"Night, Harry." Ron said.
"Night, Ron." Harry replied.
It was nighttime after what had been a hard day for Ron, Dean, and Seamus as well as Hermione. That fact made Ron glad to be in bed, safe from an outburst from what he considered a volatile Harry for another night.

Suddenly, though, Ron found that he could not sleep. Every time he tried to nod off, he kept hearing a loud, sorrowful wail resonating all the way up into the dormitory.
Must be Moaning Myrtle…Ron thought, tossing and turning.
Five minutes passed. No luck.
That does it, Ron thought. I'm going to see what it's about. I wonder if Dean and Seamus want to come…
He crept as silently as he could to the side of Dean's four-poster.
"Oy, Dean—" Ron hissed.
"What?" Dean said groggily.
"Can you sleep because of that wailing?" Ron asked.
"No, I ruddy well can't." Dean replied.
"Do you want to find out what it's about?" Ron asked.
"Yeah, let's go see." Dean answered, hauling himself out of bed. "Let's just get our wands and then see if Seamus wants to come along."
Once they had gotten their wands, Ron asked Seamus the same set of questions.
"Oy, Seamus—"
"Yes?" Seamus said into his pillow.
"Can you sleep because of that wailing?"
"Certainly not."
"Do you want to find out what it's about?"
"Yeah."
"Okay, take as much time as you need. Dean's already up. Bring your wand just in case."

Soon, the three of them had crept down the stairs into the common room.
"No sign of where that crying's coming from down here." Dean said.
"You're right…sounds like it's coming from here." Ron said. He had started to move towards the stairs leading to the girls' dormitories.
"Are you sure?" Dean asked uneasily.
Seamus walked up beside Ron, stopped momentarily, and turned around to tell Dean, "I think he's right."
Dean stood there for a moment but then followed Ron up the stairs with Seamus at his heels. As they ascended, the wailing grew louder and louder until at last it peaked as they passed by a door near the top of the tower.

"Looks like we ought to look in here." Ron said. "Do you know how we can find out who it is?
"Yeah." Seamus said. "Could I get through?
Dean allowed him past. Seamus crouched to give Dean a better view, pointed his wand at the door and said quietly, "Decouvra."
The next instant, Dean bent closer to the door while Ron watched standing up. All three of their mouths were hanging open.

"My God." Seamus managed to say.
"I should have known." Ron said.
Hermione was perched on the front of her four-poster. Beside her sat Lavender, Parvarti, and Ginny. Each of the girls was in a nightdress…except Hermione.
Still in her underwear…Ron observed. I tell you what, Weasley, she'd be a real sight for sore eyes…if she wasn't crying her eyes out again. He told himself mentally to keep himself serious. He also noticed that Lavender, Parvarti, and Ginny were trying to cheer Hermione up by arguing that Harry could turn merciful. No such luck. Hermione's sobs went on and on as Ron, Dean, and Seamus could see tears cascading down her face and neck into her bra or falling onto her slender legs unless she wiped her eyes.
"Ron, let's go." Dean moaned. "I don't know how much more of this I can take. This is worse than last night!"
Neither Ron nor Seamus was in any mood to argue. Five minutes later, they were off the stairs.

The three of them only got as far as the common room before Ron spoke after soundproofing the room with some spells so that no one could hear them without entering the room and Hermione's crying didn't reach them.
"You lads, we've got to do something!" He said frantically, turning back to them. "If I didn't know any better, I'd say she's on the brink of killing herself over hurting Harry like this!"
"No, she wouldn't!" Dean said, horrorstruck.
"Or would she?" Seamus said, also looking scared.
"Oh, yeah…" Dean said, going silent as he recognized that not only might a romance be in trouble, but also a life. "What can we do to get them back together, though?" He asked half-frantically, half-helplessly.
"I dunno, Dean, but I'm not going to let this go without thinking of an answer to that!" Ron said determinedly. He began to pace the floor, thinking, I am not going to just watch what could be between Harry and Hermione die if I can help it!

"Wait a minute!" Dean exclaimed, leaping up and startling the trio. I've got an idea—Shakespeare!"
"What?" Seamus asked. Then, as comprehension dawned on him, he said, "Hang on, that might really work! I've read some of his plays!"
"Who's Shakespeare?" Ron asked, puzzled.
"William Shakespeare was probably the greatest poet and playwright—either wizard or Muggle—the world has known. He wrote these powerful scenes featuring people in situations like the one Harry and Hermione are in—with happy endings. Perhaps we could look there for a few well-chosen words to help them make up and possibly more." Dean said.
"It's certainly worth a try, Dean." Ron said, grinning weakly at him as a glimmer of hope for Harry and Hermione beginning to make itself visible again to him. "Tell you what—be ready to explain yourself in more detail this evening after dinner. Let's meet where the old D.A. room was."
"Right." Dean said.
"Nice one, Dean." Seamus said. "Now please try to be quiet when we get back to the dormitory, because Hermione left me close to the end of my rope."
"Do you think you were alone?" Dean asked.

That evening, after dinner, Ron managed to shake Harry and meet Dean and Seamus outside the Room of Requirement.
"Uh, Ron, we'd have been in the room, but we couldn't because there was no door. What's going on?"
In two minutes, Ron explained the Room of Requirement to Dean and Seamus.
"So that's how it works!" Dean and Seamus said almost together. Ron nodded.
"Right, I think I know what to do…" Dean said, and he stepped forward and began pacing up and down the hall, evidently concentrating and thinking hard.
When the door reappeared, Seamus held open the door for Ron and Dean before following them inside.

"Whoa." Dean said as he took in the surroundings.
The Room was now a large amphitheater with marble benches, a view of the night sky, and a fine, spacious wooden stage. Just below the stage in front of the first row sat a finely crafted wooden cart crammed full of Shakespeare works.
"Are you finding what you need, Dean?" Ron asked.
"Yeah. The scene that I think could help us comes out of one of his plays, Much Ado About Nothing. Let's see if I can find us some copies..." He searched the book cart for a minute and said, "Got it!" He began flipping through one of the copies, saying, "Now, Lavender said that she, Ginny, and Parvarti got Hermione to talk—or at least try to talk—" He said, correcting himself quickly, "—to Harry by letting her hear a conversation very much like a scene in here where this woman named Beatrice is told that Benedick, a man she hates, loves her, so that got me thinking that we could draw on this. Ah, yes, here's the scene…""What's it about?" Ron asked eagerly.
"It's the scene where Benedick is told that Beatrice loves him when he overhears a conversation between Don Pedro—he's the matchmaker in the story—and two of his friends, Claudio and Leonato." Dean answered, before adding, "Oh, sorry for not mentioning this earlier, but when I say that this scene could help us, I mean it could help if…"
Ron found a grin spreading over his face as he finished, "If we actually performed it?"
"You took the words right out of my mouth!" Dean said in mock anger. Returning to his normal voice, he said, "Neither of you have problems with that, do you?"
"Definitely not." Ron and Seamus said fervently together.

"Right. Let's start by tailoring this script to fit Harry and Hermione's situation. Sitting down, he pulled out his wand and quill and sat down beside one of the three rolls of parchment that had appeared onstage out of nowhere as he had spoken. "Let's certainly change 'was in love' to 'is in love' and cut out Benedick's lines stuck in the middle…"
Ron's eyes had quickly scanned his roll of parchment and to his surprise, his eyes acted as if they were trained to read Shakespearean English as well as common English. "And cut out each of Claudio's lines that resemble 'bait the hook well, this fish will bite'. We don't want him to think we're lying." Ron said.
"Good point." Dean said. "But let's leave in 'Stalk on, stalk on, the fowl sits' as my signal to continue."
It was the work of ten or fifteen minutes to edit the lines. Once that task was finished, Dean let out a sigh and said, "I wish we could copy this script quickly."
"Not a problem." Seamus said. He pulled out his wand but then said, "Hang on, have you written our names into that yet?
"Er, no." Dean said. "Do you think we should just each take a character's lines or should we do something else?"
"Let me see." Seamus said, stretching out his hand. Dean handed him the parchment script. After two minutes, he had assigned the lines. After writing their names into the script in place of Claudio's, Don Pedro's, and Leonato's names, he flicked his wand at the script's final draft and then flicked it at the other scripts, saying, "Duplicio!"
Ron and Dean picked up the other two scripts to see what had happened to them. To their astonishment, we saw that they were each exact copies of the final draft.
"Well played." Ron said, whistling and grinning at him.
"Thanks." Seamus replied. Then, anticipating what Ron and Dean would ask next, he said, "It doesn't work on library books. Call it copyrighting by charms."
"I should have known." Ron replied.
"How did you assign these lines, Seamus?" Dean asked. "I can see I've got lines from Don Pedro's and Claudio's parts…"
Seamus was prepared for that question. "I looked over that script and did think that each of us could take a role and work from there, but then I had an idea saying, 'What if we took lines based on how we reacted to this story about Harry and Hermione over the past few days?'"

Ron looked over his script. "I see what you mean. Well done."
Dean looked up as well. "Me too. Thanks, Seamus."
"You're welcome." Seamus said.
"Right, time to rehearse." Ron said. "We can't walk out of this room without being able to reel this off without scripts."
"We've got it, Ron." Dean said reassuringly.
"Yeah, don't worry about us." Seamus replied.
As it turned out, the three of them, especially Ron, rose to the occasion and had the scene nailed down to the point that they could do first-class renditions of it without scripts after just four rehearsals. Of those four, Ron had done only the first one with his script in his hand. With each successive successful trial run, Ron's confidence in their ability to actually pull off the stunt grew, and he reasoned the same was occurring with Dean and Seamus.
"…And that's all." Dean said as another classy run-through finished up. He grinned and said, "Oh, that was brilliant!"
"Any words of advice for tomorrow, O Fearless Leader?" Seamus asked.
"Yes." Ron said, chuckling slightly as Dean and Seamus gave him their attention. Ron found himself thinking, Of course I'm tense because Harry and Hermione's romance is at stake and Hermione's life could be at stake as well, but I must confess I love the opportunity to help them out and to take center stage when we have this much of a chance for success.
He grinned at Dean and Seamus and said, "I think that grassy courtyard on the 3rd floor would work as a stage. Harry and I always pass through it on our way back from the Quidditch field. I'll try to see if he wants to play some Quidditch to take his mind off matters, and I know it'll be very hard for him to refuse, so meet us at the courtyard. I'll say I want to talk to the two of you once we get there. If he decides to stay with us, we'll wait until he has to use the bathroom or something and then start. If he decides to head elsewhere, I'll give the signal to start right there. And remember, lads, as they say in those American Muggle military movies," He said, "'Failure is not an option.' Whether Hermione Jane Granger lives to become Hermione Jane Potter depends on us. Once again, brilliant job. Now let's get to bed and get some rest for tomorrow."
"Right." Dean said. "I tell you, Seamus, if we pull this off, I think we can say we pulled off the greatest dramatic performance in Hogwarts history."
"I agree." Seamus said. "I tell you, Dean, Hermione Potter does sound good, doesn't it?"