Disclaimer: They're not mine; they're Ms. Rowling's. They just jumped into my head one day and started thrashing around. I had to let them out somehow! I can't lay claim to the idea either. I have no clue where it came from or where it's heading. I just hope it doesn't leave anytime soon.

Any similarity between this and other fics is entirely coincidental. If you see something you recognize, please let me know. I don't want to step on anyone's toes!

Thanks to my beta, She Who Must Not Be Named, and my Brit-picker, Laucia. Any mistakes here are my fault entirely!

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"Oh shit," Ron repeated.

Hermione Granger stood in the door of the dormitory. Her school robes seemed to snap around her legs as she glared at the two boys standing next to their beds. With the torches flickering behind her and highlighting the cloud of hair around her head and the expression on her face, she was terrifying. Harry looked at her wand hand nervously, certain she would hex them at any moment.

"Ronald Weasley, what do you think you're doing?" snapped Hermione. "You were supposed to meet me in the Library twenty minutes ago. Honestly! As if I have nothing better to do than wait for you all evening!"

Ron cringed, the colour slowly draining from his face. "Hermione! I was -- we were on our way up here so I could get my books and -- Harry, er, that is, Colin was in the corridor...."

Hermione didn't let him finish. She stalked into the room, shoving a finger in Ron's face. "I don't want to hear it! You -" she thumped her finger against his chest "- are never going to get a N.E.W.T. in Transfiguration if you don't study your theory. We don't have time for you to be running around mocking me!"

She whirled away, robes swirling around her as she began gathering Ron's books and shoving them into her bag. As she moved, she continued to harangue Ron, who was darting around her trying to grab his books out of her hands and stumbling over an apology.

Taking advantage of her preoccupation, Harry sidled to the door. Please please please, let me out before she turns on me too, he begged silently. Only feet away from the corridor and the sanctuary it offered, he stumbled over Trevor, who had apparently escaped from Neville. Again. He wobbled as he tried to avoid crushing the large toad and threw out his hands to catch himself. Unfortunately, his hands tangled in the velvet hangings on Dean's bed. He fell onto the floor face first, tangled in the fabric. His glasses were crooked and all he could see was a blurry brown blob. Just beyond that he could make out two dark blobs stomping menacingly towards him.

Too late.

Harry closed his eyes and clenched his stomach, waiting for Hermione to start in on him as well. Instead, he felt the curtains slowly lift away from him. Looking up, he found Ron leaning over him, a flush just beginning to rise in his cheeks. Harry straightened his glasses as he stood, glancing nervously at Hermione. She was thumping her rucksack against her leg, still staring furiously at Ron's back.

"Thanks, Ron," he muttered. Reaching for his wand, he moved past them to the centre of the room, intent on restoring the bed to its previous condition. "Cubile reparo." The velvet swished out of Ron's hands and re-hung itself neatly around the bed. Fiddling with the drape of the fabric, Harry ran through several possible scenarios and discarded each of them just as quickly. There was nothing for it; he'd just have to face her. She was standing between him and the window anyway, so he couldn't even summon his broom and escape that way.

Taking a deep breath, Harry turned around and braced himself. "Hermione. It's my fault Ron's late. We were coming up to get our books and we were ... distracted in the hallway. Colin was talking to some of his friends and he was saying some pretty nasty stuff. About Ginny."

"I thought as much," Hermione swung her gaze to Harry as she interrupted him. "I found Colin in the Common Room. He's completely frantic; he kept muttering 'I'm dead' over and over. He wouldn't listen to me at all and when Ginny came in, he jumped up and ran out through the portrait hole. He yelled something about not meaning it as he wasn't ready to die. His roommate Kieran said they'd run into you lot up here.

"What did you say to him, Ron? He's absolutely terrified. I wouldn't be surprised if he went to Professor McGonagall over this!" Hermione turned her glare on Ron again, waiting for him to answer. "Well? Have you nothing to say for yourself?"

Ron threw his hands in the air, sputtering. "It wasn't me! I didn't say two words to the prat. Talk to the Golden Boy over there, he's the one who threatened him!"

Hermione's mouth dropped open as she turned to Harry. "YOU?"

Harry exploded. "Yes, me! You should have heard what he was saying! I was just trying to get him to shut up so Ron wouldn't do something stupid." Harry's eyes hardened as he looked at her. "And to teach him a lesson about insulting girls, especially Ginny. She deserves better than to be gossiped about."

He stared hard at Hermione as though she had dared to insult Ginny. Behind her, Ron started coughing into a fist, which barely covered the grin on his face. Hermione's angry expression melted away, leaving a small smile on her lips and a twinkle in her eye. She had stopped swinging the rucksack and started to walk towards Harry.

"Oh, so you were ... defending her honour? That's very sweet of you," she said as she patted him on the arm. "I'm sure Ginny will appreciate that." She grinned up at him wickedly.

"NO!" Harry shouted. He grimaced slightly and tried to keep his voice steady as he continued. "I mean, you can't tell her what happened. She'll be devastated that Colin was talking about her like that." He was looking down into Hermione's face intently, annoyed by the twinkle in her eyes that only seemed to grow as he spoke.

Silently, Harry groaned. He should have known better than to tell her the truth. Knowing her propensity for involving herself in what she called "righteous causes", he'd be lucky if Ginny didn't know by breakfast. He backed away from her and stopped when he backed into the grate in the centre of the room. Thankfully, none of the house-elves had lit a fire that day. Hermione kept advancing.

"Oh, I don't know about that, Harry. I think the positives of the situation far outweigh the devastation she might feel," Hermione teased him as her eyes twinkled merrily. She patted his arm soothingly.

Harry started to panic. Hermione with a twinkle was somehow worse than a spitting, raging Snape: with Snape, you always knew exactly what you were in for (detention, points reduction, empty expulsion threats). With Hermione, you didn't know what was happening until it was all over and she was explaining it to you. In excruciating detail. With visual aids. And, of course, the occasional smack to the shoulder.

Seeing Harry's increasingly panicky facial contortions, Hermione laughed brightly and patted his arm one final time. "Don't worry, Sir Lancelot! She won't hear anything from me."

Leaving Harry sagging with relief against the grate in the middle of the dormitory, Hermione turned to Ron and barked, "Get a move on, Ron! I haven't got all night and neither do you. To the Library!"

Not waiting for a response, she hitched the rucksack onto her shoulders and marched to the door. She nearly knocked Neville over when he came scurrying in, calling Trevor's name. With a hasty "Sorry, Neville!" flung over her shoulder, Hermione disappeared into the corridor, her footsteps clattering along the flagstones towards the stairwell.

Ron clapped a hand to Harry's back, nearly knocking him to the floor, before quickly striding to the exit. Harry covered his face with his hands and groaned aloud. Ron's voice floated back into the room as he too disappeared into the corridor.

"Don't worry, Harry, we'll talk when I get back!"

Neville stared at Harry, his eyes wide in his round face. He clasped Trevor tightly to his chest.

"What did you do?"

"Don't even ask, Neville," Harry bit out as he stumbled to his bed. "Don't even ask."

~

Ron caught up to Hermione as she was crossing the Common Room. She gave him an annoyed look as he tried to remove the rucksack from her shoulders. They argued back and forth halfway to the Library over who should carry the books. Hermione finally relented after Ron admitted it was his fault the bag was so heavy. After all, if she hadn't had to fetch him from Gryffindor Tower, she would only have been carrying half the load.

After settling the argument, they walked the rest of the way in silence, each of them caught up in their own mental meanderings. Shortly before they reached the Library entrance, Hermione suddenly paused and turned to speak.

Ron beat her to it. "I'm sorry for what I was saying up there, Hermione."

She blinked. "How did you know I was going to talk about that?" she asked, bewildered.

"You always get a little wrinkle between your eyes when I hurt your feelings." Ron smiled sheepishly as she gaped. He continued, "You know, I actually like it when you start your 'Little Known Facts' lectures. I remember what you tell us better than what we hear in lecture."

Hermione smiled up at him, pleased by the compliment. "I wondered how you remembered the name of the city. That was more than three months ago!"

Ron leaned in close to her face before replying. "I remember everything you say, Hermione."

"Shameless flirt!" Hermione gasped as she smacked him on the shoulder. "Now let's get in there and study this Transfiguration theory. You shall not fail on my watch!"

Bowing low, Ron swept his arm towards the doors. "After you, milady."

They walked into the Library side by side, their earlier argument forgotten.

~

A/N: Wow, that was short. This was originally part of a longer chapter, but I had to cut it somewhere. This seemed as good a place as any.

Latin in this chapter: Cubile (bed) reparo (to fix). With these three, I think reparo might end up being the most useful spell of all!

Thank you so much to my reviewers, both at FF.net and in email. It's very gratifying to read such nice things, especially when they come from writers whose work I admire so much.

Now, you know you want to review, even if it's to flame me for unleashing such mindless fluff. (Believe me, I know!) You see, I just invested in a new dragonhide vest. Have to test it somehow, right? So just click that little button. Yes, that blue one on the left. Thanks!