Extra Credit

Extra Credit

by FenrisWolf

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This is pretty much a PWP fluff bunny that pounced on me after a comment one of the girls at work made about her boyfriend. My question concerning the comment and her reaction to the question produced this idea.

As usual, everything concerning Harry Potter, et al, belongs exclusively to JK Rowling…darn it.

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Ron was busily working his way through his third plate of bangers and mash when his best mate strolled into the Great Hall and plopped into the seat next to his, an odd little smile quirking the corners of his mouth. “Hey, Harry, what kept you? Another ten minutes and the house elves would’ve been clearing the tables.”

"Oh, I had to help out Hermione with a little problem she was having,” Harry said off-handedly, though an observant person might have noticed a twinkle worthy of Dumbledore lurking in his eyes as he said it.

"Well, Ohm gla' 'ur 'ere,” Ron replied around his latest shovelful of eggs and hash browns from the second plate he had parked next to his main platter. “I's good foo' 'oda'.”

"Ron, anything that can't run away screaming is good food as far as you’re concerned,” Harry teased, his bemused gaze taking in the piles of emptied serving dishes that stood guard around his friend’s space. Not for the first time he thought that all he had to do to get rid of Voldemort was to stick some garnish behind his ears and an apple in his mouth, and then let Ron at him.

Just then the hall doors opened again and a feminine figure with bushy, brown hair hurried across the floor to join them, dropping her book bag on the table with a loud thump before grabbing up a roll. “Morning, Ron...hi, Harry,” she said, her attention focused on piling up her plate with what looked to be about three times her normal portions. For all her disdain of ‘girlie things’, Hermione watched her weight as carefully as the most boy crazy Hufflepuff in the school, and breakfast was the meal most likely to suffer at the hands of her latest dietary regimen. Today, though, her usual slice of dry toast and carefully measured portion of eggs was replaced with a stack of Belgian waffles, smothered in butter and thick raspberry syrup. A half dozen links of sausage provided a counterpoint to the sweetness of the syrup, with a healthy serving of mash on the side.

Ron stared for a moment at the feast laid out in front of his friend before manfully swallowing his cud. “Great Honk, Hermione, you've got one heck of an appetite this morning! What've you been up to?”

Hermione flushed and muttered, “Nothing,” before proceeding to attack the stack of waffles with single-minded intensity. “I’m just…hungry.”

Harry watched the exchange and chuckled. “Lay off, Ron,” he cautioned amiably. “You know how Hermione gets when she's got a research project going, and lately she's been doing a lot of extra lab work.”

"Wow, really?” Ron asked, for once sounding genuinely interested. It had finally sunk in that N.E.W.T.S. were only a few months away, and he'd started to buckle down conscientiously in his classes. “So, what subject?”

"You know Ron, I'm not quite sure,” Harry replied, arching an eyebrow as Hermione's face disappeared further under her mane of hair, its curly screen almost hiding her blush. “What would use say, Mione, Charms, or wait, Transfiguration, right?” When she failed to answer Harry nodded. “Right, Transfiguration.”

Ron watched the interplay between his friends, clearly puzzled by the obviously hidden meaning behind the words. Suddenly he noticed that Harry only had a few scraggly pieces of sausage on his plate, and even those he was just chasing idly around with his fork. “Is that all you're going to eat, Mate? We have practice this afternoon, y’know.”

"Not very hungry, actually,” Harry replied casually, shrugging his shoulders with another small smile. “I had a snack a little while ago in the Library, and it left me pretty full.”

Hermione's fork clattered to the table and she glanced around a bit frantically, looking for all the world like someone desperate to change the subject. Locking her gaze on Harry's face, she painted a false smile on her lips and said brightly, “I'm so glad you shaved off that silly goatee you were trying to grow, Harry; you look much better without all that itchy stubble sticking out everywhere.”

Ron looked up again, even more confused than before. “Hermione? Harry shaved that off over a week ago. Why are you just noticing it now?”

Harry looked over at Hermione and cocked an eyebrow, a smirk on his face. “I'm curious, too, Mione. Why did you just now notice that my…‘itchy’ goatee was gone, hmmmm?”

Hermione stared at him for a full thirty seconds, her eyes wide as a deer’s caught in high beams as her face slowly turned an incredible shade of red. When it looked like she was going to stay that way indefinitely, Ron reached over and snapped his fingers in front of her nose. “Yo, Earth to Hermione! You still in there?”

At the second snap Hermione uttered a loud squeak and, after grabbing her books, jumped up from the table and fled the hall. Ron watched her in open-mouthed amazement, convinced once more that his best female friend was completely mental. Suddenly he heard his other friend chuckling and eyed him narrowly. “You want to fill me in on what's going on there, mate? I know it’s been a bit weird since you two got together, but the only time I've ever seen her this tightly wound when a major test was in the offing, and nothing's scheduled for at least a month. What's going on?”

Harry considered for a minute and then looked around the hall, confirming that yes, they were the last two people present. With that determined, he leaned over and whispered in his friend's ear. Ron looked stunned for a minute and then shouted in a voice that shook the rafters, “Bloody Hell! EDIBLE knickers!?!”

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~Fin~