Five to go!

Chapter Thirty-Seven

Hogsmeade Weekend

Ginny leaned down, pressing her lips to Hermione's forehead. As Romilda and Parvati looked on, the ginger-haired witch sat back, feigning a frown.

"You are a little warm," she said, tucking a lock of wild golden-brown hair behind her friend's ear. "Look, you just stay in bed and rest, but if you start feeling worse, go see—"

"Madame Pomfrey, I know, Gin." Hermione reached out from beneath her blanket to squeeze Ginny's hand. "Thanks."

Ginny squeezed back before she stood and headed to the door. "C'mon, ladies. Any longer and everyone will leave without us."

Parvati and Romilda bid Hermione goodbye, wishing her a speedy recovery as they followed Ginny out the door.

Hermione closed her eyes, counting to thirty before she kicked off her covers and climbed out of bed. She hated that she and Ginny had just fibbed to their dorm-mates, but playing sick was the simplest way to explain Hermione's sudden lack of interest in the freedom afforded by their Hogsmeade trips without raising any suspicions.

She scurried about the room getting things ready.

When Draco opened the door and slipped into the room, he found Hermione setting out text books and scrolls around her where she sat cross-legged on the floor. He wanted to think this was a joke, until she glanced over her shoulder at him as he dropped the Invisibility Cloak and she smiled sweetly at him.

He tipped his head to one side, a mildly confused scowl marring his features. "You're not serious," he said as he lowered himself to sit behind her and slipped his arms around her waist.

"You're behind on your studies, I asked Professor McGonagall if I could be permitted to catch you up on the lessons you've missed." She shifted to look at him over her shoulder. "This way, you can start back to classes as soon as this is all over, because you won't have missed anything."

His shoulders drooping a little, he bit his lip as he reached to open the first of the texts. "Granger . . . ."

She shrugged, brushing her lips against his chin. "Surprise."

"Yes, well . . . ." Draco couldn't help but grin at how happy she was presenting him this surprise. "You're lucky you've got a boyfriend who actually enjoys studying. Not s' much as you, of course, but then you're completely mad."

She feigned a scowl. "Mad, am I?"

"Hey," he said with a chuckle as he touched the tip of his nose to hers. "You are the girl who started liking me when I was still a ferret."

"Well, there was a certain charm to you not being able to speak."

Draco's jaw dropped, but any protest he might've sputtered was cut off by Hermione's smirking mouth covering his.

Ginny looked up from her butter beer, the fingers of one hand intertwined with Harry's. She sneaked a glance at a table entirely on the other side of the establishment.

Shifting in her seat, she managed just enough of a change in position that she could see the dark-haired witch and her date without being obvious.

Pansy, seated beside Aksel—feigning a smile, laughing at whatever he was saying—suddenly seemed to remember something. With an apologetic pout, she muttered a few words as she shook her head.

Scowling, he opened his hands in a questioning gesture as he responded, but she only shook her head, again.

She planted a kiss on his cheek, and then ducked out the door.

Ginny breathed a sigh of relief, her shoulders drooping as she relaxed. Turning her attention back to Harry, she said, "Finally she's gone to meet Ron. With any luck, they'll finally have this sorted."

"Do you think any of us should be there? Like to supervise?" he asked, trying not to look directly at Aksel—he could tell the other wizard was unhappy about his date vanishing on him. Pansy sure had him wrapped around her little finger, though.

He kept a careful eye on the Durmstrang student's general vicinity, however. Harry hoped he wouldn't have to think of some way to intervene if Aksel suddenly decided to tag along after her.

Ginny's ginger brows had drawn up, but she took a sip of her butter beer before answering. "Pansy and Ron are going to sort their differences. If one of them decides to kill the other one, do you really want to have to help hide the body?"

Harry bit his lip to hold in a laugh as he shook his head. "Pretty sure Pansy already has a plan for what to do with Ron's corpse if it comes to that."

She frowned, her eyes narrowing at the unspoken disparagement to her brother. "Who's to say he wouldn't be the one doing the killing?"

He responded with an eloquent lift of his brows.

Laughing in spite of herself, she nodded. He might have proved himself a fierce fighter during the War, but Ronald Weasley still held some strange idea about going easy on girls, and if Hermione had used that to her advantage in defense practice, Pansy certainly would during the real thing.

"You're right. She'd wreck him."

Pansy found him, 'round the far side of the Shrieking Shack—a place many still dreaded, and thus avoided. The view of this area was obscured by the rundown house on one side, and thickly wooded roadside on the other.

Ron leaned against the wall, looking out at the trees. His hands were stuffed in the pockets of his jeans and he drew a sigh, though he didn't turn his head to look at her as he spoke. "Here I wasn't sure you'd show."

Shrugging, she stepped up beside him and turned, leaning against the wall, as well. "I considered not, you know."

He nodded. He could hardly blame her; to say things between them were awkward was a wildly dramatic understatement. That nod led to a while of the two staring out in silence, each waiting for the other to speak first.

"I didn't like it," he finally said, swallowing hard. "You having that big, stupid Durmstrang git draped all over you like that."

"I can take care of myself, you know, Weasley."

"Yeah, I know that, Parkinson. That's hardly the point, though."

Pansy nodded, her dark eyes narrowing. "I know. And I suppose I . . . I didn't like that you didn't like it."

He remained silent, but his mouth twitched in what was almost a frown for the briefest moment.

"Okay, fine. I liked that you didn't like it." Again, she shrugged, shaking her head. "But I—I didn't like that you were upset."

Ron risked a glance at her face. Her gaze was locked on one of the nearby trees. "Thing is . . . what I really didn't like was how much I didn't like it. You're a Slytherin witch, for Merlin's sake. I'm so used to hating, well, everything about you."

She turned her head at that, searching his features. "A Slytherin witch? Is that really all you can see me as?"

Drawing one hand from his pocket, he swept the longish ends of his ginger hair from his eyes and let his arm fall at his side. "It was. Then it wasn't, and that's something I've been having trouble with."

"You seem okay with the whole Draco-Granger thing."

He smirked, one eyebrow flicking up for a second as he said, "I don't have to come to terms with that; I'm not the one dating him."

A giggle tore out of Pansy at that and she shook her head. "Oh, God! Can you imagine?"

"I'd sooner put on a dress and date Neville."

They shared a laugh at the image before another moment silence fell, albeit more comfortable than the first time.

"So, what are we going to do about . . . ?" She shook her head, her expression uncertain. "About whatever this is?"

Ron shook his head, as well, chewing his bottom lip as he thought. "No idea."

Pansy let out a sigh. After a moment, she couldn't help noticing how his arm was still hanging at his side.

He nearly jumped at the contact when she slipped her hand into his. He looked up to see she was rather determinedly staring off in the opposite direction.

A half-smile curving his lips, he let out a sigh of his own. "This is okay," he said, nodding.

Though he couldn't see her face from the angle she'd turned her head, he got the distinct impression she was grinning.