The next few days were spent in a relative state of relaxation. Christmas Eve, Harry saw Renata sitting in the common room, writing in what looked like a journal of some sort.
"What are you doing?" He sat down next to her and put an arm around her.
She snapped the journal shut. "Nothing."
"It didn't look like nothing. Let me see that book."
"No, it's my journal. If you ever read it, I'd have to kill you."
"Oh." He was silent. "Please, let me read it." It'd be great to know how her mind worked, he'd had enough trouble trying to figure it out.
"No. Here, let's play checkers." She summoned a checkers board and they played. Renata pouted when she lost but Harry didn't care. Normally she won, so her losing was refreshing. Hermione and Ron watched the game and the four of them stayed up talking.
Finally, everyone was exhausted.
"So we'll see you two in the morning like usual?" asked Ron, stretching his arms.
"Sure." Hermione gave him a kiss before going up the stairs to the girls' dorm.
Renata kissed Harry and took the checkers game upstairs with her, "G'night!" she called.
"Harry, are you coming?" asked Ron.
"I'll be there in a minute." Harry noticed that Renata had forgotten her diary.
Ron followed his gaze. "Don't even think about it, Harry. I bet she hexed it."
"Aren't you even a little curious, Ron?"
"Yeah, but I'm not stupid. Read it if you want, it's your funeral." Ron shrugged and went up to the boys' dormitory. Harry didn't follow.
Harry saw it lying there and he had to know. He just had to. He picked up Renata's diary, hoping it went back far enough. He cracked the book open and since there seemed to be no repercussions he decided it was safe to read. He looked through until he found Christmas day, 1996.

Well, he finally did it. That charming idiot finally kissed me.
Granted I had to dare him months ago and I had to get him alone
and secretly put mistletoe above us but still . . . it was beyond
words. His mouth . . . It was hard to pretend to be mad at him
when I did see him later. But I acted mad all the same and he's
been avoiding me. I wonder how long I'll be able to keep up this
little act. How can he be so blind? I'm going to have to think of
a way to find out what he thinks. I wonder whether he really is
as oblivious as he is acting or if he's just not interested. I
don't know which. Hermione, I'll do what I can about Ron. But I
can't make any promises. I know he likes you. He just doesn't
quite know it yet. I'll see you later. I'm formulating a plan for
Valentines Day though. I'll tell you when I know more.

Renata

The curved and graceful signature could be only Renata's. Harry saw the adjacent page was filled with Hermione's tidy writing.

When is he going to wake up and notice me? Sometimes I think he
is a little uncomfortable around me as if maybe he does like me
but sometimes he acts as though I'm one of his brothers and he
teases me like he does them. It makes me so mad that I want to
stick live spiders in his bed! He hates those. Anthony though. He
gives me a lot of attention. I'll admit he's cute but he's
obnoxious too. And I don't like him; I like Ron. When is Ron
going to wake up? I need help, Renata.

Hermione

The writing and the signature were certainly Hermione's. He wondered why Hermione had an entry in Renata's diary. He looked through the rest of it. A page from Renata, a page from Hermione from the same day. Why would they use the same diary?
Harry began to read Renata's entry from Valentines Day of their 6th year. It was very interesting. She'd mostly sent the cards to herself to confuse Harry, and Hermione had done the same to startle Ron. Then there were no more entries until they got back from that weird other dimension they'd been in. That entry was long, going over just about everything that had happened. Very informative. He found an entry from a couple days after.

RENATA'S DIARY February 22, 1997
I'm wretched. I'm an absolutely horrible person. I like him so
much. I love him. And just look at how I treat him. I need to
stop playing games with him but not until he tells me he likes
me. I'm not going to pour out my heart and soul unless he tells
me to my face that he cares about me. It wouldn't matter if he
told everyone in Hogwarts but me, I would still act this way. I'm
awful, aren't I? Well, I don't care. Yes, I do. I care. I cried
in front of him. I can't believe I did that. I wept in his arms
like a little baby. I promised myself I wouldn't make a fool of
myself in front of him or any man. I mean to keep that promise.
Never again. I'm not going to cry. Not where he can see me at
least. Oh, I'm an awful person, aren't I? Tough I guess. This is
who I am and I don't plan to change, not for him or any man and
that's a simple fact that we'll just all have to face I guess. I
love him but nobody can expect me to tell him what he won't tell
me first.

Renata

He didn't see her standing there until it was too late.
"Expelliarmus! How could you, Harry? Reading my diary! I wouldn't have thought you'd stoop so low! Locomotor mortis!"
Harry's legs sprang together and it was all he could do to keep from falling flat on his face.
"I can't believe you, you. . .you. . .urgh!" Apparently she couldn't think of anything sufficiently vile to call him. "I hate you!"
"What?"
"READING SOMEBODY'S DIARY IS AN INVASION OF PRIVACY!"
"So's reading my mind! That's even worse! I can't control what I'm thinking!"
She took out her wand and started cursing him. Unfortunately she was able to through curses and hexes at him faster than he could block them. Eventually she stopped and Harry collapsed as well as he could back onto the sofa. She sat in a chair across from him. She asked quietly, "Which entries did you read?"
"Only the ones from last year. I had to know why you put me through such h*ll."
"You read all of last year?"
"No. Christmas. Valentine's Day. February 22."
"What about Hermione's entries?"
"I only read the one from Christmas last year. Why do you both write in the same diary?"
"This diary was the proto-type for her live-write spell. We each have a diary and what one of us writes in one diary shows up in the other's diary. It wasn't exactly easy to talk without Lavender and Parvati listening and there were things we didn't want them to hear. Besides that, sometimes having someone else know something let's you get a better perspective."
"I'm sorry. I know I shouldn't have read your diary. I knew it was wrong but you're so confusing I just had to find some way to possibly understand you."
"I'm sorry I hexed you so much. Here," she conjured some tissues (Harry still had a bloody nose from one of her curses and had been sitting with his head back and his nose pointed to the ceiling, pinching his nose).
"Thanks."
"I put a spell on my diary. I know whenever anybody picks it up that isn't me. I get a kind of ringing in my head that let's me know. So I came downstairs, even though I knew it was you, I was shocked. I guess I was shocked because you weren't picking it up to try and bring it to me, you were reading it!"
"I know and I said I'm sorry."
"That's not enough, Harry. I can't just pretend you didn't break my trust and you can't just pretend you didn't read what you read." She stood and sat down over next to Harry, not as close as she normally would have.
"What do you want me to do? I can't just erase it from my memory. Besides, the stuff I read was from a year ago."
"That's not the point, Harry."
He was fairly sure his nose had stopped bleeding. He could see Renata out of the corner of his eye, sitting there, beautiful. Her cheeks were pink like they always were when she was angry, she wore a slight pout, and her eyes seemed to glow. He took the tissues from his nose and leaned down to kiss her. She backed away slightly (being of course furious with him still), but he kissed her anyway. Of course, even though she was mad she was still in love with him and kissed him back anyway. When their lips were free for speaking again, a couple of minutes later, she said, "Wipe that grin from your face." She didn't sound angry though, just a little hurt. "You can't solve everything with a kiss. I'm going to have to learn to trust you; I won't be leaving my diary anywhere where you can read it. But I'm not mad anymore."
"Do you still love me?"
"Of course I do, idiot." She kissed him again, and stood up. "I'll see you in the morning." She turned toward the stairs.
"Happy Christmas."
"What?"
"I said Happy Christmas. It's after midnight."
"Merry Christmas, Harry." She disappeared up the stairs.
Harry went to his dorm and fell asleep.

Okay, this chapter's a little longer. I'll try to update soon. Read and Review, please!