Oh nuts to Merlin, not again, Harry was thinking. I have got to stop myself from doing that... is her lip bleeding again? I hope she'll forgive me... I really think I'll need to grovel this time.
"That one still doesn't count!" blurted Hermione.
"Uh... it's okay, Hermione. I don't count that one, either," Harry answered awkwardly.
"Good!" she huffed in reply. Wait, why am I so mad about this? It didn't mean anything to either of us... I think...
She's still mad... this isn't good. Maybe she was expecting something from me? pondered Harry. Did she actually want me to kiss her? Is that why she's so angry, since I seem to keep delivering such bad kisses? Wait, they don't count as kisses, she said so herself... ugh, I'll never understand her!
"So... you remember the last time then? When we... uh... did... what we just did..." Harry was far too embarrassed to say it clearly.
"Of course I remember! Why wouldn't I remember you doing that to... Oh!" Hermione's eyes lit up in realization. "Calentempa!" The time-and-date spell showed 1994, June 30th, 8:43 AM. "Yes!" She jumped up and down in glee. It worked! The beacon worked! And we remember our past experiences too! It's working exactly how it's supposed to! Oh, this is so amazing, Harry!" She leapt towards him and gave him a bone-crushing hug.
"Er... Hermione... you're forgetting something..." Harry wheezed out.
"What? Oh, of course. The new design was also supposed to increase the range output of the beacon, wasn't it? Well, we can't really test that unless we wait for another few years, but..." Hermione began one of her information-spilling rants.
"No, Hermione... I mean, this still means we have less than an hour to pack, eat breakfast, and head down to the carriages."
Hermione's looked at him for only a second before dashing straight for the entrance of the chamber. "Harry! Hurry up and open the door for me!" she shouted impatiently. Harry grinned as he caught up to her, whispering the parseltongue password.
After arriving in Gryffindor Tower again, he decided to be a bit nicer to Ron. Well, relatively nicer, at least. Seeing him completely asleep, Harry didn't bother wasting his time trying to wake him. "Aguamenti." The water splashed straight onto Ron's face, waking him instantly. He flailed around in bed before falling off. Getting up and seeing Harry, he sputtered, "Bloody hell, mate! What did you do that for?"
Harry simply replied, "I did it to wake you up, Ron. If you spent a single minute more asleep you wouldn't have time for breakfast. Now get packing, we've only got a little more than half an hour before we have to get on the carriages." He quickly started packing, ignoring Ron's protests. Seeing as how there was no possibility of taking another nap now that he and his bed were both drenched, Ron grudgingly changed out of his wet pyjamas and began packing his trunk.
Harry met Hermione in the common room, a solid ten minutes earlier than their first time around. Hermione actually arrived before he did, and watched him descend the stairs. "So, Harry, shall we go to breakfast?"
"Err... let's wait for Ron, actually. I made him get up this time, and I'd like to give him a second chance this time around." Harry watched the boys' dorm stairs hopefully. Five minutes later there were sounds of thunk-thunk-thunk along with quiet swearing. Harry shouted up the stairs, "You know you could just levitate the trunk, Ron." There was a pause, and while the muffled cursing continued, there were no more thunking noises to be heard. Ron appeared at the bottom of the stairs.
Without giving him a chance to catch his breath, Hermione quickly levitated her trunk and began walking out of the common room. "Hurry up, Ron, we've only got about fifteen minutes to catch some breakfast before we have to find a carriage."
They arrived at the carriages a few minutes later than last time, but they still managed to find an empty one. They still saw the dark, winged horses there to pull them. Hermione slapped her forehead, saying, "I forgot about them! I should have stopped by the library!"
Harry replied, "What are you saying? We only just had enough time to get breakfast. There's no way you could have looked it up, no matter how fast you can read, Hermione." This time, however, they noticed in the carriage in front of them was a young blonde girl, leaning over the front and petting one of the horses. "Well, at least we know they're not imaginary. That girl seems to be able to see them, too."
"And it looks the others can't... I wonder why?" The three other passengers of the carriage seemed to be avoiding her, only giving her strange looks and continuing their own conversations.
Once again, they found themselves riding the carriage to Hogsmeade with Neville. Having enough time to eat a proper breakfast seemed to improve everyone's mood, including Ron. Despite most people having already finished their breakfast, Ron practically cleared everything remaining on the table in the last fifteen minutes before everyone was shooed out of the Great Hall. A full Ron, apparently, was a mellow Ron.
Neville ended up asking the same question as last time. "Where were you this morning, Harry? You weren't in bed, but I didn't see you at breakfast, either."
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