Disclaimer: Not mine.

Tests

Harry Potter sat among a group of their year mates, laughing at a story Lavender was telling. The fire he was sitting by threw odd slashes of shadow and light across his thin face. At one point, he looked up and caught his best friend's eye. He smiled brightly. Ron shuddered and looked away.

'How can you act so normal?' He thought. 'Like the rest of us, but not.' He looked at Hermione, who was sitting in the armchair beside him, and she sighed, closing the book that was in her lap with a small snap.

"You want to do this now, then?" She asked quietly.

He nodded, looking back over towards Harry.

She took out a piece of parchment and a quill from the bag at her feet. Using the book's cover to bare down on, she scribbled a not quickly, then handed it to Ron. 'First test.' It read. He turned back to her.

"Harry, could you come here?" She murmured lowly. As far away from them as he was, and as loud as the other occupants of the common room were, Harry should not have been able to hear her. It should have been impossible.

But his head turned their way, and his smiling eyes landed on them. The dark haired teen excused himself from the increasingly boisterous conversation he had been taking part in. He carefully got to his feet, clumsily maneuvering around other people to reach them.

"Hey, Hermione. What's up?" He asked when he reached them.

The bushy haired girl shared a look with the red haired boy. It wasn't completely solid proof, but added on to everything else... it was pretty convincing.

Hermione sighed in a put upon fashion. "My favorite necklace is broken, but I can't figure out how to fix it, and Ron is being no help at all. Do you think you could take a look at it?"

Harry shrugged. "I guess, though I'm not sure how much help I could be."

"Anything is better than nothing." The girl quickly told him. She reached into the smallest pocket of her bag, and fished out something that glimmered in the dull light of the fire. She handed it to him.

Then both she and Ron sat back to watch. And were disappointed.

Harry held up the small golden cross. "Huh, never seen you wear this one." He said, before directing his attention to the clasp and chain. While he was distracted with that, Hermione frowned at Ron. He shrugged.

After a few minutes, Harry handed her back the necklace. "Sorry Hermione, I can't see anything wrong with it. Maybe you're not putting it on right."

"It's alright Harry. It's nothing really. Maybe Professor McGonagall can fix it later." She said in a soothing manner. "Thank you for trying. Could you tell Lavender to talk a bit lower, please?"

The boy blinked in confusion, before shrugging and wondering back over to the group he had been a part of before. They accepted him back easily.

Hermione scrunched up her face, and pulled another piece of parchment from her bag, writing something on it, and striking something off.

"Not as successful as I'd hoped, but we'll think of something." She assured a concerned looking Ron. The red head nodded, but did not look as convinced as he had before.

OoOoOoO

A week later they were walking to class together. Hermione looked up at the sky, tracing the paths of the heavy clouds that made their way across it. "It's going to be another wet night." She announced to the two boys. Harry just rolled his eyes at her for stating the obvious, but Ron knew what she was getting at.

"Yeah." He said, squinting upwards too. "Probably won't be able to even see the moon tonight."

Harry gave in and followed their gaze. "Uh... yeah. All right. Rain. Great. So... class?" He prompted his two loitering friends.

Hermione sped up her pace, but continued to talk. "So how are you feeling today, Harry?" She asked.

The teen shot her an odd look, not noticing how close attention Ron was paying to his answer on his other side. "Fine. How are you feeling Hermione?"

"Good, good." She waved away the social necessities. "So you're not going to need to, say, go to bed early?"

Harry wrinkled his nose in confusion. "I don't think so... but thank you for asking."

Ron frowned at Hermione over Harry's shoulder when they got to the classroom. She shook her head. When they sat down, she wrote something on a sheet of parchment, and scratched something off.

OoOoOoO

"Harry, it's too crowded in here. Let's go outside." Ron said casually.

Hermione looked up from her book and nodded. "That sounds like a good idea. It really is too noisy to get any real work done."

Harry looked from one to the other incredulously. "Are you two nuts? Do you know how hot it is outside right now?" He asked.

"So you don't want to go outside then?" Ron asked slowly. Harry sighed and gathered up the books he had been studying.

"Lead the way." He said flatly.

Ron did. Hermione had more to write on her parchment.

OoOoOoO

"Ugh. What is that smell?" Harry said, his face wrinkled in disgust. Both of his friends looked at each other, then at him.

"What smell, Harry?" Ron asked lightly.

The dark haired teen rubbed his nose. "It smells like one of the socks that I'd find under your bed." He told the other boy, who laughed.

Hermione bit her lip.

OoOoOoO

The Boy-Who-Lived-to-be-Annoyed-by-Hyphens crawled through the portrait hole into the quiet common room. The fire was barely burning coals this late, and the room was almost pitch black. He navigated it easily though.

"Where have you been, mate?" Ron mumbled sleepily when his best friend snuck into the dorm.

Harry shrugged out of his Invisibility Cloak. "Oh, you know, around."

Ron turned over to squint at him. "Like you're 'around' every night?"

The other wizard climbed into bed. "You know I have trouble sleeping. I like to walk around a bit when I can't sleep." He explained. "Good night, Ron."

"Night."

OoOoOOO

The boy and ghost were having an animated discussion when the bushy haired girl interrupted. "Harry, what are you and Nick talking about?" She asked.

The boy, used to her nosey tendencies, explained easily. "Nick's next Deathday celebration. It's not for another ninety or so years, but apparently that means it's the perfect time to start making the food."

The ghost laughed boisterously. "Ignore the lad, he is joking. I was merely telling him how different the sports I played were to the ones you students play today."

Hermione rolled her eyes and politely begged off of joining the conversation.

OoOoOoO

Slowly, the odd requests and questions began petering off, and Ron and Hermione became visibly less tense.

One day, when he had been sent to the common room to find something that Hermione had left behind, Harry found a parchment on the floor. It was written on with two different sets of handwriting, both familiar to the teen.

He read over it curiously.

'Harry's acting strange.'

'I know. Kind of secretive.'

'Think he's hiding something?'

The conversation, obviously a note passed back and forth between Ron and Hermione during a class, continued in that strain for a while until they were both somehow convinced he was a dark creature of some sort.

From there on, it only continued on in Hermione's hand, obviously notes. Columns were written and crossed off. 'Vampire', 'Werewolf', 'Possessed', and other such suggestions. Each had a list under them of what the signs were. And most signs were followed by a single word.

'Vampire- Excellent hearing- Confirmed- Heard in noisy common room'

'Vampire- Hurt by crucifixes- Disproved- Handed one and didn't react'

'Vampire- Hurt by sunlight- Disproved- Outside on the sunniest day of the year'

'Werewolf- Excellent hearing- Confirmed- see Vampire'

'Werewolf- Excellent sense of smell- Confirmed- Sock in Ron'b bag in library'

'Werewolf- Full Moon Change- Disproved- In common room all full moon night'

'Possessed- Strange behavior- Confirmed- That's what started this whole thing'

'Possessed- Unexplained absences- Confirmed- Leaving the tower at night, not on the Map'

'Possessed- Defensive- Disproved- Open'

'Possessed- Avoided by ghosts- Disproved- Talked with NHN'

Harry snorted. His friends were not as subtle as they thought they were, and he had caught on almost immediately. Some of the things they tried were admittedly clever, but most of it was obvious. And they thought he was acting strange? But he wasn't worried.

He knew that the possibility that he was a demon wasn't even considered.

Tired but can't sleep. Started out with one idea, then it warped greatly into this. Not sure what to think of it. Figured I may as well post it here. I had intended it to be a lot darker. Maybe I'll write what I had in mind later.

Lionna