Chapter 3

"What are you doing here?" Hermione snapped.

"What's the matter, Granger? Head Boy not allowed to buy parchment and quills?"

"Funnily enough I thought you might have someone else to do it for you, Malfoy. You know: like someone else does all your work?"

Malfoy opened his mouth to reply but was cut off by the sound of the door opening to admit a noisy group of students. There were a few recogniseable faces in the group, but in its centre, standing head and shoulders above the rest, was Ron. His eyes searched out Hermione and, when they found her, his still-freckled face broke into a grin and he waved a bag of honeydukes sweets at her. Suddenly he noticed Malfoy standing beside her, frowning at him, and his grin faded as he frowned back. He pushed through the crowd to Hermione's side, placing a protective, but wholly unnecessary, arm around her shoulders.

"You okay?" Ron asked, his mouth full of Drooble's Best Blowing Gum.

"Fine," Hermione replied stiffly, picking up the parchment, ink and new quill that she had come in for hurriedly and walking away from the two boys to the counter.

It was a few minutes before Hermione got to the front of the newly formed queue and was able to purchase her equipment, but the two boys were still glaring at each other stolidly when she returned to Ron's side: Ron holding back because Malfoy was Head Boy; and Malfoy silently daring Ron to say or do anything about it.

"Come on," Hermione said, tugging Ron's arm, "Let's get out of here: it's too busy."

Reluctantly, Ron followed her out into the street.

"Only one more year and I can whack him without getting detention!" Ron muttered sullenly, "Hey, where's Harry?"

"Oh, he went off on his own somewhere. Probably the shrieking shack. That's where we first met Sirius and where we found out the whole story about him, Remus and Pettigrew."

"I thought he took it bad when Sirius died, but when Lupin bought it, he really took it bad! Even after we got Wormtail! I think it's because they were really the last close link to his parents, you know?"

"Maybe. So much happened last year, I'm not sure what part of it got to him most."

"Well, at least a few good things came out of last year: Percy's back on our side; Fudge is no longer messing things up at the ministry; Ginny's got a decent boyfriend; and we..." Ron broke off, blushing.

"We became us," Hermione finished, smiling up at him.

"Look, there's Luna!" Ron said suddenly, changing the subject, "Hey Luna! It's not raining yet!"

"It will," Luna replied dreamily as she walked towards them, umbrella in one hand, bag in the other, "It will rain eventually."

"Can't argue with that," muttered Ron, earning himself an elbow in the ribs from Hermione.

"Where are the others?" Luna asked, gazing up at the sky.

"Oh, Harry's gone off by himself and Neville and Ginny are at Madame Puddifoot's," Ron said conversationally, "or they were when I last looked."

"They'll still be there," Hermione giggled, "some of this stuff is for Ginny. She said she didn't expect to get round anywhere else today."

"Funnily enough, Neville asked me to pick up a few things from Honeydukes too," Ron sighed, "Since I was going in there anyway, he said."

"Should we go and find them?" Luna asked.

"We'd better give them a bit more time to themselves," Hermione replied, glancing up at a reluctant but resigned look on Ron's face as she did so, "Come on, let's go and see if Madame Rosemerta has any more gossip for us."

Together, the three spent a cheerful afternoon drinking butterbeer and catching up on gossip from the local landlady, Madame Rosemerta. After a couple of hours, they were joined by Harry, who sat at the end of the bar, in a corner, next to Luna, while he sipped his drink and said little.

Eventually, Ron shifted uneasily.

"Let's go and get them," he said, "It's almost time to head back to Hogwarts anyway."

"Okay, we'll go," Hermione sighed, looking round at Luna and Harry, "Are you two ready?"

"I'll just finish my drink, then catch you up," Luna replied, receiving a nod from Ron.

"Harry?" Hermione asked, looking along the bar into the darkened corner.

Without replying, Harry lifted the butterbeer bottle and shook it gently, then took a sip. Hermione glanced at Luna, watching Harry, and noticed that, for once, the girl's dreamy air was not apparent. Luna looked round and caught Hermione's eye, nodding seriously in understanding. Hermione nodded back and turned to leave, steering Ron out of the pub with her.

"What was all that about?" Ron muttered when they got out into the crisp, autumnal air, "All that stuff between you and Loopy Lovegood?"

"She's not half as loopy as you think, Ron," Hermione snapped, rounding on him, "If we left Harry there alone, he'd probably sit there drinking all night and wouldn't make it back to Hogwarts until tomorrow. Something that would lose us serious house points as you well know from the last time he did it! You haven't lost any of your family, thank goodness, and neither have I. Luna has. Maybe not as many of her family as Harry has, but more than we have. She and Neville are the only ones who can get through to him when he's like this. She'll stay with him and do her best to get him back to the castle. If Neville had been there, he would have stayed too, but he wasn't and we can't send him to help her because Harry would know we had sent him!"

"Oh," Ron said simply, "Then I suppose we'd better get along to Madame Puddifoot's and get those two back to the castle before it gets dark."