A/N: Damn, it feels good to have finished this chapter. Hope you still remember the story!

BB

Nevil eyed Hermione warily across the table, and began to wonder if he shouldn't have given her some privacy. She was staring at the parchment she was writing on as if it had done her some great personal wrong. He half expected her to jump up and curse the thing into oblivion, but she seemed to be able to resist doing that, if only barely.

Given Hermione's track record with having a bad temper, Nevil knew he would be better off letting her obvious anger cool before breaching the topic of why she was, but he couldn't bring himself to this time. Something told him she was more upset than angry, and in typical Hermione style she had sought to bury it in homework.

When the third years across the common room startled her for the fourth time with their game of exploding snap, she broke her quill. Looking like she wanted to curse, and not the kind one would use magic for, she withdrew her wand and corrected the mess with a few irritated jabs.

"Are you alright, Hermione?" Neville ventured cautiously, careful not to surprise her.

She blinked and looked up owlishly, her frustration slipping away behind her mask, "Oh, hi Neville. Yeah, I'm fine. I just broke my quill." She said unnecessarily, the large black stain still present on her fingers was difficult to miss.

Neville sighed internally and withdrew his wand to cast 'Muffliato' on the students nearby. Hermione looked at him in surprise when she recognised the incantation, which, considering where he learnt it from, made him blush a little.

"Lynn taught me the spell." He explained sheepishly.

Hermione just scowled at that. And after a few moments pause where she looked rather intensely at him, almost making him fidget, she seemed to come to a decision.

"You know Lynn pretty well don't you? I mean… you write to her over the holidays sometimes and you seem to like hanging around with her." She said haltingly.

That was not exactly the question he had expected and her hesitation only made his growing discomfort worse, but he had chosen to nip this problem in the bud before Hermione had a chance to bottle up the emotion and make life generally unpleasant for anyone around her, so he supposed he couldn't complain. He liked Hermione, but it was irrefutably better for everyone if no one experienced her in a temper.

"Not as much as you or Ron, but I guess so, yeah." He answered cautiously.

Hermione hesitated again, uncharacteristically avoiding Neville's gaze until she regained her confidence and pushed on, "Do you promise not to talk to her about this?" she asked.

Neville grimaced, he hated it when people asked him to keep things from someone. It always made him feel uncomfortable, and he'd be tiptoeing around that person for weeks on end, afraid they'd figure it out or he'd accidentally let something slip. He really wanted to tell her that he couldn't, but balancing that against the possibility of helping the two of them work something out, he was left with little choice as to what he should do.

"Within reason. If I think she should know about it then I'll tell her." He said reluctantly, watching Hermione nod in understanding and unconsciously begin to chew on her bottom lip. He'd noticed Lynn watched her a lot when she did that. It was kind of weird how spaced-out Lynn could get sometimes. But then she was descended from both the Potters and the Blacks, and Gran always said that they spawned some of the greatest and maddest of the magical community respectively. Not that he particularly thought that was a bad thing in Lynn's case.

"Lynn's lying to me about something." Hermione finally said, in little more than a whisper.

Huh. He hadn't expected something as… well, trivial. When you spent time around Lynn and got to know her well enough, extreme became the new norm, and anyone who said that was an exaggeration was kidding themselves. It seemed weird that she also had normal person problems, not just Lynn problems, but then he was probably just being silly. Anyway, Granger was looking at him expectantly.

"Have you talked to her about it?" He said quickly, if only to fill the awkward silence that settled after her confession.

Hermione's scowl answered that easily enough, "No."

"Why not?"

Hermione looked at him with an incredulous expression on her face, "Because why should I be the one to bring it up when she's the one not telling me something?"

Neville scooted back in his chair at her tone. An image flashed in his mind of him walking a tightrope and thought that the feeling was rather appropriate. He shrugged at her uncomfortably, "Remember she wasn't raised like you were. She lied a lot when she was younger because it made life easier for her and she never had to worry about offending anyone. It must be difficult to break that kind of habit."

Hermione blinked rapidly at his sudden outpouring of words, a thoughtful expression making its way slowly onto her face, "Wow, that's… really insightful Neville."

Neville's cheeks flushed with pleasure at the sincere compliment and they both sat in silence as she began to pack away her things. Clearly she didn't want to stick around any longer than she had to, now someone had noticed her mood. That or she was feeling just as uncomfortable as Neville was feeling about the whole encounter. She slung her bag over her shoulder a moment later and turned to him with a soft smile, "Thanks, for giving me something to think about."

Then she was gone, and Neville couldn't help but breathe a sigh of relief. He tugged his unfinished transfiguration essay out of his bag and gazed at it mournfully. Perhaps he should have asked her for help first.

It took Hermione a few days to calm down enough to consider broaching the topic of the book with Lynn. She still wasn't entirely on-board with the whole idea, but she had to admit that Neville was probably right. If Lynn had lied out of habit that didn't make her actions any less hurtful, but it was something, and maybe it was enough for her to be a little more patient, but like hell was she going to let it slide.

"Wait, you knew?" Lynn questioned incredulously.

The narrow passageway was dark enough that Lynn's facial features would have been difficult to make out, even if Hermione had taken the trouble to look at her. Regardless, she knew her expression just by the way she said those words; her brows would be pinched exaggeratedly, causing her nose to wrinkle in a way that Hermione had once thought cute, but recently it just irritated her to the point of irrationality.

Her anger spiked dangerously, but she managed to hold it at bay, letting out a slow breath to calm herself. She halted abruptly, pulling her wand from a pocket and tapping one of the braziers that were spaced evenly along the wall, finally turning to face Lynn. The thing had probably not been lit for decades, if not centuries, but it still burst instantly alight at her command along with its fellows, casting a flickering glow over the pair of them.

Without giving Lynn time to adjust Hermione unceremoniously wrestled the book in question right out of Lynn's bag. With a passing glance at the cover, she opened it to a page and began to read, ignoring the stunned expression on the other girl's face.

"Crush the seeds and add exactly one drop of the produced juices to the potion on every clockwise turn – Note: adding in a gram of the ground shell after leaving it to simmer will reduce sourness of the potion to more manageable levels without compromising on strength. Which, by the way, you did in yesterday's class, to my utter bewilderment.

Did you really think something this obvious would fool me?"

Lynn eyed the look of ill-concealed frustration Hermione was giving her and seemed to shrink in on herself a little, "You would remember the damn page number." Lynn mumbled miserably, reflexively avoiding Hermione's burning gaze. This only served to fuel Hermione's anger.

"Did it ever occur to you that, maybe, I wasn't trying to take away your precious book because it helped you out perform me, and was actually worried that the instructions could just as easily harm as help!?"

Lynn stayed silent and motionless, face still tilted downwards and away. While an angry Hermione wasn't new, she rarely shouted, being more inclined to glare and fume in relative silence, letting her body language make her displeasure known. And that fact did not seem to be lost on Lynn as Hermione loudly bore down on her, for once seeming to relish the height difference between them. "What would have happened if this 'Prince' had left fake recipes to deliberately hurt the person following them?" Hermione demanded harshly. "Do you have any idea how infuriating it was to tell you that I was seriously worried for your safety only for you to ignore every…"

Lynn's head snapped up and her eyes widened in horror as the other witch was forced to stop her rant mid-sentence to collect herself. Hermione swallowed thickly, averting her gaze and taking a step back, suddenly looking like she wanted to be anywhere but here.

"…even though you had every reason to suspect he was a bad person, you still chose to ignore me. Even going so far as to lie to me to get me to stop." She continued in a deceptively level tone. "I've had enough."

Hermione shoved the book back into Lynn's startled arms and made for the exit to the passage. Refusing to look back as Lynn scrambled after her. She managed to stop Hermione briefly behind the tapestry that let out onto one of the main corridors, physically blocking her with outstretched arms, pleading with her to listen, but Hermione just wanted to get away. With a flick of her wand Lynn let out a startled gasp as her glasses flew from her face to clatter to the stone floor, and just as Lynn dived down to feel around for them in the dim light, Hermione took the opportunity to escape. By the time Lynn grasped her glasses and shoved them back in place Hermione had disappeared down the quickly filling corridor.

"Morning, Granger."

Hermione jumped and spun in her chair, blearily taking in the shocking purple suit of one of the twins.

"What in Merlin's name are you doing here!? You aren't in school anymore. How did you get in here!?"

"I walked here of course." the twin said, pointing his thumb behind him with a sly grin.

She threw him an irritated look.

"Oh calm down, Dumbledore let me in." he said dismissively.

Hermione gave a scoff of disbelief and rubbed at her eyes tiredly, "I'm studying, Fred." And went back to writing the final paragraph of a particularly boring herbology assignment. The library was usually deserted at this hour and she had come here for some quiet time, but apparently Weasleys didn't understand one's need to be alone. Or then again, knowing the twins they did but just chose to ignore it.

"George, actually." The redhead replied, biting down on an apple. Which was of course in careless violation of the library's strict no food rule.

Hermione didn't respond to the bait and continued to try to ignore him but eventually gave in, knowing she didn't have the patience he did for these games. "What do you want George?"

"Lynn is miserable without you, it's rather depressing really." George replied morosely, sitting down next to her and promptly propping his feet up on the table.

She glanced irritably at him and continued to scratch away with her quill. "And?"

"Just that, she's miserable." Fred said, appearing from behind a row of bookshelves delicately peeling an orange that went rather well with his bow tie.

"Would you like a pear, Granger?" George asked, producing one from somewhere in his jacket and holding it out in her direction lazily.

She looked at them both with a scowl, "And what do you want me to do about that? I suppose you'd have me forgive her?" She said sarcastically.

"No!" They both said in unison, as if appalled.

"No?" Hermione replied, surprised despite herself.

"Certainly not," George confirmed. "As we all know, lying does not a good relationship make. That's why we never lie, we are always completely straight with people."

"With us, what you see, is what you get." Fred proclaimed.

"Then what do you want?" Said Hermione, beginning to get impatient again as she wet her quill with ink. But before she could start writing, Fred deftly plucked the quill from her fingers and leaned across the desk to look her directly in the eyes.

"Look Hermione, you aren't fooling anyone into thinking you aren't going to get back with Lynn eventually. It's been weeks now and you still won't talk to her. What we want to know is how long do you consider too long?

Because with the best will in the world, Lynn cannot wait for you forever and she shouldn't have to either. So to be completely straight with you, we think you're taking this a bit too far."

Fred watched the indignation rise within Hermione before doubt began to eat away at her and her mouth closed without uttering a word. Her silence was enough of an indication that she didn't have any plans to defend herself.

"Third floor in the passage with the spiral staircase at 7am tomorrow, we will make sure she bumps into you. Then you can talk and get this whole thing behind you." George said easing himself out of the chair and making for the exit. "Then maybe we will have the old Lynn back"

"One can only hope, dear brother" Fred said following his twin at a leisurely pace.

Hermione started shoving her notes in her bag and on impulse took the pear that George had left behind. She still wasn't really sure if she wanted to talk to Lynn but she figured she had time to sleep on it.

Just as she was about to leave Fred poked his head back out from behind the bookshelves, "I hope you don't plan on eating that pear Granger, that was our plan B."

Hermione stared up at the canopy of her bed silently. It was early morning, according to the timepiece her dad had given her it was 06:35, ish. Despite having so many other better ways of telling the time, she'd always used it and learned to arrive early to lessons because it ran a little slow sometimes. She'd been awake for about an hour and had been too restless to sleep restfully.

The decision had been made, she was going and come what may she would deal with it as it happened. She wouldn't hold what Lynn did against her anymore and they really needed to talk about it. The twins were right, she'd avoided this far too long.

Now the only thing to do was wait, and god did Hermione hate waiting. Such annoyingly poetic justice.

She hadn't heard Lynn wake up yet, but that didn't mean much. It was impressive how well she had developed her ability to sneak around so much over the years, the invisibility cloak just gave her a wildly unfair advantage. And the last thing Hermione wanted to do was bump into her outside of the meeting place, because while she wanted to speak to her the idea of doing so unexpectedly and in a place where anyone could overhear made her feel very anxious.

She silently, or at least she hoped it was silently, dressed inside the canopy like she did every morning and eyed Lynn's bed through a slit in the drapes. The bed was empty and made. She was gone. Hermione breathed an apprehensive sigh, grabbed her things and started out for the passage the twins had mentioned.

She arrived with several minutes to spare, meeting only a few people mad enough to wake up this early in the corridors. Lynn loved sneaking around early in the morning, filch was never around and the only professor who seemed to always be awake at this hour was strangely enough Sinistra. That women never seemed to sleep.

She leaned against the stonework and waited impatiently, but she didn't have long to wait. Barely a minute had gone by before she started to hear footsteps echoing from the spiral staircase. There was the sound of hasty steps followed by a shout and the sudden clink of stone impacting stone. The stairs lay flat, and like many of the times Ron had forgotten he couldn't climb the stairs to the girl's dormitories, Lynn shot out the end to painfully skid on the hard floor.

She wasn't noticed as Lynn threw out a string of curses, brushing herself down and picking up whatever she'd been carrying. Only when Lynn began to orient herself and adjust her glasses did she realise there was someone watching her.

It was almost comical how her already magnified eyes widened still further when she recognised her. Hermione calmly stared back, "It's time we talked."

"Yeah, I suppose it is."

The room devolved into an awkward silence, as both girls frantically searched their brain for something meaningful to say and seemed to come up blank.

Lynn let out a nervous chuckle, "I don't suppose you know how to start do you?" her hand rubbing at the back of her neck, clearly desperate to end the silence. Hermione's response was somewhere between a smile and a grimace, either way it didn't seem to provide the inspiration Lynn was looking for as she fought to keep her eyes from straying downwards to her feet.

Hermione watched a myriad of emotions play across Lynn's face as she considered her words, opening her mouth several times before thinking better of it. She could see the frustration etched in her awkward stance and the playing of her hands. Lynn had no doubt ran through this scenario many hundreds of times in her head but that in no way prepared you for the reality as Hermione herself had found more than a year ago.

Inspiration finally seemed to occur to her and she took out the book that had caused all of this. "I've not used it," she stated firmly "I knew you were right, after you confronted me. I asked Sirius to have a look at it and he removed some things from it, but said the rest were very insightful notes we could test... carefully."

Lynn held the book out to her, willing her to take it and verify what she was saying.

"He said we should do it together though…"

Hermione took it and held it in her hands, not really sure what to do with it now she had it. Seeing that Hermione had no intention of opening the book, Lynn began to wring her hands nervously as silence once again fell between them and stretched worryingly onwards.

When the silence was finally, thankfully, broken. It was by Lynn, "I'm sorry," her voice wavering, while she lifted her chin just enough to look into Hermione's soft face to search for the anger she expected "I've never regretted anything more…"

The moment the simple heartfelt apology hit her, Hermione felt her shoulders sag. Despite everything, she just felt sad. There was no relief or anger, just an ever increasing sadness and regret. "I'm sorry too," knowing there was no need to say anything more, she took two steps and they were in each other's arms. When she caught that familiar scent of Lynn's hair, she knew she'd made the right decision.

Lynn took a shaky breath, her head safely nestled on Hermione's shoulder. After that a comfortable silence took hold while they both secretly enjoyed the warmth of each other's embrace and the acceptance that came with it. Hermione marvelled at how easy it had been to wash away all those negative emotions, against all her expectations.

This had hardly been their first fight, but somehow this reconciliation felt more meaningful than any before it. And when they finally pulled away to awkwardly resume the familiar dance of their young love, she knew everything would be okay.

"The lingerie thing! Y-you made it up!" Lynn spluttered.

Hermione moved the goblet of pumpkin juice out of the way before Lynn spilled any more of the liquid as she fought to hide her grin, but in hindsight it was a futile gesture. It was one of the very few times that Hermione could safely claim she had completely duped Lynn, and if she was completely honest with herself, she was quite proud of it.

Lynn stumbled over her words for a few more seconds before her eyes narrowed on Hermione's self-satisfied ones and she slowly stood from the bench. Hermione's satisfaction fizzled out instantly, "No… no, no, NO!" The pumpkin juice splashed across Hermione's face and hair, instantly turning it into a wet sopping mess and all she heard was Lynn laughing.

She reached out blindly for her own goblet and felt the metal clink against her nails, in a moment she had it in her hand and was hurling the water within, in Lynn's direction.

She heard Lynn shriek and peered between the soaked strands of her hair. Lynn had managed to avoid the worst of it but the left arm of her robe was clinging to her skin and she was looking down at it in disgust.

It quickly turned into a fight after that, with cups being grabbed off nearby benches and being hurled in the general direction of the other. It was the most fun Hermione remembered having in years, reminding her of the early days when she'd first met Lynn and the danger felt more temporary.

It was a time before the goblets stopped flying but when they did the kitchen went silent as they grinned at each other unrepentantly, panting hard from the exertion. Once the excitement had dissipated Lynn looked away, twisting the fabric of her robe in her hands nervously, "I… don't think I'm ready for that kind of thing, yet." She said quietly, almost guiltily.

Hermione smiled and tucked a lock of wet hair behind Lynn's ear. "I never expected you to be."

A/N: I'm sure a lot has changed for you as it has for me since the last chapter came out in November 2017 (4 years ago!). I hope this latest chapter makes you smile at least a little bit as we could all use some of that.

See you again soon.

BB