taller than her. He was surprised sometimes at how much leg could fit into so small a person, but still – they had to be shorter than his, right? Certainly nicer to look at than his hairy bones. A lot. But he was faster, at any rate. Two minutes would suffice. He could already feel the welcoming embrace of his designated suede podium.

It was about ten seconds before the two-minute mark that he realized one tiny hindrance on his road to certain victory: he had completely neglected to think of how exactly he would go about leaving class early. Three, two, one… he looked up from his watch with his eyes as round as Professor Trelawney's tellingly murky crystal ball, his brain remaining frozen in a moment of general uselessness for three more costly seconds.

He shot up from his seat as if stung by a bee, the sudden sound of his chair scratching loudly over the wooden floor boards drawing all attention of the esoterically sedated crowd with immediate effect. He held his breath.

"The horror, the horror!" he then burst out, giving everybody in the circular room another mighty jolt. "Darkness falls!" He aimlessly raised his hands into the air. "The end is nigh!" His gaze was distant. "All our yesterdays have lighted fools the way to dusty death! Out, out, brief candle! Fly, you fools!"

And then he bolted straight for the trap door and down the winding stairs, while after a moment of dumbstruck stupor a positively swamped Sybill Trelawney marked down an O for Outstanding on her parchments next to the name of Harry Potter with trembling fingers, her heart all aflutter.

Up, up and up the stairs and straight through the corridor, her rapid footsteps echoing constantly from wall to wall as an incessant reminder of her reckless yet inarguably exciting rule-breaking. She had avoided the infamous vicissitude of the moving staircase, for although it could in theory be the fastest route to her destination one had to get really lucky for that to actually work out. And luck was something that Hermione Granger refused to rely on. Her minor detour statistically was the more dependable and therefore better choice. It would all work out according to plan.

Down, down and down the stairs and past the high-arching windows, dashing through the rays of golden daylight. What a nice day indeed, he thought. Maybe Hermione would like to go for a walk along the lakeshore later today. That is, if she wouldn't be too grumpy after losing her armchair entitlement to him, of course. What could he do to cheer her up, anyway? Surely she wouldn't be angry at him in earnest? He'd be winning fair and square, right? Did he really have to win, though? And would Hermione be angrier at him for deliberately letting her win? She'd see right through it, wouldn't she? She always did. And if in matters of competition there was one thing she hated more than losing it was winning at her opponent's clemency. No, he would give it his all. And then maybe go for a hug afterwards.

He swiftly cut the last corner with the confidence of a self-appointed if somewhat absentminded victor and then abruptly came to a full stop, not quite believing what his pupils dilated to behold. There, a couple of meters away and directly opposite of him, stood Hermione transfixed to the spot, in posture and expression a mirror image of Harry himself. Had his mind idled so much that his legs had followed suit? This was not supposed to happen!

Seconds passed in absolute silence as they sized each other up. Then, in astounding simultaneity, their gazes slowly drifted over to where the hidden portrait hole awaited, each of them just about equally far away from it. The flustered Fat Lady's eyes went back and forth between the two, her lips slightly parted in expectance of a dark red cherry that dangled from her stubby fingers an inch away from being tasted. Never mind whether the animated occupants of portraits even possessed an actual gustatory sense.

Harry and Hermione once more locked eyes, lids narrowing. His hand gave an almost imperceptible twitch. She minimally readjusted her legs, like a cat preparing to pounce. It was a bit like a climactic high noon scene in one of those Wild West movies starring John Wayne or Clint Eastwood, just that it wasn't actually noon. And there was no saloon. Nor were there any guns or tobacco involved. The participants also refrained from spitting, which too was likely for the better. But still. The tension electrified the very air around them, making hair stand on end as cold shivers ran down spines. The situation was so immensely intense, in fact, that the Fat Lady – her eyes slowly wandering from one duelist to the other – thought it sensible to move the much desired cherry just a little nearer to her expectant tongue, which came crawling out over her ripe bottom lip like an adventurously inclined pink snail.

And then it happened all at once. Both Harry and Hermione leapt forward at the same time and the Fat Lady gave a start and almost rolled right off her wobbly stool, crying out in a shrill and piercing voice as she flung her dear little cherry right out of the scenery captured within the frame of her picture. Hardly had she time to regain some balance or composure when already the two possessed students were but two last steps away, both of them shouting the password at her in raucous unison, and compelled by its uncommonly emphatic sound alone the portrait swung aside with most violent force just as the Fat Lady inevitably plummeted to the marble floor and onto her ample buttocks.

"Good gracious!" the poor – albeit not poorly – painted woman cried out in dismay, her high-pitched voice reverberating in the portrait hole through which Harry and Hermione now fought their way to the finish line, battling for every inch of advantage shoulder against shoulder, and it happened as it was bound to happen in this daring entanglement of limbs as Hermione's ankle got caught between Harry's calves and she tripped and he stumbled and she gasped and he reached for her even as he himself plunged into the common room right on her heels. Her momentum spun her around in mid-air and it was all that Harry could do to bring one hand to the back of her head a second before it would have hit the ground, and he barely managed to break his own fall with his remaining hand and a leg that somehow found some footing while Hermione's clutching fingers instinctively sought support at his arms.

Feathered though her fall had therewith been, it nevertheless did not fail to take the air right out of her lungs.

"Ouch," she feebly moaned with her eyes tightly shut, luckily feeling the brunt of the impact in her bottom, which – while not even half as voluminous as the Fat Lady's counterpart – was still far more serviceable a cushion for this kind of involuntary change into a supine position than her head would have been.

"Are you alright?" Harry's worried voice reached her consciousness, and only at the sound of it and the very close proximity of its source unmistakably derived therefrom did she begin to become fully aware of the particulars of their unexpected situation.

She opened her eyes and found herself regrettably unable to avoid catching her breath at the sight of his face a mere inch away from hers, his emerald gaze full of concern under a brow intently furrowed. The only other thing she was really cognizant of was his right hand that her head still safely rested in two inches above the solid ground.

His eyes perused her, swiftly sweeping over the shapes and surfaces of her features and then down the length of her body as much as their physical closeness allowed. When they came back up to questioningly lock with hers, she gulped as she felt the heat rise to her face. At least her voice cared to join it.

"Uh-huh," she finally gave answer, breathily at first. "I'm okay, really. What about you?"

Her own hands, as she now realized, held onto his arms just below his shoulders still, and still she didn't move them. In fact, she didn't move at all and in a rather ridiculous moment thought of how she surely had to look like somebody hit by a Petrificus Totalus. It felt a bit like it, too, although something indefinable appeared to be astir somewhere in her chest, which she ignored as best she could.

"Couldn't feel any better," Harry then replied, his eyes still boring into hers and his voice strangely husky. His words seemed to hover in the air between them for a moment, their meaning vague and tempting, unwilling to take shape.

Hermione gulped again. "We're both unscathed then," she tried to steer the moment into safer climes, despite the hidden parts of her that yearned to dare the contrary. "Shall we see if we can stand up before we get a roaring audience and gossip we'll never be able to live down?"

The change that washed over Harry's face and the speed at which it did so raised more than one question in her mind, his eyes nervously breaking contact with hers as if roused from some waking dream. "Of course," he began to sputter. "Yes, sure—uh—here, let me just..."

He hastily repositioned himself, rose up and pulled her with him in one fluent motion, and at last they were both on their own two feet once more. Harry made a step away from her that may have passed as perfectly casual if it hadn't been so overtly awkward. Insecurity had replaced the riddles in his voice and the probing in his eyes, his whole demeanor bashful. Quite accordingly he cleared his throat.

"Thank you for that, by the way," she said not solely to skip all that awkwardness, and he glanced at her quizzically. "If it hadn't been for your Quidditch-quick reaction I'd most likely be set to be in Madam Pomfrey's care right about now," she explained. "Now we're still on course to get through two whole months of school without either one of us ending up in the hospital wing, which personally I'd deem a nice change of pace."

His smile contributed its part to both of them feeling a bit more at ease again. "Right," he said, rubbing the back of his neck. "We really avoided disaster by a hair's breadth there, eh? Literally, almost."

"Yeah," Hermione answered, her voice trailing off along with her thoughts. "I suppose we might've taken this a tad too far, huh?"

Harry contorted his face, scrunching up his nose, then nodded vehemently. Hermione's lips broke into a grin, then Harry's followed suit. A second later they both laughed out loud as the ridiculous dimensions of their recent behavior came unmasked at last, Hermione burying her face in both her hands and Harry shaking his head throughout. With their laughter subsiding they both ended up eyeing that unassuming piece of furniture that somehow had become the prized centerpiece of their competition.

"It is an awfully nice place to sit, though," Hermione musingly observed.

"Definitely," Harry outright concurred, and they wordlessly considered the inviting armchair for a moment longer, deep in contemplation. He threw her a sidelong glance. "I mean, it is right there…"

"Quite the waste to have come so close to a definitive conclusion," Hermione readily opined.

Harry made a vague agreeing sound. "Wouldn't be unreasonable to say we might as well finish this properly."

"It's just a couple of steps, really."

"And we've got the worst behind us, too, with that stupidly tight portrait hole," said Harry. "Now there's just another armchair, a table and a couch in the way."

"And a fireplace nearby."

"It's childproof, really."

"Exactly."

They nodded their heads in unison, then slowly turned them in like manner until their eyes met yet again…

Harry lunged forward as Hermione did the same, arms flailing here and hair swirling there. With so little space between couch and table, Harry chose to hop onto the former and make for the target from there, though his footing suffered on the soft and sagging surface. Hermione dashed past the table on the other side, barely dodging a couple of magical toys that had likely been left there on the floor by some careless first-grader who was in for some serious prefect scolding. Harry leapt off the couch and towards the four-legged goal of all their matchlessly pointless aspirations just as Hermione, thrown off balance by her impromptu evasive maneuver, made a desperate plunge for it herself.

Phomp!

Ploof!

And squished between the armrests they finally found themselves sitting there side by side, the expressions of exhilaration on their flushed faces quickly changing into miens of sober perplexity.

"This," Harry sighed, "is not how the Germans did it."

~Ω~

Footstool note

Golden Goal: The sports event referenced here is the 1996 European Football Championship. That's actual football, for American readers. Don't get me started on soccer and what you're calling football over there…

Swedish Proverb: This one's an allusion to the Swedish pop group ABBA, and more specifically their well-known song The Winner Takes It All. While I'm personally too young to have experienced them while they were still active, I do have parents. An odd bunch, those ones.

Harry's moment of (pop-)cultural clairvoyance: Verbatim references are made to Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness (or just as well Francis Ford Coppola's loose adaptation of the same, Apocalypse Now), Shakespeare's Macbeth and Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings. And to that eschatologically confused guy on the London streets with his placard on a pole. For how long has the end been nigh, now?