Disclaimer: Harry Potter, Ron Weasley, Hermione Granger, Severus Snape and everyone you recognise in this world belong to J. K. Rowling, who is most definitely one of the most influential and popular writers walking the earth at this moment. This work means no infringement, and no profit will be made, and believe me I will be buying any further publications that JK and Bloomsbury publish regarding Harry. Roll on Volume 5!

Title: What's up with Hermione? 1/1

Author: Bellemaine Chercoeur

Email: bellemainec@yahoo.com

Rating: PG

Summary: A midnight conversation in the Gryffindor seventh year boys' dorm room regarding "what's up with Hermione?" Strong H/S overtones. It's an attempt at a comic piece.

What's up with Hermione?

By Bellemaine Chercoeur

Bellemainec@yahoo.com

"Hey, Harry, you awake?"

"No."

"C'mon Harry, you awake or not?"

"Ron, if I were asleep I'd hardly be answering now would I?"

"I just didn't want to wake you, that's all."

"I am not even going to comment on that display of logic, Ron!"

"Sorry."

"Mumph."

"Anyway, I was thinking….."

"Do you have to? Right now? In the middle of the bloody night after Christmas?'

"This is important, Harry."

"Alright then. I'm up. I'm listening. This better be good."

"Well I was just wondering……"

…..

"Ron, I swear if you do not say something intelligent in the next five seconds I am going to come over there and thump you."

"Alright alright, keep your shirt on! I am just trying to think of the best way…… Ok. I'll say it straight out. Do you think Hermione is in love with someone?"

"Hermione?"

"Yep."

"In love?"

"Yep."

"Not that I have noticed."

"No offence, Harry, but your not noticing that someone is in love does not inspire me with confidence."

"What are you blathering about?"

"Sorry. Not my secret to tell. Anyway, Hermione, do you think she is at least romantically interested in someone?"

"Ron?"

"Yes?"

"Are you in love with Hermione?"

"Bloody hell."

"Because, if you are, I just want to say that I think you would be perfect together. You two are my best friends. All that fighting, all that teasing, I knew it was just sexual tension."

"Harry!"

"Of course, this will mean that you two will want some privacy now and again. No worries, Ron, I can take a hint, all you need to say is sorry Harry time for a snogging session."

"Shut up Harry! I am not in love with Hermione! There is no tension, sexual or otherwise between us. There will be no snogging sessions between Hermione and me!"

"Oh."

"Yeah."

"Ron, are you trying to tell me that Hermione is in love with me? Because if you are…"

"Oh for the bloody love of Merlin. I am not trying to tell you that Hermione is in love with you."

"Oh."

"So, have you given any thought to the possibility that Hermione is in love with someone?"

"Not until you mentioned it, but now that you have…."

"Exactly. Answers a lot of questions, don't you think?"

"What, like where she has been sneaking off to in the middle of the night, why she is always so tired, why she jumps whenever we ask her if she is feeling all right, why she looked like she had been crying last week even though she denied it? And why she sometimes has that dreamy expression like she is thinking of something lovely?"

"Yeah."

"I think you might be right, Ron. Hermione is in love! Who with though?"

"You are not going to like it. I had enough trouble with the concept myself, but it's the only thing that makes sense. It is the only reason I can think of why she wouldn't tell us about it. I think she is having a love affair with Draco Malfoy."

"No!"

"Yes!"

"Well, it would explain why she hasn't said anything to us, and it would explain why she was wearing that silver serpent necklace thing yesterday."

"Honestly, I don't know how either of you managed to make it to seventh year! Hermione is not seeing Draco Malfoy, Lavender is!"

"Neville, you awake?"

"No, Weasley I am sleep talking because it is so easy to sleep through all the noise you two are making. Are you both blind?"

"Well, who else would Hermione be in love with?"

"I've got a good mind to not tell you, and just let you ask her tomorrow…..sorry later this morning. Although, can I ask you to do it at breakfast, because I so want to see the look on your faces as she zaps you both with some nasty curse!"

"You know who it is, don't you Neville?"

"Course I do. Everyone knows now. A few of us suspected it before the Yule Ball yesterday, but the Mistletoe did confirm things."

"There was mistletoe? And Hermione?"

"Taliesin, how did you two ever get the reputation as saviours of Hogwarts? I know your members of the Order of the Phoenix, but even so!"

"How did you know about the Order of the Phoenix?"

"Ron, please. My parents were aurors, and my grandmother knows Professor McGonagall from her schooldays. I've known about the Order of the Phoenix since the time I was a baby; Gran told me everything about it since the time of Grindelwald. Besides, Dumbledore has been using most of the seventh years as scouts for information. We know most of what you three have been doing; how else do you think we have been covering for you with the rest of the younger ones?"

"Wow."

"Why didn't you ever ask your parents, Ron? Molly and Arthur Weasley are legendary for some of the missions they got up to!"

"My Mum and Dad?"

"Yes. Now go to sleep."

……

"Well done, Neville. You nicely diverted us from the question of who Hermione is involved with. And the mistletoe."

"Glad that you noticed!"

"Tell us!"

"Stop whining. There is no way I am going to spoil her fun. You'll find out at breakfast."

"Tell us!"

"No."

"Please?"

"No."

"Come on."

"No."

"hmsdlpfkopdgj."

'Neville, you hexed him!"

"I need sleep."

"Neville!"

"I'll hex you too Ron."

"Night Neville."

"Oh alright. Do you promise not to overreact?"

"I promise!

"MUMPH!"

"Ok. Finis incantatum. I'll give you five clues, and you will have to guess. Hermione is involved with someone from another House."

"I knew she would end up with a Ravenclaw, she is too smart for anyone else."

"He's not in Ravenclaw."

"C'mon Neville, he must be. All the Hufflepuff's are taken, except for creepy Sean Douglas who belongs in Slytherin."

"It's not Sean Douglas."

"It's not…it's not a girl is it?"

"Yes, Ron it is a girl. Obviously, it was all part of a devious plan for me to constantly refer to the person Hermione is involved with as he or him, just to hide from you the fact that the he is really a girl. Wrong. He is a male."

"Sorry."

"Try and use the brain you were born with."

"Bloody hell, Ron! He must be in Slytherin."

"I think you're right, Harry. That means only one thing."

"Yep. Our Hermione is in love with Crabbe."

"Hermione is not in love with Crabbe."

"Not Goyle!"

"Or Goyle."

"Not.."

"For pity's sake, Neville, tell them before they list everyone in Slytherin! Then we can get some sleep!"

"You know too, Seamus? Don't tell me that Harry and I are the only ones who don't know?"

"Well it certainly seems that way. Could it possibly be that Hermione did not want to tell you because she thought that you would overreact?"

"Hey, if he makes Hermione happy, that's all I care about. But, if he is in Slytherin, I don't know how you can possibly say that he would make her happy? I mean, a Slytherin?"

"Harry, try and think really really hard. Neville gave you his five clues, and all you managed to get out of it was that Hermione was definitely in love with a male from Slytherin. Now picture Hermione. Now think of Slytherin House. Who from Slytherin could possibly measure up intellectually to our Hermione? Now think even harder and try and work out why Hermione, the same Hermione who has never run from anything in her life, has not mentioned this mystery guy to you."

"Oh my."

"Congratulations Ron Weasley."

"Oh my."

"Who is it Ron?"

"Never mind, Harry. Try and get some sleep, I am sure that it will sound better in the morning."

"Ron if you do not tell me this instant who Hermione is involved with, I swear that I will set fire to your blankets."

"Itssnape."

"Huh?"

"It'ssnape."

"Come again?"

"Harry Potter, I am happy to tell you that Hermione Granger is in love with Professor Severus Snape. And by all accounts, it seems that he is in love with her as well. Seamus lock that door!"

"Now Harry put the wand down. Neville and I don't want to do anythin drastic, and Ron seems to be taking the news ok."

"That may only be because my head imploded at the thought of Hermione, Snape and mistletoe."

"Shut up Ron. Now Harry, if you think about it, it's not that bad!"

"That dirty, slimy rat bastard. He's taken advantage of her! Hermione would never get involved with a teacher, he must have used a spell of some kind. And he's a Death Eater! He's nowhere near good enough for Hermione. And, he is old enough to be her Father."

"Harry, almost every single one of those comments is beneath you."

"Don't you try and tell me that the thought of Snape touching Hermione doesn't make your skin crawl."

"For Merlin's sake, Harry, please just think about it. Yes Severus Snape was a Death Eater. I don't know why he joined them, but he did realise that what he had done was wrong. He turned back to us, do you really think that Dumbledore would not only have helped him turn double agent, but also allowed him to teach here at Hogwarts unless Snape was fundamentally a good, decent and honourable man?"

"Neville, was Snape a Death Eater?"

"Yes Seamus, he was but he turned spy against Voldemort the first time around."

"Wow, I never knew that. How did all you guys know that?"

"Dumbledore told us after Cedric was killed. And you Neville?"

"My grandmother told me. She was at the trials. Now if you don't mind, I was saying that at great personal risk Sever Snape turned spy for us, a role that he has kept up all this time. Even if he does feel guilty, and this helps him lift some of that guilt, he still did it. Harry, you and Ron have fought beside him for the last three years, you have both been working towards the same goal. He's on our side, and it's not fair to ignore everythign he has done for us. As for enchanting Hermione, don't you think that Dumbledore would have been aware of something like that? This is not the first time that a student teacher relationship has ever happened at this school, so these love affairs are always weighed carefully, not only by the two people involved but also the school itself. Hermione is one of the most mature people I know, she has always been intellectually ahead of all of us, and over the past three years we have all been forced to grow up. There is a war on you know. Yes he is older than her, but it's her choice, Harry. She was the one who threw herself at him under the mistletoe, and she was the one who announced to everyone within twenty feet that she was in love with him. The way he looked at her, I think he really loves her."

"That proves it, Hermione would never do something like that, not in public."

"Um, Harry remember the time I realised that someone was trying to kill you during the Triwizard Tournament? Hermione kissed us and cried then in public."

"That's jut because she was glad that we weren't fighting any more."

"And now she's in love. And she's happy. And you will not spoil this for her."

"Was that a threat, Seamus?"

"Oh don't be a prat Harry. Seamus is right. If Hermione is happy, surely that's all that matters."

…

"Yes I suppose it is."

"I'm glad you finally answered, I thought you might have fallen asleep."

"Yeah, yeah. I'm not happy about this. I really do not know if I am ok with this. But, so long as Hermione is happy, I'll see. And if he hurts her, I'll kill him."

"Yes, we;;. I think there may be a line of people waiting to help you with that. If it happens; at this point she seems to be deliriously happy. Just talk to her about it tomorrow, hey? Let her explain it all."

"Righto. Harry and I will talk to her, and if he has taken advantage of her, I'll smuggle a mad hippogriff inot the dungeons."

"Thanks Ron, I know we can always count on you to remain levelheaded. Now, can we all go to sleep please? Some of us would like to have had some rest tonight."

"Good night all."

"Night."

"Night."

"Thank you."

…

"Hey Seamus, you awake?"

"Just. They asleep?'

"Well Harry is."

"Yep, Ron is too."

"Neville do you really believe what you said?"

"Yes. And no. I mean, I haven't spoken to Hermione about it, but it seems right. And she looks happy."

"Yeah. They kinda…fit."

"Precisely. Hey, Seamus, what do you reckon that by the time they wake up tomorrow they will have managed to cinvnce themselves this was all some weird dream, or an early April Fool's Day joke?"

"I would not be surprised."

"Breakfast should be good. Of course, I am really looking forward to seeing their faces when they realise what that rock on Hermione's left hand really means!"

Finis.

Author's note. I needed a break, writing The Price was depressing even me. I needed fluff. I needed something different.

Please let me know what you think. Was it clear who was speaking when?