Hi folks. Thanks for the reviews and the hits and the alerts and such. It means a lot to me, which is why I'm now updating so frequently. These are ideas I've had for ages but never had the motivation to transfer into writing. Cheers, review more, receive more!

Hermione's Secret

In which Ron and Harry walk in on Hermione doing something quite…. Disturbing.

It was rather late at night.

And not just that piddling sort of late at night, where it's only 12 or so. It was so ridiculously well into the night that Harry was amazed the sun hadn't come up yet and skinned him alive for being out so late.

Ron seemed to read his mind, speeding his pace as they walked as softly through the corridors as possible. Both of them, despite the danger, could not stop smiling.

Why were they out so ridiculously late into the evening? Well, I'm not going to tell you! What do you think 7th year students get up to between the hours of 4 and 5 in the morning when not sleeping? Yeah, that narrows down the possibilities a whole hell of a lot, doesn't it?

Oh fine, you know what, I'll tell you. Between the hours of 4 and 5 in the morning, Ron and Harry were spitting wads of Drooble's Best Blowing Gum off the side of the astronomy tower. Whichever hit the ground first was the winner. Ron's superior bubbles seemed to be slowing him down, so Harry won nearly every race.

Yes, that's what they were doing. Hell, I thought I basically gave it away earlier. You thought they were what?! You people really need to get your minds out of the collective gutter; it's RON for Christ's sake!

So now, they snuck through the castle. They were no longer wee little brats, so they couldn't both fit under the cloak together, and Harry wasn't going to abandon Ron.

Sweet little bastard in'he?

They strode quickly down the hall. Both had taken off their shoes to make less noise. Their sucks were, as a result, quite filthy.

"Damn my socks are filthy," Ron whispered.

"No change from usual," Harry cut back a laugh and then grunted as Ron punched him in the arm.

"Shh, you'll wake the whole damn castle up!" Ron whispered more hoarsely.

They were just traveling past the portrait of the bowl of fruit when they heard grunting and moaning. It was coming from the Prefects Bathroom concealed behind the painting.

Harry and Ron, being the curious and hormonal 17 year olds we all know they are, stopped in their tracks.

"What do you think it is?" Ron was clueless.

Harry smacked Ron upside the head. "What do you think it is!"

"Oh… Oh! OH…" Ron gradually got the picture.

"What say you we jump through that portrait hole and see who's boffing whom, shall we?"

But then they heard something that froze them instantly. It was Hermione Granger moaning from behind that portrait hole.

"Oh yeah! Mmmm… That's the stuff!"

Harry found himself blushing. "Aww, that's disgusting! Hermione, who would have thought…"

"Say we charge in anyway?" Harry volunteered.

"On three then. One, two… three!" Ron and Harry tickled the pear at the same time and jumped through the portrait hole. What they found there surprised them even more.

Hermione on the floor, sleeves rolled up…. Covered in nicotine patches.

Well what did you suppose she was doing? Knowing you twisted people; I suspect I don't even want to know.

"What the hell are those?!" Ron yelled, having never seen them before.

"What the hell are you doing here?!" Harry also yelled.

"Why the hell are you out so late?" Hermione screamed above them all.

"I could ask you the same question!" Ron yelled back, still obviously not grasping the situation at all.

"Well… if you must know, I'm actually out early," Hermione huffed.

"What the hell are you doing here?" Harry repeated himself.

"MY QUESTION FIRST! What the hell are those…. Things stuck to your arm?!" Ron pointed in disgust.

"Those are nicotine patches," Harry explained, "They're for muggles smoking cigarettes trying to quit. The patches give you the same nicotine fix as a cigarette, but without the harmful smoking. The ideas is that you go through the patches over a long period of time, gradually getting used to having less and less nicotine every day, until you don't feel the desire at all. But clearly, something is very rotten in the State of Britain if Hermione is a smoker trying to quit," Harry stared accusingly.

"I don't smoke," Hermione replied flatly. With the initial shock over she had gone very red.

"Then why the hell are your arms covered in these patch things?" Ron bellowed. He was still lost but felt that he needed to contribute to the verbal scrutiny Harry was working.

"As you may or may not know, people dealing with stress often turn to nicotine. Well I discovered nicotine patches years ago and have since relieved my stress every morning by waking up at 4 and coating my arms in patches."

"But where do you get them?" Harry was asking, curious despite himself.

"My mum sends them every week disguised as chocolates. She says she always expected something like this to happen to me and can live with it as long as I'm not smoking cigarettes."

There was a pregnant pause. Ron felt that he should clear the air, "I don't know what to say."

"… Well how the hell else did you think I was passing History of Magic! Hundreds of milligrams of nicotine are the only thing that could possibly keep anyone awake in that class."

Harry, looking at his watch, realized that the sun would be coming up very soon, and decided that they should get the hell out of there.

They had just reached the portrait of the Fat Lady. After an obnoxious amount of arduous bantering back and forth, they finally were permitted entrance, but not after being warned several dozen times that next time trying to force entrance with their combined 16 stone body weight would not get them through.

After finally making it into the Portrait hole as quietly as possible, they snuck up to their beds and swore that they would never tell another soul about the madness that had entailed between the hours of 4 and 5.

Fin. A bit of a long one, but this is an idea I've had for AGES. Drop me a review if you like it, or if you don't, or if you like cookies, etc.