The Defence against the Dark Arts classroom was filled with Gryffindors trying to keep up with Snape's long essays on non-verbal spellwork. Lavender, however uninterested in the current subject, was desperately trying to keep up. She had written nearly five foot of notes and annotations about what Snape had said. Her hand was aching, her fingers cramped from holding the quill for so long. She had not been this active in class since before the OWL exams. She was a relatively quick study, something most people didn't expect from her.
Unlike miss perfect prefect Granger, she thought bitterly, I don't feel the need to show everyone how nerdy I am.
Most people had thought that she would drop out of school after the OWL's had come in; that NEWT-level spellwork would only bore her; that it would be too hard for her. She had heard that Ernie McMillan had made a bet with Terry Boot whether she would or would not come back this year. Ernie had lost.
Lavender felt that getting straight O's wasn't exactly necessary. Getting straight A's was equally acceptable (forgive the pun) and left you with much more outstanding (again, forgive the pun) amount time to relax. Lavender had gotten through five years of Hogwarts like this, and she wasn't going to change this for anybody. She loved passed-time in Hogwarts, either gossiping with her friends or otherwise enjoying the finer benifits of Hogwarts luxury. This had caused people to think of her as a poor student, that had only barely made it through her OWL exams.
Ron and Hermione were seated apart from each other today. Harry, acting as a buffer between them, obviously didn't realize their current relationship. Lavender knew exactly what had happened a few months ago, when both of them came down from the boys' dormitories. They had been snogging. And it had all been her fault. Hermione had never given Ron any attention. Not even when he became interesting as keeper for the Gryffindor team. But when she started dating him, he suddenly became unavailable. In a bout of vengance, Hermione had decided to steal him from her, probably by black-talking her when she wasn't with him. Hermione had tried to keep him with her, desperately clinging on to him as much as she could.
Hermione had won out in the end.
Perhaps, she thought, Hermione had threatened him. Perhaps she had told him to dump me or he would not be allowed to copy any more notes from her, that daft idiot.
Lavender looked at Ron and Hermione. Both of them were acting quite perculiar this week. She didn't know why, but she was bound to find out soon. She'd been eavesdropping on them during breakfast, lunch, dinner and during classes all week long. Lavender had noticed Hermione's lateness a day after Gryffondor had won the house cup. Hermione, never late, shuffled in at breakfast only at the last moment, staring at her feet all the way to the table and glowing redder than the carapace of a blast-ended skrewt. Ron had been exceptionally quiet all day long, something that barely ever happened.
They'd also had the most peculiar conversations. Lavender and Parvati had been sitting near them in the gryffindor common room a few days later when they'd said this to each other during a game of wizards chess:
Ron: "I thought we'd agreed to play a quick game of chess..."
Hermione: "I've got to take some time to weigh out my options."
Ron: "Well, you better tell your pieces to move soon, they're not clairvoyant..."
Hermione: "I know they didn't study Divination like you, Ron."
Ron had said nothing and smiled for a while, after which he'd said "bravo" with a hushed voice. Lavender didn't really understand what they were talking about, but the way Hermione had pronounced Divination, and the reply Ron had given her made her feel they were talking in code. Perhaps they were planning to do something to professor Trelawny.
Right now, they were pretending again. Pretending to be just friends. Pretending nothing had happened between them. All that pretending made Lavender feel more determined to find out if they really were together. She'd have a blast if she could 'expose' them in public. Everyone would know Hermione had stolen her boyfriend. That Hermione had snatched Ron away from her. That Hermione'd.. she'd..
Lavender tried to calm down, as the anger she'd just felt had made her break her quill. She quickly repaired it magically and continued taking notes. Hermione would get what she deserved for stealing her boyfriend! She'd get what she deserved for stealing Ron without even being in love with him...
A few hours later, Lavender was standing in front of the boys' dormitories, her ear pressed against the oak door that led to the dormitory for the sixth-years. Ron had gone off from dinner early, claiming to be 'suffering from internal malfunctions'. Hermione had left only shortly after he'd left, whispering to Harry that she'd needed to 'read up on horcruxes', whatever those were. Harry didn't pay any attention. He'd had all of it focussed on Ginny at the time, but Lavender thought she knew what was going on. Lavender thought that Ron and Hermione were going to snog someplace quiet. It would be the ideal time for it, as everyone was in the great hall. She'd instantly finished her meal too, following in Ron's footsteps as quickly as she could. She ran up the stairs until she saw him going through the portrait hole.
Now, she was standing outside the boys' dormitories, listening to what Ron was doing. She heard some scratching noises, followed by the tell-tale sounds of a piece of paper being folded. She glanced through the keyhole. Ron was sitting on his bed, still folding a piece of paper. Within a minute, he had folded it into a small paper 'aeroplane'. He whipped out his wand and tapped the paper gently, somewhat like a prod. The paper immediately picked up speed and flew up into the air, where it circled around the dormitory.
"Ugh," Ron said, "I forgot to open the door."
Lavender saw Ron walking towards her through the keyhole. She fled sideways and ran down the stairs just before Ron pushed the door open. The paper airplane flew out immediately streaking through the air and down a flight of stairs. Lavender was sitting behind one of the big chairs when she noticed Ron wasn't going after it. He'd probably forgotten that the portrait hole was also closed, or perhaps thought that someone else would open it soon enough.
"Good," Lavender thought, "That'll give me some time to catch it and see what's written on it."
After several failed attempts and some impressive acrobatics, Lavender finally managed to catch the gliding piece of paper. She eagerly unfolded it, hoping that it would hold some clue or proof of his secret relationship with Hermione. All it said was:
"Dear Hermione,
If Yesterday is Tomorrow Today, then what day is Today Tomorrow?
- Ron"
Lavender looked at the piece of parchment in absolute amazement. What did this mean? Was this another coded message? Was this some sort of joke? Was Ron losing his marbles? She looked at the riddle and started to piece it together. If yesterday is tomorrow today, that would mean that today is yesterday tomorrow, so today would be..
She gave up after about half a minute of puzzlement. She folded the message back again and decided to let it continue it's journey. It was only after whipping out her wand that she realized she didn't know the spell to make it fly. She knew Ron's dad had probably shown him how to do it, as it was common knowledge that flying notes were most commonly used in the Ministry of Magic. Lavender had broken the enchantment though, and it had dissipated completely.
There's only one way to solve this now, she thought, and it's going to be risky.
Hermione was sitting in the library, several big black books on her table, most of them opened halfway through. They looked old, with shabby, thin pages and flithy covers. Most of them were written in red ink. She wasn't reading in them though, she was simply doodling in her notebook, in an absent minded way. Lavender was standing some distance behind her, pretending to be interested in one of the big bookstands in the library. She was cluching the paper aeroplane in her right hand, ready to throw it at her, when Hermione suddenly stood up to return one of the big grimoires. She closed her notebook and hid it underneath the pile of books.
Lavender didn't wait for long. The moment Hermione had strutted off, Lavender snatched the notebook from under the pile of books and flipped it open. Glancing over the pages quickly, she noticed a few references to books in the dark arts section, some references to some prince, but so many small doodles of her and Ron that they completely dwarfed everything else. She'd filled pages upon pages with drawings of hearts, arrows and especially his name. She'd tried to draw his face on several pages, using different colors of pencils. Most of them resembled him only in a marginal way.
Ha, Lavender thought, finally something Miss prefect Prefect isn't good in. Still, this does seem like she really fancies him.
As she flipped further in the notebook, she saw riddles. Most of them were unfinished and quite poorly constructed, but there were some good ones too. Most of them were about love or love potions. "Amortentia" was written on one of the pages in big loopy letters.
She couldn't have...
The riddles changed halfway through, from being put together, to being taken apart. The words "Tower", "Clock", "Twelve" and "Divination", followed by "A complete list of things relating to each hint". It was empty. Lavender would have loved to read all the pages in the book, but since Hermione could be back any minute now, she didn't have the time to do so. She put the notebook back under the books and ran back behind the archive. As expected, Hermione was back within a minute, clutching another three black covered books. She put them down and started to flip through the pages again.
Lavender took the opportunity to vent some bottled up agression. She threw the airplane in smooth, quick way. It followed its trajectory and hit Hermione on the head.
"Ow," Hermione said, looking down to see what had hit her.
She picked up the piece of now crumpled paper, fervently look around to find who had thrown it. Lavender, who had spent enough time sneaking around people for gossip, knew she had to move, and had done so before Hermione had looked into her direction. She was now safely ducking behind a table three rows behind Hermione's, listening intently to hear what she'd have to say about the riddle.
"Tomorrow," Hermione said moments later, "That was easy enough.."
She scratched something on one of the few empty pages in her notebook, folded the paper into a plane and prodded it forward. It flew away at once. Lavender was about to leave her hiding place to follow it, when Hermione suddenly mumbled something.
"So that's Tower, Clock, Twelve, Divination and Tomorrow. I still don't see any connection..."
Lavender cautiously peered over the desk, taking great care in not being seen. She saw Hermione writing down the words she had just said on individual pieces of paper.
"What does a tower have to do with Divination, or Twelve with Tomorrow?" Hermione uttered deeply in thought. She began moving the words around the table, trying to connect any words that had any meaning.
"Clock and Twelve might belong together," she faintly said, "and perhaps Tower and Tomorrow belong together.."
Lavender slowly shuffled back. Hermione was apparently deeply in trance, she thought, probably not noticing her anyways.
It's funny how even the most deeply hypnotized or entranced people seem to snap out of their bubble of thought when somebody walks into a bookcase. Lavender, creeping slowly backwards, had tripped over het robes and fell spread-eagled against it. Several big books belonging to "Interesting Goblin Wars, Vol. 14 to 31" fell down on her. Hermione quickly grabbed the pieces of parchment together and stuffed them under her books.
"Are you okay, Lavender?" she asked.
"I'M FINE, Thank you very much!" Lavender retorted angrily, "I think I'm quite old enough to help myself."
Hermione snorted, signalling her disagreement. Lavender stormed out of the library, fuming with rage.
She hadn't crossed two alleys when she heared Hermione suddenly scream: "Ofcourse, how could I not have seen it? All it needed was a different point of view!"
Lavender was boiling with anger. She was angry about Hermione, but mostly about herself.
Was she really in love with him all along?, she thought, Had she really fancied him all these years?
Lavender felt stupid; not because she'd mistakenly thought Hermione had threatened Ron to leave her, nor about her erraneous thoughts on Hermione having used love potion on Ron. She was angry with herself, for not noticing it before. She couldn't wait to tell Parvati...