I'd like to thank Balthazar23, Antar23, werewolfXZ, damadape, TheNarratingMan, WraithNX01, Vahktang, flixus, Lynix, TripsToTheRescue, fredfred, InquisitorCOC for betareading.

Chapter 11: The Second Trap Part 2

Outskirts of Brentwood, Essex, Britain, July 8th, 1996

"Lavender? We came as soon as we heard!"

That was Parvati. Lavender Brown forced herself to smile as the witch and her twin sister entered her room. "Hi Parvati, Padma."

"So terrible!" Padma added. "Hermione kidnapped!" She picked one of Lavender's chairs to sit down on.

"Yes! And Potter, too!" Parvati added as she sat down next to Lavender on the bed.

"They're not sure if it was a kidnapping," Lavender corrected them. "It might've been an accident."

"Dad said it was a kidnapping - he spoke with an Auror!" Parvati told her. "And it happened in Knockturn Alley!" She shuddered.

"We've been in Knockturn Alley, Parvati," Lavender told her.

"And I wouldn't do it again after this!" her friend replied. "And we only ever were in the part right next to Diagon Alley."

"That's where this happened," Lavender said.

Parvati paled. "Merlin's beard! This could've been us!"

"See?" Padma shook her head. "That's why you don't walk into that alley!"

"I didn't know!"

"Gryffindors!"

Lavender cleared her throat. "It might've been an accident, as far as we know. A Portkey was left on a shelf. Could've happened in any shop that sells odd stuff."

"How do you know this?" Parvati asked.

"I was at the Potters when they heard," Lavender admitted.

More gasping. "With Ron?" Parvati asked.

"Yes." She sighed and explained before Parvati could ask: "I was with Hermione, and we met him and Potter in Diagon Alley."

Both of the twins winced. And Parvati gasped once more. "You were with Hermione the day she was kidnapped?"

"We went to Fortescue's," Lavender said. "Then Hermione and Potter left. Separately."

"They didn't hex each other?" Padma looked sceptical.

"They're not that bad," Lavender told her. At least, not any more - they knew better than to make a spectacle in public outside Hogwarts. "Anyway, I heard about Potter going missing, and went to visit Hermione, where I found out that she's missing as well, so we headed to the Potters. Ron was there."

"Ah. That's why you know what happened." Padma nodded.

"I don't know everything," Lavender corrected her. "Just what I heard when I was there."

"And are you going to visit again?"

"I'm not sure," she said. "I'm going to meet Ron later."

"Oh! Can we come with you?" Parvati blurted out.

"Parvati!" her sister hissed.

"What? I'm sure they wouldn't go on a date when their best friends are missing!"

Lavender wouldn't do that, but she would like to spend time with Ron. Even if only to distract herself from worrying about what Hermione was going through. And Potter. She cleared her throat. "We're not going on a date, no. But we are trying to… forget this for a moment."

"Ah!" Parvati took her hand. "I'm so sorry! I didn't think how you'd feel about this!"

Her sister sighed. "You certainly didn't think."

"Padma! You wanted to know what happened as much as I did!" Parvati protested.

"I was merely curious. I'm not in their house."

Well, it wasn't as if Parvati was particularly close to Hermione, either. Lavender knew that she was the only reason the two got along. Sort of.

"Is it true that they fought?" Parvati asked. Padma glared at her sister but didn't say anything.

"I don't know," Lavender lied. She knew there had been a scuffle. But if she told Parvati that, her friend would spread rumours.

"And is it true that no one knows where they are?" Padma's curiosity had apparently gotten the better of her.

"We've heard that they are investigating Magical Scandinavia!" Parvati added. "Merlin's beard! If they met werewolves!"

"They'd be fine," Padma told them. "The full moon is on the 30th."

"They have to find them before that! Or they'll be bitten and cursed!" Parvati gasped once again.

"They don't know where they are. They could be anywhere," Lavender said. They had no clue at all. And they wouldn't have any clue until Mr Pettigrew tracked down whoever had sold the Portkey to the shop.

"But if they were simply lost, they would've contacted someone by now, wouldn't they?" Padma asked. "They've got their wands, Hermione is a muggleborn so she knows how to navigate the muggle world, and Potter…"

"...is the Boy Who Lived," Parvati finished.

And Hermione could almost stand up to him in a duel.

But they hadn't been able to call for help.

And Lavender didn't want to think about what that meant. "They're still alive," she said in a low voice. "Dumbledore checked."

"Ah."

"But they haven't been able to contact their families." Padma wasn't letting this go, it seemed. "Even though muggles can phone around the world."

This time, Parvati hissed at her sister. Lavender ignored both and looked at the floor.

Alive but unable to contact anyone.

She shook her head and took a deep breath. She didn't start crying until Parvati wrapped her arm around Lavender's shoulders.

Poor Hermione. What must she be going through right now!

Unknown Location, July 8th, 1996

"Yes!" Harry Potter smiled. "We did it!" After hours of trying and working, they had managed to make their trap. He reached out to Granger before he realised it but managed to turn his gesture into a fist balled in triumph. Or something like that.

"I told you we needed a better anchor."

He snorted. Granger just had to rub it in. "What matters is that now, we can prepare our trap."

"We need to find a good location," she said. "The wyvern is too smart for anything obvious."

"I doubt that it will realise our trap." If the creature knew about Shrinking Charms and was smart enough to anticipate such a trap… "We'd be dead already if it were smart enough to do that."

"We can't underestimate it," Granger insisted.

He suppressed a sigh. "Then we'll pick our trap location carefully."

"Yes. It has to be visible from the air - and located so that the wyvern will come in from a fixed direction. And it can't be just a clearing. Not after our barbed spike trap - the creature won't dive down on us."

"On me. I'll be bait," Harry told her.

She glared at him but didn't protest. Good. He had the best chances to survive this - and she had proven that she could summon him to safety.

"But we'll need the trap near our shelter," she went on. "If it fails, we need the protection of it."

"If we flee into the bunker, we'll end up trapped inside," he pointed out. "Stuck like we were in the cave."

"That's better than dead and eaten," she retorted. "And we have plans to escape."

She was right. But he didn't have to say it out loud. "Anyway - then we should have the trap along a path to our shelter. So you can summon me, and I can trigger the trap. Close to the entrance, so the wyvern will end up in a killing zone."

"You want to turn our entrance into a deadly trap?" She looked… not shocked. Surprised, though.

He grinned. "Without someone dispelling the Shrinking Charms, the worst that could happen is that a string snaps and a twig hits our shoes. It's very much safe."

"What if a wizard or witch detects us?"

"Then we have probably worse problems than our own trap," he told her. "If they find us and we don't notice, they would probably ambush us anyway."

"We'll have to keep a Human-presence-revealing spell cast," she said.

"You aren't keeping one cast all the time?" he joked.

"I forgot," she replied as if she had taken him seriously. She waved her wand. "There. No more sneaking up on us." Her eyes widened. "Which reminds me… go into the shelter!"

Why would…? Ah! "Testing?"

"Yes."

He checked the sky, then entered the shelter. "Can you detect me?"

"Jump!"

He did.

"I caught a brief glimpse of the marker," she told him when he stepped outside again. "As long as we don't jump around, we should be fine."

"Good." That was a relief. A small one, compared to their problem with the wyvern, but still a relief. "I'll see what I can do about the camouflage," he told her. It was good, but it could be better. A human wouldn't miss it if he walked up to it.

"We could thin out the trees a little. Make it more obvious, but not too obvious, for the wyvern where the best spot to swoop down and then fly at us would be," Granger said.

"At me," he corrected her again.

"I'll be in the same line of attack," she told him.

"But standing in the shelter's entrance."

"Yes," she spat.

"Careful, Granger," he said with a smile. "I might suspect that you care about me if you want to play bait instead of me."

She glared at him. "As if! I merely want to make sure that we share the load here. I won't have you claim that you saved me, and I did nothing!"

"Of course not." He managed to suppress the urge to add 'you cooked' or something equally insulting. That would only make her mad.

Hermione Granger swallowed her retort. As if she wanted Potter to get hurt or killed! All she wanted was to be treated as an equal. Not as a… mudblood who should be grateful to be allowed to bask in the presence of the rich purebloods. And she wanted to be acknowledged for her own accomplishments - without some condescending 'remarkable for a muggleborn' remark tacked on.

She scoffed and pushed the thoughts away - she had to focus on the task at hand. On their survival. "Let's start making more shrunken trunks, then. We can sort out where we place it tomorrow." Even though the trap's location had already been determined, the devil was, as usual, in the details.

They worked mostly in silence for the rest of the day, finishing two logs with five trunks stuck to them, each. They didn't catch sight of the wyvern, but they heard it roar a few times. It wasn't succumbing to infection, then.

"We need something else," Potter said as they checked their work. "The trunks will hurt it - probably break a limb or so - but they won't kill it unless we're really lucky. And we haven't been particularly lucky so far."

"I would count the fact that we're still alive after several encounters with the wyvern as being lucky," she said.

He scowled. "It wasn't just luck - and we had bad luck there as well! But we do need something else. Something to kill it."

"We can't stick spikes on the trunks - a single Dispelling Charm won't affect them," she told him. That was too bad. In theory, they could construct a spiked pole, but they would have to actually craft it, not merely use a Sticking Charm to glue it together, or the trunk would recover its natural size, but the spikes would not. Actual glue would work - but they didn't have any.

"But we can stick spikes into the ground," Potter said. "A pit trap!"

"A spiked pit trap?" Someone had played too much Dungeons and Dragons. "And what if we fall into it?"

"We weigh much less than the wyvern." She looked up. The sky - what she could see of it, at least - was still clear.

"And we know exactly how tough a cover has to be so we can walk over it but the wyvern will fall through it?" She raised her eyebrows. She had no intention to trust her life to his - and hers - construction skills.

He frowned at her. "We can move around it, then. Just use a thin cover. And barbed spikes set in the ground - we need to trap it on the ground."

That sounded… well, she still had her doubts, but it was more sensible. But… "I would have to summon you over that trap," she pointed out.

He smiled at her. "I trust you. With my life."

She almost gasped. What the…? That was a line straight out of some trashy novel. Was he mocking her? She felt her cheeks heat up from embarrassment or anger - she couldn't tell. "I'll have you sign a waiver then. Just in case I need to explain to the Ministry how you ended up falling into your own trap."

He laughed at that - even though it wasn't all that funny.

She sighed. The sun was setting already - they had to be in the tropics. And, judging by their watches, not too far from England. Unless the transport had taken longer than they had experienced. She really should've studied Portkeys even though she hadn't expected to use one in the near future. "Let's get dinner and then head to bed," she said.

"Oh!" Potter grinned at her. He even waggled his eyebrows.

She rolled her eyes in return. Very funny. As if she'd ever think of doing that with Potter. Well, as long as she was thinking clearly and not exhausted and in shock from a near-death experience and distracted by Potter's… She clenched her teeth and forced the memory out of her mind. Potter was counting on that to mock her, she knew it.

"At least dinner is quick," Potter said as they sat down at their table. "Fast food!"

She snorted at that. Gallows humour, of a sort. "It's certainly healthier than fast food back home," she said, before biting into her slice of coconut meat. "But we do need more variety in our diet. In case we're not found before long."

"Yes, you mentioned that already." He looked around. "Though we will be found. Trust me. Dad is the Head Auror. He'll crack this case."

"Wouldn't he be barred from investigating our disappearance since he's personally involved?" she asked.

"Why?" He looked surprised. "He's the Head Auror."

"And investigating the disappearance of his son?" She tilted her head. Wasn't it obvious that this was a bad idea?

"Yes? He's the Head Auror."

Dear Lord! She closed her eyes and groaned. "No wonder the Ministry is so… whatever."

"What do you mean?"

"In Britain, your father wouldn't be allowed to investigate a case involving his family. He wouldn't be objective."

"Well, things are done differently in Wizarding Britain. You can't compare it to muggle Britain."

"I doubt that magic changes the basic nature of people. I certainly haven't been able to see any difference between wizards and muggles when it comes to their character." She smiled sweetly at him, showing her teeth, so he'd know what she meant. "And it's a fact that investigating when you're too close to a case isn't a good thing. Muggles have experience with that."

"It's also a fact that you wouldn't be able to cut out Dad from the investigation. Even if he weren't on the case, he'd just take time off and do it himself."

That wouldn't be very efficient. Not at all. "Let's hope it works out," she said.

"It will!" He nodded. Firmly.

She wanted to believe him. She didn't want to stay longer on the island. The thought of spending months here, building a home as if this were a TV show or something… she shuddered.

She'd miss the train back to Hogwarts on September 1st!

Harry Potter shook his head. Really - as if anything would keep Dad from finding him. And Granger. His parents had stood up to Voldemort for him, after all.

He glanced at Granger. The sun was setting, but it was still bright enough outside so he didn't have to cast a Wand-Lighting Charm to make out her frown. No, she wasn't frowning - she looked rather forlorn, o. Or something. Didn't she believe him?

Of course she didn't. Granger had a chip on her shoulder about, well, everything. "Hey!" She looked up. He smiled at her. "We'll kill the wyvern. And then we'll get off this island."

She raised her eyebrows at him. "With a plank held up by a Levitation Charm?"

The light was fading. He cast a Wand-Lighting Charm. "No." That wouldn't work. "We'll build a raft!"

"A raft."

"Yes, you know - you stick several tree trunks together, lay some planks above it…"

"I know what a raft is," she hissed.

Of course she did. He had known that - but she wasn't looking sad anymore, but annoyed. They were back on familiar ground. "Good. So, we build a raft and leave the island!"

"And sail across the ocean?" She snorted. "We don't know where we are. Odds are that we're somewhere in the Atlantic, off the African Coast. But we can't be sure. And if we misjudged it…"

"All we need to do is get out of the island's protections," he told her. "Then Mum and Dad will find us."

"Unless they stopped sending out Patronus Messengers," she pointed out.

"They won't. They'll keep trying." They would never give up.

"But they won't do it around the clock," she said. "How long do we need to wait? And how will they find us in the middle of the ocean? If we get caught in a current, dragged out to the sea…"

"They'll find us!" Really, couldn't she trust his family? "They'll ask Dumbledore to help them if they need to."

She pursed her lips - she didn't have an answer to that, did she? Everyone knew that Dumbledore was the greatest wizard alive!

"And what if a storm starts? Or if we encounter a sea monster?"

He snorted. "A sea monster? Really?" Granger was grasping at straws.

"We're on an island with a wyvern. A man-eating wyvern. Who's to say the sea's not the habitat of sea serpents or a wild Giant Squid?" Granger doubled down.

"Well, we can test that with a dummy raft," he said. "Or we can fly with the raft, only setting down to take a break - and switch to cast the next Charm."

She pursed her lips in that manner of hers that showed him that she really wanted to find fault with his plans but hadn't found anything. "That still leaves us with the problem that we might be dragged away, encounter a storm, or run out of food before we get rescued. And we might not be able to pass through the island's protections."

He blinked. "What do you mean?"

"This could be an abandoned prison island," she explained.

"Like Azkaban? We didn't see any prison on the island."

"We haven't explored the whole island," she told him. "And it might not have any structures on it - they might just have dumped prisoners on the shore."

"Like we were dumped?" he asked with a frown.

"Yes." She leaned forward. "Why would anyone create a Portkey to an empty beach on an island with a man-eating monster on it?"

He blinked and tried not to look down her shirt - it was showing a lot of cleavage from this angle. "Good question," he admitted. "But they could've simply made a mistake. Or this is the usual area to arrive, and you're supposed to Apparate to the final destination from the beach because the owners didn't want anyone appearing straight in their home or something."

"If there is anything like that on the island." She shook her head. "In any case, we can't just assume that the protections don't do anything other than hiding the island."

"The wyvern didn't seem to have any trouble leaving the island and returning," he said.

"We assume it went out on the sea to hunt," she told him. "It's not certain. And the wards could've been created to only affect humans."

He wasn't convinced. A prison island? In the tropics? With a man-eating wyvern? That sounded more like a complicated way to execute people. Although it might've served as a prison island and become abandoned. "Who would have used such an island?"

She shrugged. "Any of the former African Subsaharan Wizarding Nations? Since they were destroyed in the Great Intervention, information about them is scarce."

"We haven't covered that in History of Magic, yet."

"Of course not! That's a rather shameful chapter of Wizarding Britain." She scoffed.

"They were endangering the Statute of Secrecy," he retorted - he knew that much. "And they wouldn't stop using magic against muggles."

"Against muggle colonialists." She scoffed again. "I'm certain that it was just a convenient coincidence that the ICW 's member nations could not only loot some of the richest countries of the Wizarding World but also impress on every other nation that they shouldn't try to help their muggle counterparts."

"Wizards getting involved in muggle wars is very dangerous," he retorted. "Not only does it endanger the Statute of Secrecy, but imagine Fiendfyre set loose in cities, Dementors wiping out entire villages, werewolves rampaging..." he shook his head. There was a reason the Statute of Secrecy had been agreed upon by everyone.

"Didn't most of that happen in the last war anyway?" She cocked her head at him.

"No." He shook his head. "There were a few incidents, but not even the Death Eaters wanted to risk endangering the Statute of Secrecy."

"That's what your parents told you?"

"Yes." And their friends. He looked at her, but she didn't ask for more information.

Hermione Granger had to almost literally bite her tongue. She'd read up on the Blood War - who wouldn't, seeing that it shaped Wizarding Britain and ended only ten years before she heard of it - but the books she had found were either very dry and refrained works or exaggerated 'true stories' that would've been rejected by tabloids. Potter, though, knew people who had fought in the war - had decided the war. She really wanted to ask him more questions. About the war, About Dumbledore. About the mysterious 'order' people had hinted at in some works.

But asking the boy who served as bait about these things… No. And he might pull her leg, anyway - Potter had a habit of 'joking' to avoid questions he didn't want to answer. She was sure he wouldn't answer this. Unless it was to brag about his parents… no. That would be manipulative.

"Anyway," she said, "even if the Statute of Secrecy was threatened, this wouldn't justify destroying entire nations. They could've stopped the colonialists, instead." But that wouldn't have lined Wizarding Britain's coffers.

"That would've encouraged other wizards to use magic against muggles," Potter retorted. "You don't want that, do you?"

Of course not! She pressed her lips together. As if she would want to see wizards and witches oppress muggles with impunity. "There's a difference between using magic to defend muggles and using magic to attack muggles."

"Sorting out someone's motive is hard," he said. "Dad told me about it. They need to check for memory charms, Polyjuice Potion, the Imperius Curse…"

"Didn't the Wizengamot state that the Imperius Curse wasn't detectable?" She scoffed at the blatant lie. "Or didn't they want to go through the trouble of sorting out who was a victim and who was a willing participant in the Death Eater's atrocities?"

He snorted in return. "That was all politics, Uncle Sirius told me. As he said, the Ministry made a deal with Lucius Malfoy: Deliver the most dangerous and the most stupid Death Eaters, the hardcore followers, and let the rest claim they were victims of the Imperius Curse."

She gasped. "That's… a travesty of justice!" That was corruption! A crime! But… "Wasn't Malfoy a spy for Dumbledore?" She had read that in numerous books. Had they been wrong?

"Oh, yes, he was." Potter nodded. "But he was, well… As I heard the story, he wasn't a spy from the start but turned very late in the war."

She narrowed her eyes. Potter knew more about this.

He shrugged. "Anyway, they know that if they step out of line, Dumbledore will crush them."

"Someone forgot to tell that to Malfoy," she muttered.

Potter laughed. "The git probably was told to behave, but you know how stupid he is."

She rolled her eyes. "He's competing for the Darwin Award."

"The 'Darwin Award'?"

Oh. He didn't know about that? She grinned. "A muggle thing. It's not a real award, just a collection of stories about people who removed themselves from the gene pool through their own stupidity."

He blinked. "Ah. Darwin Award."

"Yes." And Malfoy certainly qualified. The idiot had almost gotten killed because he didn't listen to the teachers - or anyone else - in both Herbology and Care for Magical Creatures. "In any case, I'm convinced that the ICW could've dealt with the African Subsaharan Wizarding Nations without destroying them or encouraging the abuse of muggles."

"That's easy to say from hindsight. But as you found out, Divination isn't easy." He grinned at her.

She clenched her teeth. It wasn't her fault that she didn't have the talent for this particular discipline. Or the enthusiasm Lavender had. She scoffed.

"Besides, who's to say the African Wizarding Nations were innocent?" Potter went on. "They didn't stop the slave trade, did they?"

"History is written by the victors. I'm certain that the ICW would have used any misdeeds of the African wizards to further justify their actions," she retorted.

He frowned in return. "Probably," he admitted. "But what if they wouldn't have seen anything wrong with whatever they did? At least at the time?"

She could believe that, indeed. "It's not as if they did anything against the Barbary Coast and Ottoman raiders."

"Or do," Potter added. "There are still raids in the Mediterranean and in the Balkans. 'Pirates and bandits' according to the Ottoman Empire."

She had heard about that - it was the reason she hadn't spent too much time in the magical parts of the Côte d'Azur when she had been on vacation in France with her parents. "That doesn't make what was done to Africa any better," she said. "We might be on an island that was depopulated during the Great Intervention."

He blinked. "Bloody hell, that could… No. If the island had been conquered, the wards would've been taken down."

"Unless they were restored afterwards." She cocked her head. "Some wizards might not have been content with looting the treasures of the land and might have wanted to loot an entire island for themselves."

He opened his mouth, then closed it again and nodded.

Harry Potter had to admit that Granger had a point. If they were off the west coast of Africa - and the timing of the sunrise and sunset seemed to indicate that - then this could've been a magical island that had been taken over by some wizards during the Great Intervention. Sirius had told him some stories he had heard from his family about. Unlike other families, the Blacks hadn't made their fortune looting Magical Africa, but only because they had been rich before. They hadn't taken an entire island, though. Still, Granger's theory wasn't perfect.

"If the island was taken over, why was it abandoned afterwards?"

"We don't know if it is abandoned," Granger replied. "We've only explored a part of it. A small part."

"The wyvern must have explored the entire island," he pointed out. "And who would want such a creature on their island?"

"They might have built this as a sanctuary for wyverns."

"For a single one?" He shook his head. "I've been to the dragon sanctuary in Romania; dozens of wizards from all over Europe are working there to keep the dragons fed and healthy. If a dragon had been wounded like the wyvern, Healers would've been all over it." Charlie had told stories aplenty about what happened when dragons fought each other.

"That's one way to run a sanctuary, but not the only one. If there's only one wyvern, there won't be any fights with another such creature," Granger retorted.

"But they still would have someone monitoring its health. And checking up on accidental visitors," he told her. Charlie had told stories about such incidents as well. Usually, they blamed bears if muggles were involved.

"Or they just wanted to let the wyvern live free, without anyone interfering. You know, like a muggle national park." She sniffed.

"I'm pretty sure national parks have people looking after them," he said.

"Not all of them. And even if they do, they rarely have the entire park under permanent observation."

"But if they had a park for a wyvern, wouldn't they keep it under observation?" Harry grinned at her frown.

"Unless they set it up and then died without telling anyone else." She smiled, showing her teeth at him.

"You would have needed a lot more than a single wizard to do this," he said. "And all of them dying without telling anyone?"

"Voldemort wiped out entire families, didn't he?"

It was his turn to scowl. "He rarely went after the old pureblood families," he said.

"Rarely, but he did come after some of them," she said, looking at him.

"We're not one of those families who would have a private island hidden somewhere," he retorted. "If we had a private island, we'd go on vacation there!"

She snorted. "Be careful what you wish for." She gestured at their surroundings. "Rustic bungalow. And guaranteed sightings of the local wildlife."

He snorted in return. "If this were a vacation, I'd expect better service. And better entertainment. And better lodgings."

"Well, we can improve the lodgings. The service, though…" She shook her head with a smile.

He wasn't sure if she was trying to insult or tease him. Or just trying to make a joke. He chuckled, to play it safe. "In any case, we can safely assume that if the island isn't abandoned, it's not under observation."

"Perhaps. Or someone is observing us but doesn't feel like intervening."

"That sounds like the plot of a b-movie. I think Dudley told me about something like that." Harry shook his head.

"Reality is often stranger than fiction," she retorted.

Of course she'd say that - she had been raised as a muggle. But Wizarding Britain wasn't strange. Just different.

But Harry didn't want to start another discussion. Talking about the Great Intervention had been bad enough. He knew it hadn't been the heroic defence of the Statute of Secrecy some claimed it had been - Sirius's stories had been enlightening in that regard - but it hadn't been entirely unjustified either. You didn't threaten the Statute of Secrecy. You just didn't. Wizarding Wars were terrible even if you won - Harry knew that very well. Wizarding wars mixed with muggle wars?

No one sane wanted anything like that.

He stood up. "Well, time to head to bed. We've got a long day tomorrow."

She nodded and stood up as well. A flick of her wand cleaned the plates and deposited them on the makeshift shelves on the wall. He chuckled. "It's like putting away the silverware back home."

Granger didn't laugh - she stared at him as if he had cast a hex at her.

'Like putting away the silverware back home'? Hermione Granger suppressed a shudder. This wasn't supposed to feel like home. Not at all. Not even like camping. They were stranded; they weren't here on vacation, much less settling. Not to mention settling with Potter… She suppressed another shudder. And something else she really didn't want to think about. Certainly not right when she was about to go to bed. Hormones. Just hormones. Like she told Lavender when her friend had confided in her that she had a crush on Weasley.

Ugh. That was a bad comparison. Hermione didn't have a crush on anyone, least of all on Potter. He was just somewhat attractive if one didn't consider his personality.

"Is something wrong?" Potter interrupted her thoughts.

"No. I was just thinking of a stupid movie," she replied before she could stop herself.

"What movie?"

"Swiss Family Robinson."

He looked puzzled. "I never heard of that movie."

"It's like Robinson Crusoe, but with a family. And more Disney."

"Oh." He snorted. "Not really applicable, then."

"Not at all," she agreed. Not at all.

She stretched. "So… who's taking the first watch?"

"It's my turn again," he told her after a moment. Had he had to consider it?

It didn't matter - she didn't want to argue. "Alright. I'm going to sleep then." She nodded. "Good night."

"Good night."

But she took a longer time than usual to finally fall asleep.

"Oh, Hermione. I'm so sorry, I didn't notice that you were using the bath!" Potter, wearing only a towel that left his abs and pecs bare, and barely covered his thigh and calves, stood there, in the entrance, looking guilty.

"That's OK," she told him, one hand across her chest. "Anyone could make that mistake." She shifted a little in the bathtub formed out of an enlarged coconut as she looked him over.

He nodded, staring at her legs which were propped up on the tub's rim. "I'm sorry."

He hadn't moved, she noticed. And he was still staring at her.

She licked her lips. "Well, if you want to make it up to me, then please hand me the towel," she told him with a smile.

His eyes widened, then he smiled at her. "Of course! Anything for you!" He entered the bath and grabbed the fluffy towel she had created from coconut fibres with a remarkably clever transfiguration.

"Anything?" She raised her eyebrows as he stepped closer, then stood, pulling on the rope that led to the water tank above the bath and let the fresh water wash away the soap - made from coconut butter - before she reached out for the towel.

He hadn't looked away, she noticed with a sly smile.

"Anything," he told her, his voice husky, as his eyes burned into hers.

She felt her cheeks flush as she climbed out of the bath, taking a deep breath as she stepped into the towel. And into his arms. And felt...

"Wake up, Granger, it's your turn!"

Hermione Granger gasped. What the…? Potter had stepped into the bathroom? And she had welcomed him as if she were…

She blinked. No! Potter was standing there, but he was yawning, not… She shook her head and checked the time. He hadn't let her sleep longer than planned. Good.

"Alright," she told him, then summoned her shorts and shoes to dress.

He hadn't turned away, she realised. "Is something wrong?"

"No, no. Good night."

"That's my line," she told him.

He chuckled, nodded and went into his bedroom - if you could call the area behind the divider a bedroom. Technically, it was. Probably.

She watched him go as she quickly dressed. He wasn't wearing a towel, but his normal clothes. And he wasn't acting like some handsome wizard straight out of a silly novel. And Hermione wasn't acting like some silly witch pining for a handsome wizard, either.

Her teenage hormones were really acting up to have such stupid dreams, she knew. The stress from having to survive on an island shared with a man-eating wyvern didn't help, of course. Quite the contrary. And not having a decent book - any book at all - to read. Normally, she'd never have such silly dreams. Certainly not involving Potter of all wizards!

She moved to the entrance of the shelter. Really, having erotic dreams about Potter? If she told Lavender that, her friend would never let her forget this!

Besides, it was obvious that this was a stupid fantasy - Potter would never act like that. He wasn't suave like that. Although he certainly was arrogant enough for the part.

She closed her eyes. She was thinking of her stupid dream again. And she couldn't - she was on watch now. She had to focus on that. Not on some steamy fantasy that belonged in romance novels. Cheap romance novels where the hero was perfect.

Besides, she didn't fit the heroines of those novels. She didn't need a wizard to protect her - she could do that herself! Better than most!

And, she added with a sigh as she redid her ponytail with her wand, she wasn't the most beautiful witch, either. She was fit and had a good figure, and her face was certainly not ugly - but she didn't turn the boys' heads. Unlike others. Such as the Patil twins and Lavender.

She suppressed the sudden bout of jealousy she felt. Looks weren't everything. Otherwise, Potter would have to fight off witches all day.

She blinked, then groaned. That stupid dream was affecting her, still.

This was really messed up.