Waiting For That Day

Waiting For That Day.

They were in the library, as people often tended to be when they were studying. Of the four of them, only one was actually studying. This, rather predictably, was Hermione Granger, who if you told her how academically predictable she was, would have been torn between taking it as an insult and accepting it as a compliment.

The others gathered around the table were making do as best they could with scribbled comments in the margins of their notes as communications, leading to knowing glances and stifled snickers - stifled quick enough so that Madam Pince didn't get too curious - but Hermione Saw And Heard All, and she saw it far better than Trelawney ever could. The sour twist of her mouth alone was enough to make Ron duck his head down on cue and get back to staring at the pages of textbooks as if they meant something to him, to say nothing of the sound of her voice.

"Shame," Dean mused idly, flipping through the pages of a comic he'd smuggled in. "We should probably be doing something academic."

"I am," Seamus replied perfunctorily, and dipped his quill in the inkpot to scrawl something across his page. Dean then leaned over and glanced at, raising one eyebrow.

"Hermione?"

"Hrm?" Hermione didn't put down her textbook, or even stop just to mark the page with a finger. The sheer level of annoyance she could verbalise with a random sound was extraordinary, and typically reduced other Gryffindors to stammering bundles of apologies.

Well. It reduced Ron, at any rate, although he was always sort of vaguely proud at her capacity to communicate such things.

Dean Thomas, however, had grown up in a far different environment, and besides which, he had Seamus Finnigan as a boyfriend. If nothing else, that meant he was pretty much capable of withstanding anything bar a small thermonuclear detonation - although Dean had said on several occasions that Seamus' living space in the Gryffindor dorms had been hit by a small thermonuclear detonation, and frequently. He was not intimidated by the sort of warning signs that made sensible students apologise and scuttle away as soon as possible. But then, Dean Thomas had also said on several occasions that he was not, in fact, sensible. After all, he did have Seamus Finnigan as a boyfriend.

Hermione tended to agree.

"Does writing dirty limericks about the wizarding wars of the sixteenth century count as a form of study?"

That did get her attention. Hermione raised one eyebrow, and put her textbook down, slowly closing it with a soft sound that echoed throughout the library far louder than it should have. From all sides, students turned, open-mouthed, to watch as Dean Thomas would invariably get the Lecture On The Subject Of Academic Responsibility (Variation #334) that would leave him reeling, or quite possibly gibbering in the corner.

Hermione giggled.

The student body let go of the breathe they didn't realised they'd been holding and turned back to their work.

"He really hasn't, has he?" One eyebrow raised, Hermione redirected her question to Seamus. "You really aren't...are you?"

Without a word, Seamus handed over his piece of parchment, and Hermione scanned it, giggling again. Ron leaned his head over, received a glare for his trouble, and went back to his notes, shoulders hunched.

Dean and Seamus privately agreed that Ron was whipped, and frequently. But they didn't really want to go into details, because the last time they did, the mental images stopped them from having sex for a week, and that was just horrible.

Hermione handed the parchment back. Seamus took it, slipped it into his folder, and waited for his assessment.

"Hmm...for sheer deviousness, I'd give it a five, ingenuity five, effort, five and actual academic usefulness...a five as well. I think this is your best attempt yet to pervert the course of learning in this school."

Seamus grinned from ear to ear. "I'll be sure to suggest them to Binns as mnemonics. After all, he's so dry he probably won't realise there's anything wrong with them."

"I'd like to see you try," commented Hermione dryly, and that clenched the deal. Seamus never could resist a challenge, and they both knew it. Hermione went back to her textbook, Ron to his notes, Dean to his comic, and Seamus was bored.

This was never a good thing. At first he fiddled with his quill. Then he sorted through his notes and papers with a large shuffling noise. Then he dropped his quill over the side of the table, and had to lean down to pick it up. Then he started humming, very quietly - something that sounded out of tune and probably wouldn't have sounded that good even if it was in tune. Finally, he flicked at his ink well with his fingers, accidentally knocking it over and spilling ink across half the table before he righted it. To redeem himself, Seamus pulled out his wand and did a deft cleaning charm, while managing to mutter 'sorry' under his breath.

Seamus still couldn't perform advanced transfigurations or a complex binding charm, but he was brilliant at cleaning things up - mainly because he had to be.

By this stage everyone at the table was glaring at him. In part this was because he was disturbing them, but also because his behaviour carried the possibility of bringing Madam Pince down upon them - which was universally accepted as a Very Bad Thing. Rumour had it that if the four founders were sitting in the library, and Helga started yelling, Godric and Salazar would have worked together to shut her up rather than have Madam Pince head their way.

"Shame," Dean said out of the side of his mouth, still rifling through the comic. "Why don't you find something constructive to do?"

"I'm all done," Seamus replied, and put his hands behind his head, leaning back in his chair. "All homework completed, everything up to date, I'm all-" At this point he almost fell over, and barely managed to right himself in time. The other three glanced at each other. Something had to be done. Seamus either had to be contained, or voted off the table.

This, after all, was the Hogwarts Library. This was war.

"Why don't you write out the list of reasons why you love me?" Dean suggested, easy as always.

Seamus visibly brightened, picking up his quill and began to write. Ten minutes later, he passed a piece of parchment over to Dean, who looked at it, noting the many revisions and cross-outs. After studying it for some length (and crooking his head to see what Seamus had written in the margins to fit everything in) he passed it back.

"Nah," Dean told him softly, "I'm better than that. Write me more."

"Oh. Bugger." Seamus' face fell, and he set to scribbling again.

Hermione looked over at Dean with a new found appreciation for his abilities.

'What's your secret?' she mouthed at him, carefully noting that their significant others had their heads bowed.

Dean just winked back at her, and refused to comment.

The rest of the study period passed without incident.