AUTHOR'S NOTE: Hi again. I know, I know… my updates aren't very frequent. Please forgive me, I happen to be slow by nature. Anyway, here's part three. Hope you'll enjoy it. And, by the way, I have no idea if Madame Pomfrey is plump, but to me it feels like she is, so let's just pretend that that's the case.

DISCLAIMER: See previous installment.

Part 3

~Snowblind~

Hermione came back to consciousness just in time to hear the final words of an argument.

"I assure you, Mr. Weasley, it's nothing dangerous."

"You can't make me drink it."

"It's for your own good. You'd do well to just drink it now and be done with it. True, it may taste a little funny..."

"A little funny my arse. It bloody smells like vomit."

"Mr. Weasley! If you don't wish for me make up a reason for you to stay here 'til summer, I suggest you do as I say and drink up!"

A spluttering was heard, followed by the sound of someone making retching noises. Hermione stirred and opened her eyes. Everything around her was bright white. She blinked a few times and was soon able to make out her surroundings.

She was lying in a broad, comfortable bed with sheets white enough to make her snow-blind. On each side of the bed stood a folding screen (white, of course) and next to her there was a metal trolley with all sorts of medical instruments.

Hospital wing, she concluded. She knew this place all too well, having ended up here quite a few times after her, Ron's and Harry's adventures.

She didn't have time to feel grateful for not being dead before Madame Pomfrey appeared at the end of her bed.

"Oh, hello dear, I see you're awake," she said with a friendly smile. "I'm just going to give you a little something to get warm."

She handed Hermione a small glass filled with a fizzy, dark-green liquid. It did, indeed, smell like vomit. But, knowing what Madame Pomfrey must've gone through with Ron, she decided to be obliging and emptied the entire contents of the glass into her mouth at once.

Had it not been for the sheer shock of tasting something so utterly horrid, she would probably have spat it all right out again. Instead she swallowed on reflex and sat panting from the mere strain of having something so disgusting travel down her throat.

The liquid set to work immediately. A tiny ball of warmth formed in her middle, and grew larger and larger, reaching through her flesh and all the way out to her skin. Astonished at obtaining such a pleasant effect from drinking something so vile, Hermione looked up at Madame Pomfrey.

"Very good, dear," the plump woman said to her warmly. "Your friend, Mr. Weasley, was not quite as co-operative," she added with a frown before disappearing.

Ron! She remembered having heard his voice earlier, although barely registering it. Where was he?

"Ron?" she called out softly.

The answer came after a moment. "Yeah?"

His voice didn't sound very distant, he seemed to be in the first bed on her left. Hearing his voice caused a warmth in her stomach that Madame Pomfrey's draught could take no credit for.

"You okay?" she asked, still rather quietly, seeing as she didn't want to disturb any other possible patients.

"Apart from being forced to drink that ruddy awful medicine, then, yeah, I'm alright."

"Honestly, Ron, it was for your own good." Hermione just couldn't resist scolding him a bit.

"Oh, really? My own good? I thought I was going to lose my insides retching, but if that's my own good, then..."

"It wouldn't have been so bad if you'd just swallowed it quickly, as Madame Pomfrey told you to. That's what I did and I didn't feel sick." Well, not for long anyway, she added mentally.

"Suck-up," Ron muttered. Hermione rolled her eyes and shook her head. Here they were in the hospital wing, having narrowly escaped with their lives after falling through the ice, and they'd already managed to start bickering. She decided to change subjects before the argument would get any more heated.

"So who got us up, anyway?" she asked. She wasn't just steering clear of a fight, she truly wanted to know. There hadn't been anybody close by when they fell in.

"Dunno," Ron said. "But apparently we were both out cold – no pun intended – when we arrived here."

"What time is it now?"

Pause. "Six-thirty."

"That means I've been unconscious for more than five hours!"

"It also means everybody's most likely having dinner right now. Don't we get anything to eat?"

Hermione found that she too was rather hungry. She hadn't eaten anything proper since breakfast (that cup of hot chocolate at lunch hardly counted as a proper meal) and suddenly she wished she was down in the Great Hall, seated at the Gryffindor table and being served tray after tray of delicious food…

"Um, Hermione?" Ron's voice came tentatively, interrupting her thoughts of food.

"Yes?"

"You alright? I mean, how are you feeling? I never asked you earlier."

Once again her stomach went warm and she squeezed her eyes shut with a smile. Gathering herself, she spoke.

"I'm fine, Ron." Then she added, without thinking: "Thanks for asking."

She mentally kicked herself. Thanks for asking?! Thanks for asking?! She made it sound as if it were some sort of privilege to be asked how she was feeling. In a way it was, seeing as Ron didn't exactly throw words of concern about him where he walked, but need she always sound so stupid? She shook her head at herself, her cheeks burning.

But Ron didn't seem to have thought her words odd.

"That was pretty cold water we were in," he stated. "Madame Pomfrey said it was below zero."

Hermione detected a hint of pride in his voice as he dispensed this information.

"Really?" she said lamely, at loss of an interesting comment. But he didn't seem to mind. Instead he continued, just as proudly.

"Apparently I narrowly escaped with my toes intact. A few more minutes in the water and I would've had to buy shoes two sizes smaller than the ones I have now."

The mental image of a toe-less Ron struggling to maintain his balance sent Hermione off into giggles, which soon escalated into full-scale laughter. "Oh, so you think it's funny, do you?" he said, but he too was laughing.

"But they're alright now?" Hermione managed to get out, in between laughs. "Your toes?"

"I'm not sure. I haven't had a chance to talk to them yet."

It was a cheap joke, but it didn't matter. Hermione laughed just as hard. Tears were streaming down her face and her stomach was in cramp.

"Ow, ow, ow," she managed, clutching her middle, but still laughing. In a flash, Madame Pomfrey appeared at her bed, looking worried. When seeing the cause of her patient's declaration of pain, she frowned.

"I see you're suffering greatly, miss Granger."

"Oh yes, immensely," Hermione panted. She heard Ron erupt into laughter again from behind the folding screen.

Madame Pomfrey's slightly annoyed expression helped Hermione to compose herself. "Sorry," she said, looking ashamed. "We didn't mean to disturb the other patients."

Madame Pomfrey's face softened. "It's quite alright, miss Granger. And don't worry about disturbing the other patients. There aren't any, besides the two of you."

She turned to leave, but a thought popped into Hermione's head at that moment.

"Madame Pomfrey?"

"Yes, dear?"

Hermione glanced to her left. "Is it alright if…" She trailed off, realising that the end of that sentence wouldn't sound as casual spoken out loud as it had in her head. Embarrassed, she shifted her gaze to her hands, lying on her lap. But Madame Pomfrey saved her.

"Would you like me to remove the folding screen?" she asked kindly. Hermione nodded, unable to look her in the eye when doing so.

Less than a minute later, the screen was gone and she turned to look at Ron. He was looking more than a little comfortable in his hospital bed.

"Hello, there," he said, grinning. She smiled back but didn't have time to answer, because at that moment their first visitors arrived; namely Harry, Ginny, Fred and George. Both Hermione and Ron were delighted to see them and they started bombarding their friends with questions about what had happened after the accident. Apparently it'd been Hagrid who had pulled them out and the sight of them had been quite traumatic to the other students.

"Everybody thought you were dead," Ginny informed them. "You looked like a pair of human snowmen." Hermione cleared her throat. "I mean, snow-people," Ginny quickly corrected herself.

"Yeah, the two of you caused quite a bit of excitement," George said. "This whole 'will they make it or not?'-thing had the school buzzing for hours. I must say it spiced up my day significantly."

"Anything to keep you entertained," Ron said sarcastically. "It's nice to see you were so worried about us."

"Oh, we were worried you wouldn't make it, alright," Fred said. "When Dumbledore – all thanks to you, dear brother – decided on holding that half-hour speech on security and respecting rules before we were allowed to have a single bite of food, I hoped and begged that you would've come through unharmed, so I could come up here and harm you a bit for myself. Now, luckily for you, food has a soothing effect on my temper."

"We were really worried," Ginny said, after Ron had given Fred's arm a jab. "The teachers were so secretive, they wouldn't tell us how you were doing, and it wasn't until after his speech that Dumbledore told us you were okay."

"What I'd like to know," Harry said, "is why the two of you went outside the enclosure in the first place. I mean, if it would just have been Ron, I wouldn't have been very surprised-" at this, Ron shot him a glare "-but, Hermione, you? You heard Dumbledore warn us about the thin ice, and still you went out there. I mean, there must've been a pretty good reason."

"There was a good reason," Hermione said. "Ron tripped and his wand fell out of his pocket and slid outside the fence. We had to get it back for him."

"But why didn't you just summon it with your wand?" Ginny asked her.

"Yeah, Hermione, why didn't you just summon it?" Ron asked, frowning. Hermione marvelled at how he hadn't even realised this possibility 'til now, but chose not to say anything about it.

"I couldn't," she said. "I didn't have my wand with me."

"But why ever not?" Ginny asked. "You always carry your wand. Why didn't you have it with you today?"

Hermione shrugged. "I used it yesterday while practising some of the new charms Professor Flitwick taught us last week, and I put it on my bedside table before I went to bed. I guess I just forgot to bring it with me this morning."

"You forgot?!" Ron exclaimed, and everybody stared at him, surprised. "You forgot?! You don't just forget things like that, Hermione! We could've died! Honestly!"

She was about to snap something at him about how that was rich coming from him, seeing as he was the reason they were here in the first place, and if he hadn't tripped and dropped his wand, they wouldn't be stuck here while everybody else was down in the Great Hall having dinner. But before she had time to begin, she saw he was grinning, somewhat sheepishly at that.

"Sorry, I was only joking," he said. "I just couldn't resist scolding you a bit, now that you for once have done something even remotely wrong. Which is about bloody time, I must say."

They all laughed, including Hermione, and chatted on for a while until Madame Pomfrey showed up and announced that it was time for Ron and Hermione to eat dinner. Their friends bid them goodnight and promised to come visit first thing after breakfast tomorrow morning. When they'd left, Ron and Hermione thankfully accepted the trays carrying their meals and ate under silence, neither wishing to make a pause in their eating. Ron was first to finish and excused himself to go to the bathroom. While he was gone, Hermione took the opportunity to, in between bites, ask Madame Pomfrey how long they would have to stay in the hospital wing.

"Oh, not for very long, dear," the nurse said. "As it looks now, I have every intention of letting you leave sometime after lunch tomorrow. I'd just like to keep you overnight, to see that you didn't suffer any injuries or contract anything while in the water. But that's just standard procedure. You'll most likely join the other students again tomorrow afternoon."

Pleased with this information, Hermione thanked Madame Pomfrey for the food and sat waiting for Ron to come back. When he did, he too was glad to hear that they only had to stay one night.

"I wouldn't want to be holed up here while everyone else is out enjoying his or her day off," he said. "I intend on making the most of it."

"I wonder what they'll do with the ice-skating rink," Hermione said, more to herself than to Ron. She found herself wishing, despite the ordeal they'd been through today, that they wouldn't take the rink away. She wanted it to remain where it was, so she could go out on the ice again, go skating again, because she rarely got the chance nowadays, and now that she had, she didn't want it to be taken away from her too soon.

"My guess is that, after what happened to us, they'll have Hagrid go at it with a giant sledge hammer and then together curse the day they allowed a little breeze of fun and freedom to blow its way into the corridors of Hogwart's."

"Ron!"

"Don't give me that look, I was only joking."

They fell into silence, both overcome by weariness, and after a while Madame Pomfrey came to tell them that it was about time they got some sleep, considering what a rough day they'd had. Hermione was about to ask if their five-hour-unconsciousness didn't count as sleep, but decided against it as she felt that such a question would've sounded rather rude, even coming from her. So they obediently crept under the blankets and bid each other, as well as Madame Pomfrey, goodnight. A few moments later the lights were turned out and the room was shrouded in darkness.

Hermione was surprised to find that her eyelids felt incredibly heavy, and only had time to briefly marvel at the fact that she indeed was tired despite her many hours of unconsciousness before she fell into a sleep deeper than the one she'd been in during the afternoon.

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A/N: Hmmm… I feel like an apology is in order. First it takes me an absolute eternity to update, then I reward those of you who have waited patiently for the continuation with such an eventless chapter!! I'm really sorry, but I'll try to be more exciting next time. Anyway, thanks to those of you who have taken time to read and review. I really appreciate it!!