February 2000

The Ravenclaw vs. Slytherin Quidditch match was packed, and if were not for Septima and Filius, it was unlikely that Severus would have found his way to the small group of professors bundled against the cold. Both of them were decked out in Ravenclaw blue, giving them the look of eye catching, if misshapen, blueberries. The morning was misty and bitter, but there was little sign of snow or the rain that had tormented them throughout the last game. And despite the irritation of having to elbow his way through the stands like a student, he was in rather high spirits. Quidditch matches revolved around the most superficial of rivalries and provided a welcome distraction from both the interhouse fighting and the banality of teaching.

Lavender and Granger were already seated as well, a row below Filius and Septima, and they shifted over to give him enough space for his narrow frame to squeeze in beside Granger.

"Is it fair for a Divination professor to be involved in this?" Septima was asking doubtfully, dropping several coins into the upturned witch's hat that Lavender held.

"Only if it doesn't offer any sort of advantage," Hermione said, adding her own. "I'm inclined to believe it doesn't."

Lavender rolled her eyes. "Tell me that after Slytherin wins." She reached across Hermione to pass the hat to Severus, who added his own bet for Slytherin.

"After Ravenclaw wins, I will," Hermione said.

"Rather confident, aren't we, Granger?" Severus commented, passing the hat back.

"It's Hermione," she said. "You might as well practice, since it's name you'll be using after the game." He gave her a look that conveyed just how unlikely he thought that would be.

Becky Arncliffe began the usual pregame announcements and an excited buzz swept through the stands. In many ways, Quidditch matches were unchanged from his own time as a student. Same stands, same hoops, and he was fairly certain that Rolanda even used the same set of bludgers. In his early years, he had attended the games with all of the wide eyed passion of every new student, at least until other students started shoving him out of the stands.

As though his brief reminiscence had conjured another unfortunate part of his past, he saw Lupin making his way through the crowd, following Tonks who seemed to trip over someone's feet every few steps. Lupin, holding his son, was also making slow progress. He was stopped at every group of students by someone who wanted to coo over the toddler in his arms.

"Good morning, professors!" Tonks chimed, jostling Severus as she climbed into the seat behind him, evidently abandoning her husband and son to the baby crazed students. Severus, who did not much appreciate being used as a handrail, scowled. "Ready to watch a bunch of teenagers narrowly miss maiming each other?" An ill-timed joke if he'd ever heard one, though he supposed his own dark sense of humor left him without a moral high ground.

"Dora!" Lupin called over, still several rows away. "I'll just sit here." He gestured to his spot. A group of students waved cheerfully at her.

"I'll catch up with you later," Tonks shouted back. She appeared unbothered, at least until a little ball of gold sparks shot over Severus's head and traveled over the stands to where the boy sat in Lupin's lap. Even over the general chatter, he could hear the shrieks of delight from the boy and laughter from the onlooking students. The sparks danced in front of his eyes for a moment before floating up over his teal hair and exploding in Lupin's face. There was a second round of laughter as Lupin wiped the smudges from his face.

"Sorry!" Tonks called, not sounding sorry at all. She stretched out her legs with a sigh, wedging her clunky boots in the mere centimeters of space on the bench between Severus and Hermione.

"Trouble in paradise?" Severus asked benignly. He received a swift kick to the back of his arm from either Filius or, more likely, Septima, and Hermione stomped on his foot. He huffed in pain, drawing back from the lot of them.

"Oh, you know what they say about fools' paradise," Tonks said, voice light. "Why? Doling out marriage advice now, Severus?"

"The only piece of marriage advice I have is to avoid the institution in the first place," Severus said. He gave pointed look at the dusty shoes wedged against his hip."However as a general philosophy, it is worth remembering that people can only get away with what you allow." So saying, he gave the boots an ungracious shove back in her direction.

"Perhaps you're right," Tonks said, withdrawing her feet, and this time there was no amusement in her tone. Septima quickly stepped in, asking Tonks about the upcoming Hogsmeade trip. Hermione shot Tonks a worried look and then grabbed his elbow, yanking him closer to her.

"Don't get in the middle of that," Hermione whispered furiously to him. "You're making a nuisance of yourself."

"A nuisance?" Severus repeated with mock disbelief. "I thought we were friends."

"As your friend, I am telling you that you need to stop," she hissed as Minerva finally joined them, taking her regular place with much more grace than Tonks had managed. Despite Granger's words, out of the corner of his eye, he could see her attempt to suppress a smile. He hoped that his brief acknowledgement of their friendship hadn't gone to her head.

Hooch's whistle blew and the game began.

"And it looks like we're off to a strong start!" Becky yelled. "Ravenclaw's got the Quaffle and is heading down- wait, no, intercepted by Slytherin!"

Everyone leaned forward in their seats as a Slytherin Chaser Abigail Pugh raced down the field, Quaffle in tow. She threw the Quaffle in a delicate arc and there was a collective gasp as it sailed through the air, past the Ravenclaw Keeper's fingertips and through the hoop. The disbelief only continued to grow over the next hour.

"Wow! Slytherin's new captain has really turned this team around!" Severus felt his momentary sullenness fade away as he watched the team play. Their passes were smooth, their aim perfect, and Lithgow, who barely seemed to drag himself to class some days, moved with a shocking amount of speed. Jaspers was high in the air, slightly unsteady but moving in near perfect synchronicity with the others. There was a loud cheer as Ravenclaw scored another goal. Astoria Greengrass, the replacement for team captain after Viola Richmond's leg injury, called out something to one of the Beaters. A second later the Ravenclaw Seeker was smacked in the side with a Bludger. The crowd groaned in sympathy.

"Oo, that's gotta hurt!" Becky cried.

It was quickly turning into the best game of the season. Even Hermione, usually a reluctant spectator, was following every move the teams made, making bizarre little jumps like she was about to storm the field and join. Filius and Septima cheers were growing progressively more disheartened, though Tonks seemed to be going strong as she shouted encouragements at the Ravenclaw Keeper. Severus was aware that smugness was rolling off him in waves, but he did little to prevent it. Minerva muttered under her breath about potions professors that had no understanding of sportsmanship.

Slytherin was ahead by fifty points when the Snitch was in sight once more. As the two Seekers dove for it at the same time, everyone leapt to their feet, screaming encouragements towards them. Beside him, Hermione was shouting as well, though her voice was hidden under the din of roars from both the Ravenclaw and Slytherin houses and the stamp of feet on the stands. The Slytherin Seeker shot up suddenly, gold Snitch in hand. Granger hit the rail with her glove-covered palm and cursed.

"Careful, Granger, Severus said, leaning closer to be heard over the shouting. "You wouldn't want to damage the rapport you've been building with the Slytherins."

She whipped around towards him, eyes flashing. "Careful, Severus," she said. "Rapport isn't the only thing I can damage." Lavender pushed by her then, passing the witch's hat towards him, which belched out a few coins. Hermione glared at him as he pocketed them. Still grumbling good naturedly, Minerva used the sonorous charm to congratulate the Slytherin team on their win.

Hermione's long standing crusade against Rita Skeeter was rekindled after the emergence of the Emerald Quill. Shortly after the first paper had been dropped on the breakfast table, Hermione had contacted the Department of Magical Law Enforcement to report Skeeter as an unregistered Animagus, but it had ultimately resulted in nothing. Even with the evidence that she had mailed, the bureaucratic nature of the department ensured that it would be months before something would have been done.

Used to the many otiose aspects of the Ministry, Hermione was resolved to deal with it herself. Unfortunately, it soon became clear that stopping Rita was not going to be as simple as trapping her in a jar again. As an instructor Hermione was bound to Hogwarts a majority of the time. Between classes, study hours, patrolling, and grading, it was rare that she had the time or the opportunity to venture further than Hogsmeade. There was certainly not a lot of time to track down the reporter that, despite her near constant presence in writing, was nearly impossible to find in person.

The paper's executive editor had informed Hermione that Rita was currently on holiday in Finland. Given that it was February, this story was incredibly dubious even if Rita's close involvement with the paper was not accounted for. With each failed attempt to find Skeeter, Hermione's attempts grew more desperate. She checked the library repeatedly, looking for anything that might be of assistance. She had questioned Hagrid for hours on the habits of beetles, but left his hut with little more than a couple of rock cakes. She had even gone as far as assigning her students in-depth research papers on Animagi, but their half-hearted reports also yielded nothing.

She was still mulling over her next move when she entered the staffroom that afternoon. A stack of newspapers sat by the fireplace, all confiscated copies of the most recent Emerald Quill. As much as the faculty loathed the paper, it was circulating well amongst the students. Rita Skeeter was releasing details about seemingly every scandal to occur in Wizarding Britain in the past century, and as weeks passed without further reports of Greyback sightings or attacks, word of the werewolf quickly took a backseat to more salacious matters.

"I don't understand," Hermione fumed, plucking up a copy and scanning the front page. "How can no one care about this? How is some... some fling more important than Greyback's escape?" She slapped the paper down onto the table Remus and Lavender, the two other occupants in the room, were sitting at. They both glanced up at her, and it occurred to her a moment too late that, in regards to Greyback, perhaps these were not the two people to complain to.

"People are tired of being scared, Hermione," Remus said, setting down his quill and picking up the offending newspaper. "The world wants to believe that this," he tapped the front page, "Is the most important thing happening in the world right now."

"But that's untrue!" Hermione insisted. "She's not just fueling misinformation. She feeding into the same sort of willful blindness that has gotten the Wizarding world into trouble time and time again!"

Remus gestured for her to take a seat. "That particular problem runs much deeper than Rita Skeeter," he said. His voice was not unkind, but it held a note of resignation.

"Is that Pansy Parkinson?" Lavender asked, squinting at the grainy photo as Remus passed the paper back to Hermione and returned to his work.

"And Blaise Zabini," Hermione said, also studying the front page. The reported love affair between the two young Durmstrang instructors was described as "The Sexy Slytherin Scandal of the Century." She wrinkled her nose. "What an odd couple."

"There's no accounting for tastes," Lavender agreed."He could do better. Have you had any luck finding Skeeter yet?"

"Not yet," Hermione said with a sigh, dropping the newspaper back on the table.

Lavender plucked it up and began to read. "What?" She said defensively when Hermione gave her a disapproving look. "Judge all you want, but the woman has more dirt than all of Pomona's greenhouses combined."

Hermione sat there, staring at the paper in Lavender's hand. Remus and Lavender, understandably, did not want to dwell on Greyback's escape, but since the night of the ball it had been difficult for her to think of anything else. She had not realized how much she had been clinging to the relative safety of her life now until it was almost taken once again. While there was little she could do about the Greyback, surely there was something she could do about an obnoxious journalist. If she could not go after the woman herself, then she would go after the next best thing. For every journalist, even one as lacking in integrity as Rita Skeeter, reputation was everything. And that was something Hermione could work with.

After all of the effort she had put into research, tracking, and planning, in the end it was child's play. No one noticed anything unusual when Professor Granger scribbled furiously on scrap paper in between lectures, nor did anyone see her slip out of the castle in the early morning one weekend. But when it came down to it, breaking into the office of the Emerald Quill was the easiest part, something she could probably thank Harry, Ron, and their numerous misadventures for. She spent nearly two hours tinkering with the magic that controlled the printing press, slicing the webbing between her thumb and index finger when one of the plates began to move unexpectedly.

She hastily cast a healing charm and wrapped her sleeve around her hand, internally ranting at the shoddy whole machine was honestly archaic in design, half a dozen spells doing the work that one well placed one would have. Even as outdated as it was, it was better than medieval method of using a doubling charm by hand, which often left errors in the small text and took a considerable amount of time and magic. It made her itch to leave it in such a state, but it wasn't her job to make the Emerald Quill better at spewing its rubbish. Hopefully, she had done the opposite.

It was early Sunday morning, and if Severus was prone to self-indulgence, he would have spent it in bed, recovering from a long and trying week. As it were, he was in the healing classroom, preparing for Monday's lecture. Each class required substantial preparation, which he and Poppy completed in the small segments of time that they could dedicate. At the moment, he was taking inventory of the small chest of potions ingredients nestled in the far corner of the room. As any brewing for the class took place in the classroom instead of the potions lab, he had to ensure that everything that his students needed would be in easy reach.

Severus had his hands full of dried horse chestnut when he heard scurrying down the hall. For a second, he contemplated letting whatever sorry soul was also awake at such an unfortunate hour carry on without any interruption. The threat of mischief was too much to ignore, however, and Severus dropped the dried plants and crept into the hall. The door to the Transfigurations class next door was open, and Hermione knelt by her desk, digging through the contents of the top drawer. He took a moment to observe her unnoticed. Even for Granger, being in her classroom at 6 o'clock in the morning on a Sunday was a bit much. Surely no one was that dedicated to their work, even if they were an insomniac. In their months of working together, he had seen no indication that she slept at all except for the time she fell asleep on his couch.

"If you're looking for their Transformation calculations, you left them in the staffroom," he said, somewhat relishing that she was startled enough to jump up and whirl around.

"Severus!" Hermione said, shutting her desk drawer quickly. Her robes were rumpled and oddly creased at the sleeves, and the dark circles under her eyes were bad enough that it looked like she had gotten into a fight. She had always been a terrible liar, and from the way that she stood frozen without even attempt at nonchalance made it clear that nothing had changed. The hand that had shut the desk drawer was still pressed against it protectively. A drop of blood trailed down her index finger, falling silently onto the floor.

"Granger," he said in greeting. "Are you unaware that you're bleeding all over the floor, or do you just not have any intention to do anything about it?"

"Oh!" She followed his gaze to her hand. "Oh, it's nothing. Just managed to nick myself is all."

In spite of her words, she looked unsteady, swaying slightly, though he thought it more likely it was from sleep deprivation than blood loss.

"Have a seat, Granger," Severus said with a belabored sigh, entering the room. He had intended for her to take the chair, but instead she took a seat on the desk itself, legs dangling freely. He plucked her right hand from her lap and gave her an exasperated look when caught sight of her hand. It was clear a hasty healing charm had been applied, though given the state of her hand it hadn't done much good. She sucked in sharply when he scourgified the area, leaving a visible gash. Apparently squeamish, her eyes remained on him as he systematically worked on the cut until it was little more than a faded narrow line.

"Thank you," Hermione said.

"Be more careful with yourself," he retorted, dropping her hand unceremoniously.

"I've never been particularly good at that," she said. In that, they could agree. A newspaper on her desk caught his eye, and he scowled at the now-familiar green ink that seemed to be a constant distraction in his classroom.

"You too, Granger? I thought the Daily Prophet had a faithful subscriber in you, at least."

She looked down at the paper in surprise. "Oh! I don't usually read Skeeter's work, but this is, well, more of an advanced copy, I guess you could say." She passed it to him and he dragged her chair away from the desk and took a seat.

THE SCANDALOUS SECRETS OF RITA SKEETER the front page shouted. Some may know some of it, but none can claim to know it all…

As he read, Hermione got up and made tea, predictably not just calling for a house elf to do it, instead simply pulling milk and sugar from Merlin knows where. She uncorked a vial and added something to her tea, immediately taking a sip afterwards. He raised an eyebrow, but refocused his gaze on the paper. As she passed him the other cup, she glanced down at the section he was reading in feigned disinterest, confirming his suspicions before they were even fully formed.

"Well?" She asked finally, clearly unable to help herself. "What do you think?"

"I think… it unlikely that a journalist would ruin her own paper at the outset," Severus said, tossing the paper back onto the desk.

"She's been known to do many odd things for more publicity," Hermione said, returning to her perch on the desk.

"She has paper that in its first months is nearly selling as many copies as the Daily Prophet. She doesn't need publicity, although this is certain to garner more."

"And what of the writing itself? What did you think?" Hermione asked, leaning forward.

"Better than the usual twaddle. The crack about Fudge," he snorted, "was spot on. He was always particularly useless, even by the Ministry's standards."

"I always thought so. What else?" She pressed.

"As a sordid tale worthy of her Skeeter's readership, I would say it's decent. As a harebrained plan to discredit an already questionable source, it is trite at best," Severus said.

"Trite?" Hermione repeated, sitting up straighter.

"And overwrought," he added, feeling somewhat smug at her distraught expression. She should know better that to look for compliments from him.

"Overwrought?!" She cried.

Severus crossed his arms. "I have no doubt of your involvement, Granger, though there seems to be little explanation for your motivation. How does gossiping about Skeeter on the front page of her own paper benefit you in any way?"

"It's not just me. It benefits everyone. Skeeter is a liar," she said, spitting the word out as though a liar was the worst possible thing a person could be.

His eyes narrowed. "And why does that matter?"

"Because she's wrong!" Hermione exploded. "Honestly, does anyone care about that detail? She's a liar, and letting her talk without even the slightest objection makes all of us complicit in the lies she sells."

"Every lie has a seed of truth, Granger," he said impatiently. "Surely you must know that by now."

"I don't believe that," she said fiercely. "After all she's said about m-" She cut off suddenly. There was a pause.

Severus carefully dragged a hand along his jaw and across his mouth. "All she's said about you?" He said after a moment.

"And about you. Us," she waved her hands almost hysterically. "All. And Harry, of course." Clearly seeing that her lousy attempt at a save was getting her nowhere, her mouth snapped shut and she crossed her arms, mimicking his pose from only moments earlier.

"And you decide that this is the best way to get her back?" He asked, recrossing his own arms as he leaned back in the chair.

She stuck her chin out as though daring him to judge her. His gaze swept over her form, stone still and almost statuesque in her righteous anger. So it was not an ethical mission but a personal one. He raised an eyebrow, amused. "Why didn't you say so, Granger?"

Her momentary indignation disappeared, and she shifted on the desk, clearly unsure of what to make of his remark. Her spot gave her a slight height advantage, but also gave away the nervous bouncing off her feet as she waited for him to continue.

"A bleeding heart crusade against all media corruption is one thing, but a little revenge is ..." He paused, considering her. She glared down at him, mouth drawn tight, and brown eyes glittering furiously. "Another entirely," he finished.

"It is not revenge," she said finally, looking off to the side. It was such a blatant lie that even she looked unbelieving. Her irritation had brought a flush to her face and chest, betraying all of her attempts at containing her emotions. He picked up his cup again. Now that he thought about it, he could hazily remember quite a nasty series of articles written about Granger's love life.

"It's just…" She sighed, deflating. "I thought it was over, but after her spying on us at the ball, I knew that it wasn't. The second I saw her crawling down Lavender's dress-"

He choked on his tea. "I would think that Lavender would have noticed a woman crawling on her dress before anyone else would."

"Well, not as a woman, of course," Hermione said irritably. "As a beetle."

"As a beetle," Severus repeated slowly, wondering if Granger was simply even more exhausted than she was letting on.

"Rita Skeeter is an unregistered beetle Animagus," Hermione said, frowning at him. "Dumbledore never told you?"

Severus internally cursed Albus's ability to make him look like a clueless idiot even from the grave.

"It's on page 5 of the exposé," she added. Seeing his irritation, she continued. "Well, I suppose I should catch you up." Hermione instantly perked up, instantly going into lecture mode. "It's all been fairly level, aside from the blackmail, of course."

"Naturally," Severus agreed dryly. She shot him a look but continued on, starting from the beginning. When she mentioned the bluebell flames, he stopped her.

"For pests," he said slowly.

"For pests," she confirmed with a grim nod. "A very specific sort of pest. One that has a nasty habit of crawling around other people's spaces." Well that explained that.

"Luckily, she hasn't seemed to have much luck this time around. No one has entered my rooms uninvited, at least since I added additional wards in January." Severus decided it was not the time to mention the wards that he, too, had added back in December.

They had both finished their tea, and it appeared that Hermione had finally run through the rather spectacular series of events involving Skeeter through the years. He placed his cup on the desk. "As enlightening as this has been, Granger, I must return to my preparations for tomorrow. Students are always distractible on Valentine's Day, and it's best to idiot proof the classroom before it is too late." He hoped that she took the statement for the piece of advice it was.

Hermione groaned. "I'd forgotten that was tomorrow. I should probably go to Weasley & Weasley and see if I can get a tip off to what's been coming into the school the past few days."

"If Weasleys are involved, then I'm sure we'll find out only when it's too late," Severus said dryly as he stood.

It was nearly eleven o'clock and a perfectly reasonable time to be tucked in bed for the night. Instead Hermione helping Harry, Ron, and George unbox the last of Weasleys' Valentine's Day merchandise. Apparently the weekend rush had left the shelves nearly empty, and Ron and George swore that even with restocking everything tonight, the shelves would be nearly bare again by the end of tomorrow. George might appear cavalier to his patrons, but anyone better acquainted knew that if you stood too close to him, he would put you to work.

One would think, that given the trio's limited time together, they would make the best of it. That particular evening, however, Harry seemed off in his own world, and Ron was pestering Hermione about what made a decent Valentine's gift.

"What about about a book? Mum's been going on and on about Celestina Warbeck's new book. Something about getting over breakups or something." He was truly desperate if he was going for anyone's book recommendations, let alone his mum's.

"Honestly, Ron, do I need to explain why that's a terrible idea?"

"Well, Hermione, what should I do?" Ron said in frustration. "Lavender loves Valentine's Day, and I'll probably manage to mess up the whole thing."

"Really, Ronald, I am appalled. It's not about the day, it's about the effort. Just do something that she will enjoy," Hermione chastised, blowing hair out of her eyes as she opened a new box.

"You say that like it's simple," Ron scoffed. Apparently taxing his ability for serious conversation, Ron resorted to his usual defense of humor. He jokingly held up different items as potential gifts for Lavender, including lip gloss that sticks your lips together, a pen that shot out ink hearts, and a 24 hour joke perfume that smelled like a dead cat rolled in gardenias.

"You cannot get Lavender something from here," Hermione said, stacking merchandise on the shelf by the counter. Some of the heart shaped pygmy puffs teetered over the edge. It was honestly a terrible design, though it would undoubtedly sell well.

"We've got everything that's worth having!" Ron protested.

"True," George said, throwing his arm over Ron's shoulder. "But Hermione has a point. Getting a joke gift is something that Ickle Ronniekins would do. You've got to have a little class."

"Surely there's something here," Ron said desperately. They all surveyed the floor, littered with boxes of garters that assisted the wearer with wrestling moves, chocolate that melted only when spelled, and lust potions for "couples needing a little help," as Ron had said earlier with a wink.

Until this point, Harry had turned a deaf ear towards them, developed after years of listening to their bickering, and instead was exploring merchandise already displayed. Hermione watched him for a moment, the way that she would a small child. His hair was as much of an unruly mess as ever, and his glasses were so smudged that she could see the fingerprints on them from where she stood. Harry ventured towards a rack beside Hermione, which displayed a variety of miniaturized items, including brooms, wands, and snitches. He picked up a miniature broom.

"It's vibrating!" Harry said, surprised. Hermione blushed and yanked it out of his hands, returning it to its proper rack. All three men howled with laughter when the jostling of the rack caused all of the other brooms to also start vibrating. Hermione hurriedly stabilized the rack to stop the racket. And here she thought they were finally maturing!

She felt some satisfaction that Harry's amusement ended a moment later when he picked up a Muggle style t-shirt at random. It had a picture of Harry catching a snitch, and underneath it in sparkly red letters it said, "I'd never snitch on you."

"Ah, yeah, that's our new Harry Potter line," George said fondly. "It's selling out fast."

"Yeah, we wouldn't be business men if we didn't exploit our famous friends," Ron said, clapping his best friend on the back. Harry gave a weak protest, but for once seemed to know a lost cause when he saw one.

He left shortly after midnight, mumbling that he had an early assessment tomorrow. Hermione, of course, scolded him for being out so late when he had a test the next day. Ron, whose assessment was not scheduled until the end of the week, stayed at the store. He continued to pitch terrible idea after terrible idea at Hermione until eventually he confessed to already purchasing a gift.

"Well, I tried getting her something nice, but it's just…" Ron trailed off, his face bright red. He made a sort of vague gesture. As much as Hermione had reassured Ron that she had no issue helping him with Lavender, she drew the line at anything sexual, and she told him such. He grew even redder, freckles completely disappearing. "It's nothing like that, Hermione!" He yelled, mortified. "A man's got some standards about consulting an ex girlfriend about that sort of thing."

"Well, your standards could certainly do with some work," Hermione retorted. "Describing one of your best friends as your 'ex girlfriend' as if you've known me for all of five months."

"Sorry," Ron said, giving her a dismissive shug. He glanced around, but George was nowhere to be seen. "Let me just show you what I got," he muttered. He went over to the till and opened the safe beneath it, pulling out a white bag. "I picked this out a few days ago, but it's - it's I don't know. A bit much." Ron carefully lifted a glass vase from the bag. "It'll have flowers in it when I give it to her," he said quickly. "I mean, obviously." He studied her face. "You think she'd like it?"

"I do," she said softly, turning vase around in her hands. It was a delicate thing, the glass work clean and painstakingly intricate. Star signs, tarot cards, and tea leaves were etched into the side, woven into a something so beautiful that even Hermione could not find fault with it, despite its clear references to Divination. She glared at him. "I can't believe you've been whining about a gift when this whole time you've had this."

"It's not too much?"

"No!" Honestly, she would never understood him. She turned the vase in her hands again. "Merlin, I can't believe you're dating Lav-Lav either."

Ron cringed at the name, and cleared his throat, watching her closely as she examined the vase. "She needs someone, Lavender does. It's not right for her to be by herself after everything that has happened." Hermione glanced up, surprised by his sudden earnestness. "I don't mean of course," he continued hastily, "that I'm with her out of sympathy. I know that's the last thing she would want. But when I think about sixth year, I think about how we didn't need each other at all. And now … we do. And we fit."

Ron's moments of insight might feel rare, but they certainly happened often enough that she shouldn't continue to be so surprised each time. He spoke with his characteristic simpleness, like he was stating the most obvious thing in the world, and it somehow it made that much more sense. It brought tears to her eyes, the overwhelming mixture of happiness for him and Lavender both and an unexpected sting. Ron, of all people, had managed to hit a feeling that Hermione had been barely aware that she had. It was a desperate, aching loneliness that she was not even close to finding someone like that for her. Someone who fit.

"You're not crying, are you?" Ron said suspiciously. "Because if you are, I won't talk about my feelings ever again." She gave a slightly choked laugh through her sniffles and shoved him into the row of pygmy puffs.

"Watch the merchandise!" George called from somewhere behind a stack of boxes.

Ron cleared his throat again. "We should get going. It's getting late," he said, clearly wanting to put as much distance between him and any expression of sincere emotion as he could. She passed off the vase and he returned it to the safe and gestured to the door. "I'll take you back to Hogwarts."

"Oh, that wo-" Halfway through her reply, a stack of small boxes on a nearby display caught her eye. "No," she said slowly. "No, that's quite alright. I'll just Apparate," Hermione said. "You go on, I think I left something up stairs." Ron shrugged, stooped down to give her a big hug, and shouted his goodbye to George. She waited until he was gone and then scurried over to the display and picking up one of the blue boxes. Flipping it over, she read the description on the back, eyebrow slowly raising at the description. Making a split second decision, she stuffed it deep into her bag. The whole time she prayed that this one would not start vibrating unexpectedly. She slapped a few galleons down on the counter as she passed on her way out.

"That one's actually more," George said, finally visible on the second floor balcony.

"Perhaps we can pretend I got a discounted price for my manual labor," Hermione called up to him. She put down another 5 sickles anyway before she headed towards the door with a wave.

"Enjoy! Tell McGonagall that I miss her captivating smile more every day," George said, resting his elbows on the banister with a dreamy expression on his face.

"I greatly doubt that you ever had much occasion to see her smile at all, with the way you acted," Hermione said, paused in the entryway.

"That only made it all the more special," George said, propping up his chin with a lazy hand. "Besides, Valentine's Day is tomorrow. It'll make her day."

Hermione's mouth ticked up at the corner as she said, "Are you sure you didn't want me to just tell Elias instead?"

She let herself out as George made a scandalized sound.

When Hermione returned to her rooms at Hogwarts, it was well into the early hours of the morning, but the wakefulness potion she had taken earlier was still in effect. Instead of going to bed, she took her time tidying up her rooms, going over her lesson plans for the next day, and reorganizing her bookshelves. Finally, there was nothing left to address except for her impromptu purchase at the shop. The box was still stuffed down in the bottom of her purse. It was a small, barely larger than a Remembrall, though its contents were quite different. She opened it, examining the item inside before losing her nerve and shoving it to the very back of her nightstand drawer. There would be time to deal with that later.