It was the last golden afternoon before their return to school. The last noisy, rowdy, raucous dinner Ron could enjoy before the return to mountains of homework and enduring long, dull classes. Why did Hermione never allow Harry and him to copy her homework? Ron privately shrugged and leaned back in his chair with a loud sigh, hand on the top of his stomach.

The three tables put together through the Leaky Cauldron parlour were starting to empty of their many guests, remains of the chocolate pudding they'd devoured piled willy-nilly on the wooden top. Ron watched his twin brothers whisper something to Ginny, the three of them bursting into boisterous laughter, Mum throwing them a suspicious look before she subtly smiled and returned to her chat with Dad.

His fingers were playing with the red rat tonic bottle, mind rattling the way it always did when people brandished expensive things before him, expecting him to maybe leap at them. And he would, really, if he'd had the money. If his family had the money. Like the woman at the Magical Menagerie earlier - why'd she have to try and have him replace Scabbers with some new, glossy rat?

Good old Scabbers. He wasn't young or new, mind, but he was family. That had to count for something.

It was alright that he got his books second hand, he supposed, as he did receive a new wand that summer. And they had all had a good time in Egypt, wandering around the pyramids in the blazing sun, seeing the camels. There were times when his mind would stray to Hermione and he'd smile thinking about how much she would have enjoyed a trip like that, how excited she would have been to be presented with so much new information. She would have giddily inhaled all of it, the way she did with all the books she read.

His gaze dropped to the pile of books she had gathered around her, curious and eager to peruse them, feel their weight in her hands and the earthy texture of their pages underneath her fingertips. Her bushy brown hair would bounce a bit as she found a paragraph that particularly interested her.

His ankle tapped against the leg of her chair.

"None of these are for your birthday, then?"

"No," she said calmly, nose still stuck to the page, "Crookshanks is."

"You keep that beast away from Scabbers and me," Ron frowned, drawing his own chair nearer to hers. The smell of new books and something he couldn't quite place hit him suddenly.

"He's in my room. Is that far enough?" Hermione volleyed back, bored. He could see the tips of her nails turning white as she gripped the book tighter.

"Yeah, well, I s'pose. What are you reading anyway? We're going back to Hogwarts tomorrow, you'll have plenty to read there as it is."

"Oh, just something light before I go to sleep," Hermione beamed, the bushy curls bouncing slightly against her cheeks. Ron had never noticed before how interesting her hair actually was, how it curled and framed her face when she smiled.

"G'night," Harry yawned from the other side of the table, not bothering to cover his mouth with the back of his hand.

"Good night, Harry."

"Night, mate," Ron chipped in after Hermione, feeling a yawn stretch at the corners of his lips as well. Bloody thing, yawns. It only took one for everyone to catch it.

From the far end of the table, a wobbly voice mumbled "Night, Harry." It was Ginny, her gaze firmly glued to the floor, vermilion crawling up into her hairline. Ron shook his head.

"Oi, Ginny, want the last bit of my chocolate pudding?"

"You mean your third serving," Fred grinned at him from Ginny's right, promptly making her smile.

Ron shrugged. "Yeah, whatever. Here," he added and pushed the plate towards the three of them; quickly, the twins started to play with it, scooping very small helpings and pelting them towards Percy's back to Ginny's increasing giggles.

Her cheeks weren't red anymore and, feeling rather pleased, Ron refocused his full attention on Hermione.

"Right, so - light reading?"

"Yes, it's a brilliant new take on the International Warlock Convention of - but why do you care?" she suddenly stopped, eyeing him suspiciously over the alarmingly thick spine of her book.

Ron reckoned she had a right reason to be suspicious. He had lightly taken the mickey earlier after all, suggesting that she buy herself a nice new book on top of the three heavy, stacked bags she had already bought. And the subject was eye-wateringly boring, Ron privately agreed.

Still, he couldn't help himself.

"Come on, Hermione," he grinned, leaning into her, elbow scraping over the table, "promise I'm genuinely interested in the - er, International Warlock Convention of…?"

"1289," she finished in one short breath. "Professor Binns did mention the Sardinian Sorcerers' Subcommittee last year and their contribution to the Convention as a whole, but here it's actually highlighted that -"

Without really intending to, Ron yawned, his mouth forming a very large, gaping 'O'.

"Don't ask if you're not interested," Hermione huffed, banging her book closed with an annoyed thump. She was about to get up and quite possibly storm out when Ron caught her gently by the arm. He always could nettle her so quickly.

"It's Harry's fault, made me catch his bloody yawn."

Her eyes softened slightly and she eased back into her chair, small mouth still in a pout. Ron's heart fluttered, hand quickly falling away from her arm.

"You're absolutely positive Binns moaned about those sardines?" he asked cheerfully, nails scratching at his temple.

"Sardinian Sorcerers' Subcommittee and yes. We had a full essay on it, don't you remember?"

She plonked her book on top of the others, sighing, and Ron grinned again.

"Thanks for helping us with that. You're a real mate, Hermione."

She frowned. "That's exactly why I don't let you two copy. You'll never learn if you won't do it yourselves."

"Ah, Hermione, but maybe we don't want to learn," he winked. Oddly, he had the fleeting impression that her cheeks had coloured.

His breath hitched.

"Ron! Ron, what have you done with my badge?!"

His train of thought was swiftly interrupted by Percy's loud lamentations filling the corridor all the way from their shared room. He rolled his eyes.

"Better go and see what it's about before he has a fit," Ron excused himself, exasperated, chair scraping against the floor as he got up. He glanced over his shoulder as he quit the parlour, eyes trained on Hermione as she neatly arranged her books in orderly piles, fingertips gliding over their spines.

Ron took the stairs two at a time, odd thoughts of her smile and the way her eyes lit up as she turned the pages of a book strangely filling his mind.