Hunted AIAOY 3

Chapter 20

Three weeks had passed since they had received the results of Buckbeak's trial: Three weeks they had spent every spare minute towards his appeal.  It was the last thing that lie between him and the executioner.  The group had found a routine that worked with the near-constant Quidditch practises.

Fred, George, Harry, and Rebecca worked during lunch and after practise while Hermione and Ron worked during dinner and practise.

In between, Hermione found Rebecca talking in her sleep more and more often while Rebecca remained unaware at all of anything out of the ordinary: Other than the recurring, worsening pains in her head morning after morning. 

Harry and Rebecca were more than willing to sacrifice their study periods to keep working on it towards the beginning, but Hermione refused adamantly.  In her words, there would be no failing at all.

Hermione had made the four third years schedules to coordinate their studying.  Not only did it show what she would be studying on what day, it also had personalised recommendations as to what she thought each of them should be looking at individually.

Rebecca marvelled over the detail Hermione had put into hers.  "There certainly won't be any failing with these!  You even put the date frames our notes should be in for each topic!"

Ron scoffed.  "If you two didn't manuscript every word from each lesson, you wouldn't need date frames!"

Hermione raised her sheet, acting as if she was reading it more carefully.  "Alright, Ron.  If you're so confident in your notes, you won't need to be borrowing Rebecca's or mine."

"Of course," Ron amended.  "That's not what I'm saying.  You're both so talented and have such well-written notes that I think it would reflect poorly on your character to not share them.  We don't want that, now do we?"

Harry shook his head when Ron looked to him to add to his praise.  "I'm not going to go that far.  But you two do have the best notes."

Hermione checked the time and started to collect everything they needed for their next class.  Ron's complaints about how he could possibly be expected to focus on coursework with the Quidditch final the next day grew in volume.  "It's not just wrong, it's unjust and-"

"I think it's brilliant the match is tomorrow."  Rebecca interrupted before she had to hear it all over again.  "I don't even care what happens if it means Oliver's insane practises are through."

Harry looked around nearly frightened.  "Rebecca, please don't let him hear you say that.  He will drop right dead and I really don't think that is a problem we need to be dealing with this week."

"If you say so."  Rebecca couldn't help but feel a bit lighter on the walk to Hagrid's.  There wasn't a lot of time for walking outside with everything going on and it was a pleasant day.  

The pathway down to class was littered with Slytherin and Gryffindor classmates alike, thought the Slytherin students all scowled fiercely at Rebecca and Harry--A detail that did not go unnoticed by Hermione.  "I wonder if this is some form of intimidation tactic before tomorrow."

"Or maybe they're constipated."  Ron offered.

Hermione rolled her eyes and walked a few steps ahead of them to distance herself from such immaturity since his remark sent he and Harry into a battle of wits as to who could come up with the best pun between Slytherin and bathroom activities.

Rebecca leaned closer to the two of them so Hermione couldn't hear her.  "Shit-herin."  Walking faster to join Hermione, she pretended she had no idea why Harry and Ron broke into howls of laughter.