Disclaimer: Yes, I am the wonderful and talented JK Rowling who owns all these brilliantly quirky characters and settings! That's why I'm giving it all away on the internet for free!

AN: Wow, thankyou so much for everyone who reviewed the first chapter of 'Dum-Dum-Diddle'. I had only intended for it to be a one-shot, but I opened up my inbox, and there were all these wonderful reviews asking for more! And just because I love reviews, I obliged. So here it is: the second chapter of 'Dum-Dum-Diddle'.

~Ninny Weasley~

Dum Dum Diddle

Chapter the Second

The next day was a trying one for all three members of the Golden Trio. Hermione was tired, and consequently her patience with Harry and Ron was wearing thin, Ron was tired, and consequently grumpy, and Harry was tired of Ron and Hermione constantly snapping at each other, so he wasn't in the best of moods either. Harry, not being completely unaware of what was going on around him, had also realized that this constant bickering was due mainly to the fact that both Ron and Hermione fancied each other, but each were to stubborn (or in Ron's case, clueless) to tell the other. This made for a lot of tension between the two of them, and it was a rare occasion when they didn't engage in at least one screaming match every second day.

Today was no different from any other day, and since Ron and Hermione had been perfectly civil to one another yesterday, they were due for a row.

It happened when the two of them, plus Harry, were sitting in the common room together after dinner. Ron and Harry had been discussing the Chudley Cannons' chances of making it into the Quidditch Grand Final that year ("Not bloody likely, unless they get a new keeper!" Ron had exclaimed), and Hermione was leaning over a table doing her Charms homework. She was onto her fourth roll of parchment for her essay 'Engorgement Charms and their Practical Applications in Today's Wizarding Society' when Harry and Ron's conversation died down, and the two were left sitting in a comfortable silence, daydreaming about Quidditch, and other things sixteen-year-old boys daydream about.

Ron started humming absently, a low, sweet tune which made Hermione's head snap up from her Charms homework as she stared suddenly at him.

"What?" Ron had said defensively, the tips of his ears colouring as he realized that he had in fact been humming one of the songs he had heard Hermione play countless times on her violin. A song that he was most likely not supposed to know, as he was also most likely not meant to have ever heard it.

"Nothing," Hermione answered quickly, before turning her eyes back to her essay, but Ron could see that her eyes were no longer moving, nor was her quill. Surely he could have heard that song anywhere. There was absolutely no reason for her to suspect him of anything.

She looked up again, sensing the boys' eyes on her.

"What?" she asked, mimicking Ron's tone as he had said the same thing moments earlier.

"Nothing," they mimicked in unison, purely out of habit on Harry's part, and lack of something else to say on Ron's.

She continued to look back and forth between the two boys, as if trying to deduce some secret they were sharing.

"Hermione," Harry broke in, looking concerned. "Are you ok? You seem a bit… jumpy," he finished. Both boys grimaced, bracing themselves for the impending lecture. Hermione's eyes narrowed dangerously.

"Well," she began sharply. "Well I just haven't been sleeping very well lately," she finished, her face softening.

Before he could help himself, Ron snorted loudly. Hermione raised her eyebrows at him questioningly as he suddenly became very interested in his feet (which, by pure coincidence, happened to be quite interesting as they were currently wearing very large, bright orange Chudley Cannons sneakers). Then came the lecture.

"What, Ronald Weasley?" Now he knew he was in trouble. Only his mother called him Ronald, and only the Slytherins called him by his last name. Hermione must have been really irritated to use both. "Just because you never do any homework, and you neglect your Prefect's duties, and basically all you do is eat, sleep and play Quidditch, doesn't mean that the rest of us have all the time in the world to rest and do whatever the hell we like! This year is a very important year for us! All of the knowledge we learn this year is the foundation for our N.E.W.T.s next year!"

Ron tuned out after this, his mind wandering to Quidditch, and how long he had to wait for breakfast the next morning. Hermione, unfortunately for Ron, noticed the glazed look in his eyes, and unsympathetically snapped him out of his musings by further raising her (already quite loud) voice.

"Ron!" she yelled at him. "You really don't listen to a word I say, do you?!"

"Well maybe if you'd say something else apart from lecturing me I would listen!" he spat back, surprised at his own speed.

Hermione looked hurt, the glare faltering as her face dropped, only to reappear with a vengeance a second later as she recovered her guard.

"As much as I'd like to stay and continue this conversation," she said acidly, in a tone reminiscent of Draco Malfoy, "I, for one, have better things to do with my time than try to talk with someone who isn't even listening, and is hardly worth my time anyway! Like sleep!" She shot Ron one more Death-glare before scooping her parchments, books and quills into her bag, swinging it over her shoulder, and stalking off up the staircase to the girls' dorms with her nose in the air, and without so much as a backward glance at Harry or Ron, the latter of whom was currently fuming to the extent that he would have drawn blood from his palms by digging his nails into them if Harry hadn't noticed this and promptly alerted him to the matter at hand (or perhaps hands! Tee hee).

"Talk with me, will she? More like at me!" Ron said darkly, when Harry had stopped staring at the (now empty) stairway and closed his mouth.

"Perhaps you should apologise," Harry began, "In the morning, when she's had a chance to cool off." He didn't want to know what she would do to Ron if he went after her now.

"No way! She should apologise to me! I didn't do anything wrong, and she just ups and starts yelling at me! Besides, you heard her. I'm 'hardly worth her time anyway'!" He glowered at the flames dancing merrily in the grate, as though begrudging them their joviality.

Harry said nothing, fearing Ron's wrath would be turned upon him if he dared interrupt the boy's seething. He could tell that this was going to be one of Ron and Hermione's nastier altercations.

o~*~o~*~o~*~o~*~o~*~o~*~o~*~o

Breakfast the next morning came all too soon for the liking of all three members of the Trio, and only served to prove Harry's notion from the previous night to be quite true. The tension between Ron and Hermione as they sat at the breakfast table, either side of Harry, could have been cut with a knife. After about 10 minutes of enduring their attempts at making polite conversation with him, but avoiding at all costs talking to or even looking at the other one, Harry was more than sick of Ron and Hermione's company. He decided, sneakily, to leave the two of them at the mercy of each other, and leave breakfast early. He would ask the other Gryffindor Sixth year boys (namely Dean, Seamus and Neville), if anything interesting had happened after he went.

"Oi, 'Arry! Where 'oo 'oin'?" Ron yelled through a mouthful of bacon at Harry's retreating back.

"I left my wand up-stairs," he lied, knowing that Ron would accept this as the truth, and only feeling very slightly guilty about it. Ron made a face, and continued munching.

"And I suppose you have to go to the library?" he said sarcastically to Hermione after finishing his mouthful, noticing that she was getting up to leave as well.

"No," she said loftily. "I just don't want to stay here with you!" she said nonchalantly, and promptly marched off. Ron noticed that she was getting extremely good at walking around with her nose in the air, 'like she thinks she's better than the rest of us or something', he thought. He didn't know just how much his words had hurt Hermione the previous night, or that she had cried herself to sleep. He didn't know that right now, the same Hermione was in the girls' bathroom, trying not to burst into tears again.

o~*~o~*~o~*~o~*~o~*~o~*~o~*~o

AN: Well, I'm glad that worked out. Just remind me when I'm slack with posting that I always end up writing something if I just start! Thanks for reading everyone, and stay tuned for the next two chapters. I know that's only four, but it's the longest story I've done so far, and I think it's long enough.

Questions? Comments? Flames?! You know where to find me.

~Ninny Weasley~