Well, back to the daily grind! Mwahahahahaha!

"Understatement"

"So, exactly…?" Zoe began, but was quickly silence with a glare from Mal as they both sat in Serenity's cockpit.

"Nothing. Happened." Mal shook his head, and sighed. "Gorram girl's still nuts…"

"Now you know that's not true in the slightest," Zoe admonished, adjusting their course slightly as Serenity approached Hogwart's moon's upper atmosphere. "Maybe nuts about you, but not crazy. Just, you know… Lacking guidance, sir."

"I do suppose the Alliance never bothered to explain the birds and bees to her," Mal mused. Zoe rolled her eyes.

"No, sir… I mean she's probably never had a crush before. She don't know what to do with it. So, she probably looks it up around her." Mal frowned.

"She's a reader, though… Why doesn't she see, that I'm, well…"

"Not interested, sir?" Zoe asked calmly. Mal nodded. Zoe smirked.

"Maybe she does, sir." Mal fairly choked at that.

"She… I… I'm not…!" Mal protested. Zoe grinned.

"Sir. Seriously. I've seen the way you look at her! Hard not to, and given all the time you two have spent together lately…"

"I'm old enough to be her father!" Mal protested. "And Inara's… Well… She… We… Er… Gose…"

"River doesn't seem to think so," Zoe said coolly. "And I reckon she's seen into how you and Inara are doin'… Or not doing, as may be the case sir." Mal groaned, and threw his head back, closing his eyes.

"… Same old, sir?" Zoe pressed. Mal sighed.

"We tried… I mean, really tried. But then, she's got another client… Emergency call from Sihon, all manner of nonsense. In our date! And she has to drop it! How many jobs have we passed up for her, hm? How many? Plenty, that's how many! And she… She won't… She can't walk away." Mal slapped his hands over his eyes.

"So… You lost your temper, said some thing you didn't mean, and she throws you out, right sir?" Zoe concluded. Mal moaned in the affirmative.

"Figured as much. She getting off on Beaumont, sir?" Mal sighed.

"No. She's coming back… She's just not speakin'."

"Is that unusual?"

"Feels different. The kind of ending, death different," Mal confessed. "River was just… Last bit 'o fuse to be lit." Zoe nodded, and stayed silent. The captain had heard her piece, knew how she thought about the situation. And like any good 2IC, she let him make the final decision. In this, she knew, she couldn't fail.

"Benched"

It wasn't so much that they had left him behind, Harry mused, as he sat up on one of the balconies of the castle and looked out over the night lit countryside. Harry understood that there were some missions he wasn't well trained enough for yet. When Zoe, Mal, and Jayne all agreed that a job was too risky for the young wizard, Harry knew better than to question them. They knew what they were talking about.

But leaving with all this awkward mess lying about… It didn't sit well with him. He sighed and shook his head. Bad enough River had tried to seduce the captain… Bad enough she'd put Harry into Hermione's bunk. Ron had taken the whole thing as some sort of betrayal of their friendship, and refused to speak to either of them, going back to the Burrow for the last two weeks of summer vacation. This hurt Harry more than anything else. He cared for Hermione, very much, but he also trusted Inara's insight: At this age, he shouldn't worry about girls. Not yet.

Besides, romance seemed to cause nothing but trouble. In his estimation, he would be better off without it-At least, he considered, until he was old enough to appreciate the good things about it.

Hermione and he had both agreed that the whole thing was no real big deal… At least, that's what he thought. Hermione had looked a little nervous when she said this, but Harry didn't quite know how to quantify it. He guessed she agreed with his assessment, that they both didn't know what romance truly was (emotionally speaking), and it wasn't something to dwell on right now. But she did look a bit… Distant? Disappointed?

Nah, he wouldn't go that far.

Ron, however… Perhaps Ron simply didn't understand. Maybe he thought the two of them were closer than they were to him. Ron was a bit jealous at times, but never like this. Was it because Hermione was a girl? Harry honestly could not detect a real difference. An emotional one, he supposed.

"Gorramit," he muttered under his breath. All this twisting and turning of thoughts in his head wouldn't get him any closer to a solution. And it was well past his usual sleeping time. He scooted himself off the balcony and swung back into his dormitory, bedding down and hoping to fall asleep.

"Warming"

Hermione sighed and put her textbook back in its place next to her dormitory bed. Since she was the only one here, she didn't really have to worry about keeping things neat and tidy, but she did out of habit, if nothing else.

"Bun Ron," she muttered. That Ron! God, he was such a child! Hadn't he heard about River's antics? What exactly did he think was going on between her and Harry? They were all bloody friends, after all! Friends! They didn't need to quarrel over each other did they?

She entertained the notion that Ron had a crush on her… But shook her head. She doubted it a lot. Why exactly would he be attracted to her?

More likely, she was someone he thought of as a member of his family… And seeing your brother and sister in an "intimate" embrace would probably set anyone off. Poor Ron… It would probably have been about as traumatic as seeing your parents… together.

Hermione shuddered at that mental image, and resolved to go to sleep that moment to hopefully not dream about such things.

"Snug"

Ron, not prone to musing about the intricacies of a person's interpersonal relationships, was fast asleep at home. He'd been fuming for a while before he fell asleep, but had the strangest dream about a snake that resembled Harry and a fox resembling Hermione inviting him to raid the local farm. He, being a rabbit, replied happily and came along, eating to his heart's content of the carrots and cabbage in the gardens. Alas, the farmer was alert by a rat (that resembled Scabbers), and came out with a pitchfork, causing the three friends to run. They were protected by a huge black dog and wolf, but only after Harry the snake had done something… Which he missed because he woke up.

Shaking his head at the bizarre dream, Ron decided to head back to Hogwarts and try to mend things between himself, Harry, and Hermione. It wasn't their fault that River was completely mental, right? And he had been a bit of a prat.

Shame this sensitivity he possessed would be trampled over in the years to come by raging hormones and near-death experiences…

45 left to go. R&R!

And no, I'm not bashing Ron. It's just an observation of how he's been as he's entered his teenaged years. More than likely, he'll grow out of this phase of being a twit (as seen most recently in Book 6) and become sensible once more. It's not Ron-Just puberty.

But anyway… Dumbledore and the operative discuss recent events next time! Dumbledore fans, beware!