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Who: Ron and Hermione
Where: The Safehouse on Hoy
When: 20 March, 2002 - Close to moonrise
Status: complete

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"You and Harry said that every time I read to you." Hermione's thoughts had also drifted to those late nights of studying. "Yet every time you both ended up snoring away."

She looked up over the the edge of the book and lifted her eyebrows at him. "You used to drool on your notes."

What she figured he didn't remember was that she always managed to make sure that both of their notes were taken away after they'd nodded off so they wouldn't get too wet. And if they were too hard to read, she would spend an hour or more rewriting everything so they'd have some proper study aids.

Lifting the book back up, Hermione continued with the story. "In consideration of the day and hour of my birth, it was declared by the nurse, and by some sage women in the neighbourhood who had taken a lively interest in me several months before there was any possibility of our becoming personally acquainted, first, that I was destined to be unlucky in life; and secondly, that I was privileged to see ghosts and spirits; both these gifts inevitably attaching, as

[waningred]

"I did not!" Ron shot back, a touch indignant. "I'll admit that I snore - loud enough to wake the dead sometimes - but I don't drool."

"That's just..." His face screwed up at the image of he and Harry face-down on the pages of their textbooks, happily in dreamland and all but drowning in a puddle of their own saliva. "Bloody repulsive is what it is."

Hermione didn't rise to the occasion, just gave him a stern, "I'm not buying it" look he'd seen so many times before and went back to reading. Ron, surprisingly enough, paid a degree of attention throughout; although he did think that what he was hearing was an awful lot of tosh.

"Bad luck? Ha! We've got that in spades," he muttered in reply, always the most pragmatic of the trio.

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Hermione pressed her thumb between the pages of the book and looked at the cover before glancing back over at Ron. "We've had our good luck too. Remember first year...?"

At his skeptical look, Hermione turned more to sit facing him. "No I'm serious. You two going up against that troll? I mean, you were eleven. And managing not to get caught when you were polyjuiced as Crabbe and Goyle the next year." She stretched out her legs. "Not to mention surviving the terror that was 'Won-won and Lav-lav.' If that isn't good luck, I don't know what is."

The corner of her mouth turned up and she got up from where she was seated, folding the corner of the page down to keep her place. The kettle had already started to whistle and she lifted it off the flame. With her back to him, Hermione tossed a couple of teabags into the chipped teapot, bunging water over them.

"I'd offer you some of this, but the tannins in the tea won't react well with the wolfsbane. Which, by the way, you should drink."

[waningred]

Throughout their conversation he'd absently rubbed at his arms; his skin beginning to itch with the very first symptoms of lyncanthropy. It wouldn't be long now.

Pulling himself upright, Ron began to strip off his clothes, tossing each item in quick succession onto a pile Hermione could levitate away. He was beyond nervous. More so than he'd been the previous month when all he had to worry about was keeping clear of populated areas and Greyback's clan. Now there was Hermione's more immediate safety to worry about too.

"You can get out of here if you want. While there's still time, I mean." Unscrewing the thermos top, Ron gave the contents a curious sniff, scrunching his nose at the sulfurous funk of overcooked cabbage. Bleh. He'd bet a galleon it tasted twice as bad. "It's not a pretty sight when I'm transforming and I don't..."

He couldn't bring himself to say it. After that pep talk from Luna, he couldn't do it.

Instead, he gulped down the potion. "Ugh," Ron grimaced, holding a hand over his mouth in hopes that the wolfsbane

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"I think it's because we're used to the polyjuice," Hermione said calmly. She'd been reading up on transformation accounts and learnt that the trick was to keep your voice steady and low. Submissive. "Which is a sad fact. I never thought I'd ever get used to polyjuicePicking up each article of clothing after it had been taken out of his side of the room, Hermione folded them, placing the whole lot all on a stool beside the bedroll she'd done up for herself. Folding his clothes had just been something she'd gotten used to over the years. It was easier than waiting for him to do it