Disclaimer: Oh, don't mind me. I'm still waiting for the day that my polyjuice potion finally works so I can finally be J.K. Rowling…

(Kidding. Oh yeah, and I don't own Harry Potter.)

Chapter Six

Hermione awoke to the sound of screaming. Not just any screaming either, but rather a wail of despair. She tried (unsuccessfully) to drown it out by putting her pillow over her ears, but it didn't work.

Sighing upon realizing that since she was clearly not going to be getting any sleep for a while, she set her pillow aside and decided to see what the problem was. Hermione discovered that the sound was coming from the Sixth Year girls' lavatory and shuffled her tired feet across the room and through the door.

Inside, crouched over a sink to peer despairingly into the mirror, was Lavender Brown.

"Why're you screaming?" Hermione asked exhasperatedly, followed by a yawn. "It's five twenty-two in the morning, Lavender."

The brunette in question spun around and looked at Hermione with puffy red eyes. "Who cares what time it is!" Her bottom lip quivered as she turned back to the mirror. Hermione inched herself further into the room to get a better view of Lavender's face through the dingy mirror. The girl had her fingers up to her face, pinching and prodding at her chin. "How will any bloke—let alone—" she choked back a sob. "But it's useless! No one will notice anything about me now except for this pimple!"

At this admission, her bawling started up again.

Hermione let out an irritated sound, somewhere between a growl and a snort. "There is such a thing as a concealment charm, you know. Of all people, I'd have expected you would already know that."

Lavender whipped around suddenly, tears shining on her cheeks. "Will you show me?"

Hermione rolled her eyes and drew her wand from her pocket. She waved it in front of Lavender's face and muttered the incantation loud enough for the other girl to hear and then the small red growth was gone.

"There," Hermione muttered. "Good as new."

She conjured a hand mirror for Lavender and handed it to her. She examined her reflection before flinging her arms around Hermione's neck and squeezing her as tightly as humanly possible. "Thank you! I owe you one!"

Just as quickly, her arms were gone as she skipped out of the bathroom, leaving Hermione to herself.

After that little situation had been dealt with, Hermione couldn't have gone back to sleep even if she tried. Begrudgingly, she stayed awake and began getting ready. She decided that she would be early to breakfast. She quickly ran a brush through her hair, dressed in her school robes, and brushed her teeth, before gathering her things and tiptoeing down to the empty common room.

As she crept down the stairs, a ball of crumpled paper soared through the air and hit the top of her teetering stack of books, causing her to lose her balance and tumble down the stairs. She landed on the floor at the bottom in a painful, throbbing mess of books and quills and papers.

Her throbbing head popped up to rip the culprit a new one, who—wasn't there.

The person who threw the ball of paper wasn't even there.

Hermione fumed and snatched up the offending piece of parchment and ripped it open to see if anything was even written on the blasted thing.

Good morning!

Hermione's eyes narrowed instantly as she recognized the sloppy script.

"Ron Weasley," she muttered under her breath as she gathered her scattered books, "you are a dead man."

On second thought, she decided to use a downsizing charm on them and dropped them lightly into her bag. As she righted herself, the very person she had been envisioning murdering in extremely creative and evil ways had the audacity to pop up in her path.

"Hey there!" Ron said cheerily.

Hermione glowered at him as she stood.

"Did you get my letter?" Ron asked.

Hermione glared at the crumpled ball on the floor at the bottom of the stairs, willing it to catch fire. "You mean that?"

He nodded eagerly.

She forced herself to take a few calming breaths before she said, "I got it, alright."

"And?" He pressed.

Hermione's nostrils flared. This was really not her morning.

"What are you playing at?" She demanded. "It said 'Good morning!' for Merlin's sake!"

Ron frowned. "You didn't use the spell, I take it."

"Spell?"

He tugged at his collar uncomfortably. "I, er, wrote the rest in invisible ink so that no one else could read it but you. I thought you would have realized…"

Hermione's foot tapped impatiently. Her bum and left side were still smarting from the fall. "Since I'm already here, why not just save me the time and tell me what it said."

Ron blanched. "I really wanted you to read it."

"We're the only ones here," Hermione pointed out.

"Still…"

"Tell me now or forever hold your peace," Hermione warned him sternly.

She was still tired after waking up so abruptly, had just fallen down the stairs, and her stomach was grumbling uncontrollably. As such, she most certainly did not have enough patience for any more of Ron's nonsense at the moment.

"Fine," he groaned. His face instantly turned redder than she had ever seen before he proceeded to blather out a string of absolute gibberish.

Hermione blinked. "What? You know I can't understand what you're saying when you talk that fast."

Ron gulped. "Will you…" He took a deep breath. "Will you go to Hogsmeade with me this weekend?"

Hermione was dumbfounded. She opened her mouth to reply when she saw a flicker of panic in his eyes.

"H-Harry'll come, too, of course. A-and Ginny."

Hermione quickly regained her wits and smiled softly. "I'd love to go with you."

Ron stared, open-mouthed, then smiled back. "Oh. Um. Cool."

What an odd pair they were, she thought. Him, tall and sporty, and herself, small and bookish. He was loyal to his last breath, his most redeeming quality, and she was very brave when she needed to be. He loved Quidditch, and she was terrified of even getting on a broom.

He cleared his throat. "W-well, I guess I'll see you in a little while at the Great Hall for breakfast." He waved awkwardly at her and hurried up the stairs to his dormitory.

Hermione tried to suppress her giggles as she made her way to the Great Hall. To think, after all this time of waiting, Ron had finally mustered up the courage to—

"Psst!"

Hermione froze, glancing around quickly. "Hello? Who's there?"

"It's me, Granger." She relaxed as Diggory's unmistakably light, humored voice reached her.

"Good morning to you, too," Hermione said with a laugh as his luminescent head poked around a corner. "What are you doing here, anyway?"

"Oh, just out for my morning stroll," he replied loftily. He drifted over to a column across from her, so low to the ground that he almost looked like he was walking. "Have to stay healthy somehow, you know."

"I didn't realize ghosts cared about that," Hermione mused, thinking of the Fat Friar's enthusiasm for food. She snickered to herself when she remembered that the Fat Friar also happened to be the Hufflepuff House ghost.

Diggory's eyes darted up to look at something behind her and she turned to see a group of Ravenclaws making their way to breakfast. They were stared back at her with the most peculiar expressions.

She pursed her lips and shifted her robes so that her Gryffindor Prefect badge caught in the light. "I can take points for rudely gawking at someone in the hallway, you know," she warned them. The Ravenclaws shared nervous glances before shuffling down the corridor and out of sight.

When she looked at Diggory again, his eyes were shining with amusement.

"What?"

"Is that true? Can you really take points away for that?"

She did her best to maintain her prim expression, but her lips betrayed her by tugging up at the corners. "I might have… Fudged a little, just to get them going."

He let out a loud, ringing laugh. "Thought so." He cast a glance around the empty corridor. "Care to go somewhere a little more private? Wouldn't want anyone else to be threatened for rudely gawking as you appear to carry on a conversation with yourself."

Hermione smiled despite herself and agreed, following him through a few corridors and up a few staircases before stopping in front of a familiar bare wall. She waited expectantly for him to go inside once the door had materialized.

He looked down at the ground and lightly cleared his throat. "I, er… Prefer not to go through things, if possible."

"Right." Hermione mentally smacked herself as she opened the door.

He shrugged and walked through the doorway, his feet barely touching the ground, with Hermione just behind him. She was amazed to see the same room from the previous night set out before them. Just as she began to look around for a place to put her bag, a wall rack appeared out of thin air on the wall. Her eyes widened in surprise as she wordlessly hung the strap over one of the hooks.

"Pretty neat, isn't it?" He asked. Hermione noticed the dimples in his cheeks as he smiled and couldn't help but find them rather endearing.

"It is," she agreed. She walked across the room and sat on the couch while Diggory took an armchair, a mirror image of their positions from the previous night. The fireplace before them instantly sprang to life.

"When I was still alive," he told her, "I used to come here all the time."

Hermione turned her head to look at him. "Really?"

"Yeah, especially when I was in the Tournament. The stress would grate on my nerves, so I'd drop by for a while to relax." He drew his eyes away from the fireplace, making eye contact with her. "You know the strangest part?"

Hermione leaned forward. "What's that?"

His eyes brightened a little, as if he was sharing a secret. "It always looked the same."

"The Room is known for supplying what a person needs," she said. A small part of her was stunned at how willing he had been to offer personal information about himself since they had crossed paths again. Then again, she supposed that she might have done the same without anyone to talk to in nearly two years. It must have gotten lonely for him at times.

They quieted down for a bit, leaving Hermione to her thoughts. She turned back to the warmth blazing lazily in the fireplace, its red-orange tendrils happily eating away at the sizeable logs. Her thoughts drifted to Diggory's competitiveness and desire to prove himself. She knew of a certain red-haired Gryffindor that also shared those traits, one who had just asked her to Hogsmeade with him earlier that morning.

She settled deeper into the couch cushions, leaning her head on the arm rest.

In the strangest way, Diggory was so like... And yet, so incredibly unlike…

"Granger?"

Hermione's eyes shot open, blinking rapidly to adjust to the dim lighting in the room. As she sat up, she noticed an unfamiliar woven blanket draped over her body. She jumped after seeing Diggory's ghostly form hovering in the closest armchair.

"Thought you looked cold," he said, nodding toward the blanket. "The Room conjured it up for you."

He had always been so kind to her, as if they were close friends, though he hardly knew her. She almost snorted at the idea of what would happen if she had been in the same position with Ron. He wasn't the most observant person she'd met; the thought that she might need a blanket probably wouldn't have crossed his mind.

"Thank you," she said.

They stared at each other for a long moment, neither knowing what to say.

"Hey, can I ask you something?" Hermione asked.

Diggory regarded her curiously. "Shoot."

"How exactly did you write those letters to me? I thought you couldn't, er, you know…" She fiddled with an edge of the blanket. "Touch things."

He straightened. "See that corner over there?"

He pointed across the room. She nodded.

"I came in here one day and saw a desk sitting there, a quill and parchment out and ready to use. Immediately, the quill sprang to life and my thoughts were spilling out onto the page," he explained. "I came back a few more times to mess around with it, just passing the time, really, before I realized I could put it to use by writing an actual letter—the first one I sent you."

Her face twisted into a thoughtful expression as she mulled over the information. "So, since it was writing down your thoughts word for word…"

"It wrote them in my handwriting," he finished for her. "It was a brilliant piece of magic."

"I believe it." Hermione sighed wistfully. "I wish I could've seen it…"

"I can show you, if you want." Diggory said, sitting up a little.

"How?" She asked, puzzled. "I don't need to use it, I simply want to."

"I have an overabundance of time to spend lazing around in here." He said, grinning. Those two dimples showed in his cheeks again. "I think I've had long enough to figure out a few things by now, wouldn't you agree?"

"I suppose so," she said.

He stood up and walked over to her and held his hand out to her. "Come on, let me show you."

Hermione looked skeptically from his ghostly hand to his eyes.

"How am I supposed to—?"

She was interrupted as the door banged open, her hand dropping to her lap quickly.

Ron burst in not even a whole second later, a crumpled piece of parchment in his hand. His shoulders slumped forward in relief as he whipped out his wand and pointed it at the parchment. "Mischief Managed," he breathed.

Ron's face was red, as if he had been sprinting through the school. A glance at his wild hair and disheveled clothing told her that, perhaps, he had. Hermione and Diggory exchanged bewildered looks.

"What are you doing in here?" He wheezed. "I had to borrow the map from Harry just to find you!"

He had been looking for her?

"Well, er, I've been—"

He waved a dismissive hand toward her. "Oh, never mind. We need to get going, now!"

Hermione frowned. "Remind me why, exactly, we're in such a hurry? We still have," she looked at a clock that had just magically appeared on the fireplace's stone mantle. "thirty-five minutes until class."

Ron noticed her bag hanging by the door and slung it over his shoulder. He looked back at her with a shrug. "I want you to sit with me for breakfast."

Hermione blushed slightly and shuffled her feet across the floor to meet up with him, surprised by his thoughtfulness. "Well, er, thank you. That's really sweet of y—"

"We have that Charms essay due today, remember?"

Hermione's eyes snapped up to meet his.

"You mean the one that we were assigned about, oh…" she pretended to think about it for a second. "three weeks ago?"

Ron's ears turned bright red and he rubbed the back of his neck.

Remember those breathing exercises Mum and Dad taught you, she thought. In, two, three… Out, two, three… Resist the urge to strangle his scrawny neck, no matter how much the bloody git deserves it…

"Yeah, that's the one." He muttered. "You'll help me, right? Like always?"

Hermione's resolve fell apart at his helpless look. "Fine," she sighed, "but this is the last time."

"You're the best, Hermione!" Ron said gleefully, leaning down to press a quick peck to her cheek.

Her cheeks burned as he pulled away, his face red as a tomato.

"R-right, then," Ron squeaked. He immediately tried to cover it with a cough. "Let's go!"

Hermione nodded mutely and followed behind him, but she stopped in her tracks as she cast one last glance over her shoulder. Diggory stood right where she'd left him, his hands stiff at his sides.

She opened her mouth to apologize, though she didn't know what for.

Ron grabbed her arm and gave it a solid, impatient tug. "Come on," he groaned.

She shook her head and the moment was gone.

Hermione looked over her shoulder at the door once more just as it melded back into the wall, her brows drawing together in uncertainty. Just before Ron slammed the door shut, she could've sworn she saw a hurt expression cross Diggory's face.

Author's Note: Okay, returning folks, I know there were a few big changes to this chapter when I went back to edit, but I think they help with the flow of the story. It'll all make sense soon!

I also wanted to mention that I am unbelievably thankful for each read, follow, and favorite. Every review makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside when I read it. Thank you so much. :-)

Okay, enough of my sappiness. It's off to the next chapter with me!

-Caitlyn