Claraowl: I do not own Harry Potter, etc., etc., etc…. but I do own a very hyper owl! (Not Pigwidgeon.)

~*Beginning of 6th Year*~

Hermione was rummaging through her trunk, looking for something that was missing from her journal. It made no sense whatsoever - how could it have possibly come loose? She'd been positive that it was stuck there properly. Mind you, she'd used glue, since she'd received it over the summer, but she'd used an awful lot. Grabbing her journal, she rifled through the pages, double-checking that she hadn't just missed it. Unfortunately, her search was futile. She resumed her rummaging, this time taking things out of her trunk and stacking them around her like a tower. By the time she'd reached the bottom of her trunk, she'd reached the end of her rope. "For the sake of Merlin!" she exclaimed, yelling at her trunk. "Did you eat it?"

"Did who eat what, Hermione?" Parvati asked from the doorway. She'd entered the room to find Hermione surrounded by an impossible-seeming amount of books inter-stacked to form a tower, hollering at an empty trunk. "Did you lose something?"

Hermione, who had gone slightly red in the face, looked up at Parvati. "Er, yes… something fell out of my journal and my trunk appears to have eaten it."

"What was it? I could help you look." Parvati offered.

Just then, Hermione slapped her forehead, remembering the obvious. "I'm so dumb. Accio photograph!" The photo she had been looking for zoomed out from beneath Lavender's bed. Hermione quickly stuck the photo back into her journal, managing not to let Parvati see it. "Thanks for the memory jog, Parvati."

"Er, no problem," a slightly confused Parvati answered. "You were looking for a photograph?"

"Yes… it's stupid, though, nothing terribly important." Hermione gave a nervous laugh.

"Okay…" Parvati walked over to her bedside table to grab her lip gloss, the item she'd come up for in the first place, as Hermione re-packed her trunk. When she got back to the common room, she rushed over to Lavender. "Hermione was acting really weird just now, Lav."

Lavender looked up from her magazine. "You mean, weird for her? What was she doing, mooning over a Viktor Krum fan magazine or something?"

"No, even weirder that that!" Parvati exclaimed.

"What, then?"

"From the looks of it, she'd emptied her entire trunk and was yelling at it because - get this - she couldn't find a photograph that had fallen out!"

"A photo?" Lavender blinked.

"Yes - and until I came up, she hadn't thought to use a summoning charm! When she summoned it, it came zooming out from under your bed. She got this really relieved face and made sure I didn't see it, and then she said it was stupid and wasn't important!" Parvati finished.

"Ooh," Lavender grinned, "I smell a secret!"

Parvati laughed, "Maybe we can talk her into giving us a hint, like the one with her dreams!"

"Sure, Parvati," Lavender giggled, standing up, "but I kind of hope we can get a straight answer out of her this time!"

"True," Parvati said as they walked over to the steps and up to their dorm, "we never did figure out what she meant. She's just too cryptic!"

As the friends entered, Hermione was closing her trunk, her journal nowhere in sight. "Hello," she greeted them, standing up with a large book in her arms and Crookshanks perched on her shoulder.

"Hi, Hermione," they chorused, smiling.

She smiled at them as she made her way past them and out to the common room. As soon as she was out of sight, they turned to each other. "Now what?" Parvati asked.

"I thought you had a plan," Lavender shrugged. "You're the one who brought me up here."

"Well, why don't we prepare our line of questioning?" Parvati asked.

"Like, 'Hermione, why were you freaking out over a picture?'" Lavender proposed.

"No, that's too straightforward. You know Hermione won't give up private information easily," Parvati reasoned.

"True… hey, since I wasn't there, why don't I ask to see some of her pictures from home? I could even offer to show her mine!" Lavender exclaimed.

"Perfect!" Parvati grinned. "Lav, you're a genius!"

"Why, thank you, thank you very much," Lavender replied, then grinned. "You like my Elvis impression?"

"Who?"

Lavender sighed and proceeded to explain Elvis to her best friend.

Down in the common room, Hermione and Ron were laughing, watching Harry unsuccessfully attempt to uproot Crookshanks from his lap. Apparently, Crookshanks had decided that Harry's lap was comfortable, and had accordingly dug his claws into the fabric of Harry's robes. Hermione was laughing too hard to do anything about it, and Ron thought it looked too funny to do anything about. The ongoing battle between Harry and Crookshanks - and Crookshanks's victory - resulted in such heavy laughing for Hermione that she slid off of her chair and onto the floor. Ron, snickering, stood up and helped her back into her chair. "You know, Hermione," Ron said, "I've never seen you laugh this much before." I wish I could make you laugh like that, he silently added.

Hermione, still laughing lightly, replied, "I think I had too much sugar at dinner." Then both of them became aware of the fact that Ron was still holding her arm. Hermione laughed again, saying, "I think I can sit up on my own now, thanks." Ron's ears turned violently red and he let go of her arm, plopping back into his chair.

Unfortunately, Crookshanks got tired of sitting in Harry's lap, due to the lack of ear scratches, and decided that Ron looked comfortable, causing the whole battle to repeat itself. In the end of all this, a giggling Hermione collected her half-kneazle and bid her best friends good night. She was still giggling when she entered her dorm room, causing Lavender and Parvati to look at her strangely. In all their time of knowing her, they had never seen Hermione giggle.

"What's up, Hermione? You seem… happy," Parvati asked carefully.

"What? Oh, I just had a lot of sugar at dinner and Crookshanks was waging a lap war with the boys," Hermione grinned as she prepared for bed.

"A what?" Lavender laughed.

"A lap war!" Hermione exclaimed, beginning to laugh again. "Crookshanks decided that they looked comfortable and refused to move. The boys weren't too happy about it! It was quite a sight, them flapping around, trying to get Crookshanks off of their robes!" At this, Hermione dissolved into laughter again, Lavender and Parvati joining in.

After the laughter had died down, Lavender asked, "Hey, Hermione, I found my photos from before Hogwarts and I was going to show them to Parvati - do you want to see them, too?"

"Sure," Hermione smiled, going over and sitting next to her dorm-mates.

"This is my family," Lavender began, pointing to a picture of a small group of people. Many pictures later, at the end of the album, she said, "Oh, this was when I took ballet-"

"You did ballet?" Hermione asked, suddenly more animated than before, if possible. "How long?"

"Oh, just a year," Lavender replied. "I got stage fright my first year and burst into tears onstage!"

"Aw, poor thing," Hermione sympathized.

"Why, did you dance?" Parvati asked.

"Yes, from age three right up until I started Hogwarts," Hermione smiled, slightly sadly. "I still miss it. I bring my shoes to school every year and sometimes I find an unused room and dance. I guess it's my stress release."

"Wow, I never knew that!" Parvati exclaimed.

"Come to think of it, we don't know much about you, Hermione. Do you have any photos we could see?" Lavender asked.

Hermione thought for a minute. "I think so," she said, "let me check." She went over and rummaged in her trunk for a minute. "Here we go!" She walked over with a small album and sat between the other two girls.

About an hour later, the album was done. "Wow," said Lavender. "Can you still do the splits like in that one picture?"

Hermione grinned, stood up, handed them the album, and slid out into her right splits. She then, while still sitting on the floor, shifted so that she was in her middle and left splits.

The other two stared at her.

"Oh," Hermione said, "it's late. I should shower." She left the room.

"Did you see anything that she'd want to hide?" Lavender asked.

"Well, Lav, there was one flaw in your brilliant plan - she keeps that picture in her journal!"

"Oops," grinned Lavender.

"Hey, Hermione, I've got a question about -" Ginny entered the room, holding a small, lilac book. "Oh. Where's Hermione?"

"She's in the shower, Ginny. What do you need?" Parvati asked, somewhat surprised.

"Oh, I just wanted to ask her something - nothing really important," Ginny smiled. "I can wait."

"Hey, Ginny," Lavender began, a plot forming in her mind, "how well do you know Hermione?"

"Pretty well," Ginny answered cautiously. "We've shared a room for a few weeks each summer since my third year. Why?"

"Well, it's occurred to us that we don't know her very well," Parvati jumped in, catching Lavender's drift, "so we've decided that we should. After all, we are roommates. Can you tell us anything about her?"

Ginny looked carefully at the two girls in front of her, wondering how much she could say without actually saying anything. "Well," Ginny began, "her favorite color is lilac, though she doesn't wear it very often. She took dance classes when she was little, and still dances with a friend over the summer - last year, they entered a competition and won the best duet."

"Duet?" Parvati asked.

"As in, a guy?" Lavender asked disbelievingly.

Ginny furrowed her brow. "I think his name is Ethan."

"Who?" the two girls chorused.

"Her friend from primary school."

Parvati giggled, "Does Ron know about this?"

"Hmm… he might," Ginny said. "I'm not sure, though."

"Is he cute?" Lavender asked.

"I think he's in Hermione's photo album somewhere."

"Did you learn the art of non-answering from Hermione, or did she learn it from you?"

Ginny said nothing and smiled mysteriously.

At that point, Hermione reentered the room wearing owl pajamas, her hair in a towel. "Hi, Gin, what's up?"

"Can you come with me for a minute? I have a question about that book you lent me."

"Oh, did you finish it already?"

"No," Ginny said, giving Hermione a look that gave her all the information she needed.

"Ah," Hermione cringed, "lead the way."

Lavender and Parvati counted to ten after the other two had left, then lowered two pieces of flesh-colored string after them.

In the common room, Ginny held up Hermione's journal. "I know that we swapped journals to help each other out, but don't you think you could've warned me about the picture? I had to go wash my eyes out!"

"Oops," Hermione said in a small voice.

"Oops? Oops? You forget to warn me about something like that and you say oops?"

"Yes," Hermione answered honestly.

"Ew, Hermione, ew! Why do you even have that? Where did you get it? PLEASE tell me you weren't the one who took it," Ginny pleaded, pulling a face.

"No, Ginny, I was not the one who took that picture," Hermione explained patiently. "Your brothers Fred and George were the photographers. They sent Errol with it at the beginning of last summer; apparently, it was supposed to be a joke. I pretended that I never received it, and I guess they thought Errol had dropped it somewhere on the way there."

"And you kept it," Ginny stated with disgust.

"Well, I couldn't throw it away at home - what if Mum or Dad saw it in my trash? It's not exactly the kind of picture you want your parents to see, is it?"

"Well, what about when you came to the Burrow?"

"And have your mum find it?"

"Good point. What about here?"

"Too many people and roommates to find it."

"You could burn it."

"Too messy, too much smoke - plus, people would ask me what I was burning."

"What people?"

"Them," Hermione jerked her head towards her dorm room, "and -" she pointed to the photograph.

"Urgh, Hermione, don't point at it. I don't want to look at it!"

"You can't deny that it would end in utter disaster on either account."

"Yes, but why paste it in your journal?"

"That way, I always know where it is. I almost lost it earlier. Can you imagine what would've happened if one of the others had found it?"

"How would they've known it was yours?"

"On the back it says, 'To Hermione - Enjoy gawking! - Gred and Feorge.'"

"Ah… remind me to kill them," Ginny muttered as the two started to make their way up to bed.

"By the way, Gin," Hermione leaned over and whispered before the two split up, "if someone had sent you a picture of Harry stark naked and dripping wet, you would've kept it, too."

"Yes, but I maintain that, since the picture is of my brother, it is disgusting that my friend is keeping it."

Hermione laughed. "Goodnight, Ginny. Sweet dreams."

Ginny smirked, "Have fun with fire, ice, and the barren desert."

Hermione giggled, "Oh, I will."

"You're messed up."

"I know."

Back up in the dorm room, Lavender and Parvati stared at each other, speechless. They hurriedly stuffed away the extendable ears and looked innocent as Hermione came back into the room and collapsed into bed, shut her curtains, and set up the usual enchantments. Lavender then hatched a plan. "If she won't tell us she likes Ron, then let's prove it beyond a shadow of a doubt."

"How?" Parvati asked.

"Jealousy."

"You mean you're going to ask Ron out?"

"Yup. Besides - he cute, and from what I hear, he's got a killer body! I've had a little fancy on him for a little while now, so why not?"

"Because Hermione would murder you in your sleep?"

"Nah, she'd wait until I was awake - you know how she likes things to be fair, she'd give me a fighting chance."

"There's no point trying to talk you out of this, is there?"

"None at all."

"Goodnight, Lav," Parvati sighed, walking over to her own bed. This is going to be a crazy year.

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