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Chapter Three: No Fawn Unspotted

The next morning at breakfast, the trio (two of which still weren't quite speaking) set about telling the remaining members of the DA about the preliminary meeting which was to be held tonight at eight in the Room of Requirement.

It was rather quick work to let the Gryffindor members know, as Ron had simply told Ginny last night, and Hermione hastily told Neville in between comments about the Herbology lecture they had had the previous day. There weren't many people they trusted to tell. The hitch as far as they were concerned was that Luna, as a Ravenclaw, naturally wasn't sitting at their table.

They had originally thought that if Ginny shared a class with her today, she could inconspicuously inform Luna, but Ginny reported to Ron this morning that even if she had a class with the Ravenclaws today (which she didn't), you couldn't really count upon Luna showing up. Hermione just stared incredulously at Ron as he relayed that in undertones to them.

Grimacing, she rolled her eyes over to the Ravenclaw table where Luna looked to be just about asleep in her porridge, "You're kidding… How do you not show up for class? Where does she even go?" She trailed off with a "She must be so far behind…" and continued staring at the Ravenclaw table in dismay.

Ron finished swallowing his eggs; "Don't Ravenclaws spend lots of time in the library, or something?" Harry shrugged; he didn't really know what most of the other houses did in their spare time. Not unless you're counting certain Slytherins from years past.

But Harry nodded anyway; his general picture of the Ravenclaw house involved a lot of students that were probably in all likeliness, all too much like Hermione. Too bad they couldn't trust more of them to help research for the DA.

The only Ravenclaw still in the DA was Luna, but perhaps given proper direction she could be useful, assuming of course they found a way to tell her about tonight's meeting.

At that thought Harry glanced over at Hermione to find her still fixated towards the other end of the Great Hall, and turned back to Ron, "Um, right… So, any ideas about how to tell her?"

But agitating enough, Ron, too was just kind of looking at Hermione staring off into space, an odd mix of concern and distain crossing themselves across his face. Harry shrugged, trying to shake off his creeping frustration.

It was rather early in the morning for this. And he was tired of whispering. He poked Ron's shoulder again, "What do you say to one of us passing her a note as we leave for class?"

Snapping out of her fascination with the other table, Hermione focused quickly upon Harry, "I can do it." Harry smiled a bit, "okay, it probably wouldn't look strange if the two of you ran into each other in the library or something."

And if Harry found it strange that Hermione colored slightly at that and then glanced back across the Great Hall before that she could make it look unintentional, he couldn't let it bother him as he already had far more to think about than he ever really had wanted.

Ron startled, a bit affronted and jealous by the blush he saw Harry rouse out of the usually poised Hermione, and finally spluttered, "just make sure you, eh, you know, curse the paper, or something… who knows what Luna might do with it…don't want anyone else getting a hold of it."

He looked over at the Slytherin table, where even the more subdued nature of that house this year hadn't lessened his hostility towards it. Hermione rolled her eyes and nodded, still stiffening at bit at the slight hostility in his voice.

"Well, okay then," Harry yawned, looked down at his disregarded plate, and tiredly turned back to his breakfast, already turning over what they needed to get done in DA tonight in his head.

XxXx

When Harry mumbled something about a letter he needed to get off before class and nipped quickly back to the dorms, Hermione took the opportunity to grab Ron's sleeve and hold him back a bit from the rest of the crowd making their way to the classrooms.

She glanced nervously up into his face, "I know you're mad at me. I'm sorry, I really am. I just don't think it, you know, would be a good idea right now, maybe later. After all of this is over, and things settle down?"

"And do you know when that is? We might not see it Hermione. There are no promises here. If you were really sorry and worried about how the war would effect everyone, you wouldn't have acted so prudish, Hermione. We shouldn't be wasting time making plans for what may never happen for us," he crossed his arms over his chest, "You either want to try this out, or you don't. You can't just stop halfway in the middle and then freeze. It's not fair."

"I know, it's just…" she started walking towards the transfiguration classroom, Ron stiff and staring ahead at her side. "We need each other. All three of us. There's too much at stake to risk everything like that on a whim."

Ron hardened at that last part. He was fighting in all this so he could have the life he wanted and the people he adored. She couldn't just assume he had acted rashly and hadn't put any thought into it at all. He did both all the time!

"I know what I want Hermione. I don't want to put my life on hold. I want to date girls. I want to date you. It shouldn't be too hard to ask for the normal things in life, Hermione! There's more to it than books and war. And I don't think strengthening our relationship can hurt us. You might think that letting this war consume you is the best way to fight it. Harry might agree with you, but Hermione…"

He trailed off when he saw the disengaged look in Hermione's eyes. She was watching everyone leaving the Great Hall. Couldn't she see that if they didn't keep living their lives during the war, they wouldn't have anything left once the war was finally over? Couldn't anyone see that?

Fed up with Hermione, life, the war, and everything else in general Ron stormed on ahead. Just once he would have liked to actually take Hermione to the Halloween Feast. He hoped Hermione liked pairing with Neville in transfiguration.

Then he heard a couple Ravenclaw girls giggling over who they saw kissing Luna in the library the other day. He saw red. Screw bloody transfiguration, he was going down to the lake. Screw Hermione too and all her 'focus on the war' shit. She could have just well bloody told him.

Well, fuck that. Luna could have her, and her books too. He had blown off Lavender again last night, thinking maybe Hermione would just take a little convincing. And now he felt like kicking something. Hard.

XxXx

Hermione blinked, as she watched Ron storm angrily ahead and stare at a couple of Ravenclaw Seventh years who fell silent as she passed. That hadn't gone all that well. Not horrible, not well, but at least it seemed like they were back to talking to each other.

She was right, they already had so much going on that they couldn't really control, no need to add to it. And now she still had to find Luna today about the DA meeting tonight. And make it seem like an accident. Eh. It was shaping up to be a tiring day.

She was surprised to arrive at transfiguration to find neither Harry nor Ron had made it there ahead of her. How odd. She had been distracted during the entire lesson watching the door the door, and waiting for either of them to show up.

Afterwards, on her way to her next class Hermione finally spotted Harry loitering outside the door of their second class. He followed her in and excitedly whispered that he had gotten some really good material for tonight's lesson through McGonagall this morning.

Hermione was a little confused as to when he might have gotten this info, as he hadn't gotten an owl at breakfast from what she remembered and he didn't get anything exciting last night either. She was also curious if that had been what kept him away from first period, or if something else had stopped him. And where exactly was Ron? But of course the professor walked in before she could get anything more useful than new defense charms out of Harry, and she wasn't sure if she'd have time during lunch to ask. She wasn't even sure if she'd make it to lunch.

After all, she had to find Luna, and she didn't plan on skipping any classes unless she really needed the extra time. She'd never find the time to catch up, get Ron (who still hadn't shown up, and the professor had already started today's lecture) and Harry caught up, attend DA, and finish the potion's essay due tomorrow.

XxXx

Luna glanced up from scrawling in her transfiguration book when she felt something bony and sharp collide with her knee, which was sticking out conspicuously towards the middle of the corridor near the library where she sat leaning against the stonewall, only to find a shower of books and parchments come flying down upon her, shoving her over sideways, down onto the cold floor.

A very red-faced Hermione scrambled over her, reaching out to grab at all her school effects before they fell and scattered across the floor, glad that at least she hadn't dropped anything truly heavy. Eh, how awkward, Hermione thought her face might very well burn. She hadn't meant to end up practically in the girl's lap.

Still pushed backwards upon her elbows, Luna leaned forward and tilted her head to a side to blink upward at girl hovering above her. It was Hermione. "Hello Hermione, how are you?"

Luna shifted to pick up one of Hermione's books from where it had fallen across the already book-covered floor, and held it up to Hermione who was still grabbing madly at her wayward belongings. Luna hadn't pictured Hermione as ever being klutzy before, she giggled.

Hermione dimpled slightly back and swiftly snatched the book, shifting all of her belongings in her arms, so she could move to kneel down besides Luna. She hurriedly started shoving things into her bag.

"Sorry about this, I didn't quite mean for... I didn't see your knee… Such a mess, you're not hurt, are you?" A bit breathless, Hermione fastened her book bag, and her face still flaming, scurried away before giving Luna a chance to reply.

Hermione stared at the ceiling, willing her cheeks to cool down. She hadn't wanted anyone to think she had purposely stopped at (and then toppled over) the girl, but she hadn't meant to loose her balance quite so badly either.

Hermione gave a nervous chuckle that was a bit more high-pitched than she would ever admit. Luna had looked up from the floor to find books, whatnot, and a girl practically fall into her lap, and she had giggled.

Oh, there was nothing terribly dignified in how that plan ended up, but her heart sure was still thumping… She had meant to just drop her stuff on the floor near Luna and then shove the note towards her while scooping her stuff back up. A reluctant grin tugged at her lips, Luna had looked quite shocked to see her end up like that though.

They hadn't even spoken since the kiss in the library. Hermione could swear to herself that Luna hadn't exactly been displeased to find herself brought, once again, so close to Hermione. Hermione felt a little warm at that thought.

Once she had finally put some more distance between Luna and herself, Hermione glanced back on the stairwell to find the lounging girl still staring at her. Hermione smiled faintly at the prone girl outlined against the darkness of the corridor behind her, and then quickly ducked out of sight, cooling her cheeks against her hands as she headed immediately back down to the crowded Great Hall for lunch.

She still needed to talk to Harry about this morning. Maybe she wouldn't tell him about exactly how she ended up passing the note to Luna.

Of course, the other people in the hallway who had seen her practically fall into Luna's lap probably wouldn't spare her any dignity. There goes for being subtle.

XxXx

Luna shyly smiled back at the empty stairway where Hermione had just been, and then glanced down at the small disregarded parchment scrap Hermione had shoved into her hand.

Room of Requirement. 8pm.

Bring your wand, be ready to practice.

The note then curled in on itself, disappearing into a small, hot heap of ash in her hand. Luna smiled a little to herself. She liked having the DA a couple years ago.

Funny that the coin that she still kept in her trunk (guarded against any who might try to snatch her belongings this year, thank you very much) and still checked periodically, hadn't reported another meeting though. Maybe it was broken.

She wiped her hand down across the front of her robe and went back to scribbling in her textbook, a good deal happier now than she was before getting a spewed on with Hermione's scrolls and books.

XxXx