Disclaimer: If you recognise it, it's not mine.
AN: Thanks so much to Teresina Dragonwagon and faer for reviewing. It has been pretty dark lately, so I give you a short Hermione/Ron chapter – story kind of needed a little lux at this point.
Still working on Neverland, but real life is being a complete pain and making me very non-fluffy just now.
Chapter Fifteen is coming very soon indeed, and features a very special guest . . . I think you know who. *laughs at own terrible joke, at length *
Fourteen – Fiat Lux.
Hermione sat on the edge of Ron's bed, listlessly watching him carve Die Malfoy Die into the wood of his bedside table.
"You know the house elves will repair it, don't you."
"Suits me. Then I get to do it again tomorrow."
She watched him work, his red head bent over the jagged letters. Harry was in his own room with the door shut, an arrangement approved of by all. The private rooms allocated to sixth and seventh years had never been more welcome, in her opinion.
"You shouldn't be doing that at all, anyway."
He gave her a dark look. "Going to give me a detention? You might want to explain what you were doing in my room in the first place."
"Oh, Ron," she sighed.
"Don't oh Ron me," he fired up. "I caught them again today, snogging in the third floor corridor. This might be the worst bloody day of my life."
"It's Harry I feel sorry for," she said.
"What d'you mean?"
"You didn't see Harry's face? In the old Charms room?"
"No." he said firmly. "No, I was a bit too preoccupied with the horror that was Malfoy's filthy Death Eater hands on my baby sister, thank you so very much for making me relive the memory."
She sighed again, exasperatedly. "I hate him too, but he's not a Death Eater. Professor Dumbledore said so, and he should know."
Ron moodily returned to deepening the capital M. "What about Harry, then."
"He hadn't realised he was in love with her, of course. But it was weird, almost as if he was expecting it, or something like it . . ." she added reflectively, then registered in the absence of scratching sounds that Ron was staring at her.
"What?"
"Harry's in what with her?"
For a moment they stared blankly at one another.
"You didn't know either?" Hermione asked disbelievingly.
"How did you know? I mean, that Harry's . . . how'd you know?"
"Because I have eyes?" she tried. "Honestly, Ron, it's obvious."
"Obvious in a crazy, magical land where Hermione can read minds."
She pushed him, and he pushed her back, and before they knew it they had much more interesting things to think about than Ginny Weasley's love life.