Harry yawned and slipped down further in his chair. Hermione glanced across the table at him, looked shrewd a moment, then put her nose back to the grindstone, as it were. They were back in the Granger library, once more trying to tackle the last bit of History of Magic homework. Hermione seemed to be making typically impressive headway, but Harry was bogged down. He was of the opinion that he was too tired to rightly focus on the history of magic. Between their late night outing and broken sleep, Harry could do with a decent nap more than he could the Wizengamot ruling of 1429 addressing the period prank of hexing muggle mules to hop. Apparently quite the disaster for the poor muggles at the time. It had Harry going cross-eyed with boredom.

Hermione looked reproachfully at him now and then, but she seemed to grant him clemency, as it was her idea and her urging that had them up at odd hours, and she didn't nag him about staring off into space instead of working on his essay.

Harry, head propped in his hand, was sagging and starting to doze off when a loud bang jolted him upright in his chair. Hermione squeaked and her quill scratched a black line down the center of her scroll. "Bloody hell!" she cursed as Harry turned at a second, sharper thump.

A flurry of flapping wings at the window had Harry up and out of his chair while Hermione tried to assess the damage to her homework. The whole time Harry was crossing the room she was talking to herself, "Just brilliant, and I can't even do a scourgify to right this mess. I'll have to wait until term to spell this out. Could just rewrite the whole thing, I suppose, oh bother..."

Harry reached the window, opened it, and a ball of feathers zoomed into the room. Harry ducked the darting bird even as he recognized the animal. "Pig!"

Hermione looked up, her eyes widened, and she dove under the table just in time to avoid getting a face-full of Ron's owl. Pig flitted and cavorted around the room, hooting happily and, in his mindless enthusiasm, running right into a bookshelf. In his scramble to resume his wild flight, his talons dug into the spines of several books and they were yanked off the shelf to clatter to the floor as he flapped back into the air.

"Pig! Get down here this instant!" Hermione cried and made a leaping grab for the bird. Pig hooted and dodged out of reach.

Harry clamored atop the desk, Hermione gasping and trying to pull their homework parchments to safety, and he flexed his hands in readiness. When Pig made a dash within reach he lunged and snatched, and his seeker skills held true and Pig screeched and wriggled in Harry's hand.

Hermione brushed her hair back from her face with one hand, her other arm full of crumpled parchment, as Harry jumped down from the table. Pig kicked his legs wildly a moment then stilled and hooted on his back, splayed talons held stiffly in the air. When his legs were still, the owl proved to have a note tied to one of them.

"Hey, looks like a letter from Ron," Harry said as he pulled the parchment free. With a sideways look at the little bird in his grasp, Harry carefully opened his fingers to release Pig. Pig laid motionless a moment, then cart-wheeled out of Harry's hand and landed with a graceless thunk on to the table top. Before the neurotic owl could think of taking flight again Hermione shoved their bowl of study snacks, moist tea cakes, at the animal. Pig, apparently hungry from his long flight from Romania, gratefully stayed put to eat ravenously.

Harry unrolled the letter as Hermione rounded the table to stand beside him. "What's Ron say?" She titled her head to read the letter even as Harry did so as well.

'Hey, guys! Sorry I haven't written you sooner, but it's been so crazy around here. Romania's great, you really should have come, Harry. Some of the blokes here talk on and on about your tangle with the Horntail during the tournament. Even Charlie was impressed, and that's saying something that you impressed dragon-keepers! Told them you're always doing wicked stuff like that! With my help, course. Ha! We've done loads of stuff; this dragon-keeping's harder than it looks! Don't know that I'd ever want to do it for a job or anything, but wow, talk about a story for the summer! No way Dean or Seamus's summer will top mine this year.

'Hope you two aren't having too terrible a time. Harry, if Hermione's not letting you have any fun and just making you do homework tell her from me to lighten up. Give a chap a break, Hermione!

'Everyone's having a lot of fun. It's been nice to see Charlie again, he's a good laugh. Ginny figures she fancies some Australian Short Snout trainer. Blugh! Girls, eh? Mum and Dad say hi.

'Well, gotta go! A clutch of Chinese Fireballs are hatching. Cheers!

'Ron'

Hermione sat down on the edge of the table and let one roving, disheartened glance fall on their abandoned homework. "Well, sounds like he's having a good time, at least."

"Yeah," Harry rolled up the letter and put it in his pocket. Hermione went to the shelf that Pig had vandalized and picked up the fallen books. As she set them back in their proper place she said, "Since we're stopped anyway I guess we might as well take a break from homework for a bit. Figure we should write Ron back?"

"Oh, yeah, I'll do it this time; you can write him back next time."

Hermione put up the last fallen book and turned. "Okay. Just tell him hi from me and that I'm glad he's having a good time."

Harry nodded then paused. "Should we tell Ron about... you know, the animagus thing?"

Hermione scowled as though she'd bitten into a sour apple. "Maybe best we don't for now. Our letters to Ron could be intercepted just as well as any owls to Sirius. Besides... well... you know, considering how awfully difficult it is to become an animagus, perhaps we ought to not tell him until we actually do it. That way, if we can't..."

"We won't have to listen to him take the mickey out of us from now until the end of time for our 'stupid animagus idea'."

Hermione smiled in relief that Harry had said precisely what she'd been thinking. "Exactly, because you know Ron, he would."

"Yeah, he would. Right then, mum's the word. So, what do you want to do now?"

"Dunno. Fancy a run? My arms are still a bit sore yet for weights again, but I thought we might do a spot of running at the park, then maybe we could come back and try to work on the animagus project some more?"

"All right, meet you in the front room in a bit?"

Hermione nodded and left their schoolwork laid out on the table as she headed off to her room. Harry retreated to his own to change into more appropriate clothes, setting Ron's letter down on the dresser to remind him to pen a reply that evening.

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He didn't get around to answering Ron's letter until dark that night. When he dragged back into his bedroom late that evening, tired from his run with Hermione that afternoon and surprisingly clear-headed after their 'nature' session (which, to Hermione's not-so-hidden consternation, had failed to yield any tokens), he saw Ron's letter awaiting his reply. He'd nearly forgotten it until that moment he saw it next to Hedwig's empty cage.

Though enormously tempted by his bed, he went to the dresser to see to the note before the day's end.

Harry took up the letter, pulled a quill and parchment from his trunk, then sat down on his bed and, with a potions book serving as an improvised desk, bent over his letter back to Ron.

'Ron,

Hermione and I got your letter. It's nice to hear from you. Hermione says 'hi' and wanted me to tell you she's glad you're having such a good time in Romania. She'll write back to you next time... we didn't figure Pig could carry a letter from each of us at the same time.'

Harry paused, shocked to find that it was actually hard to think of what else to say. Maybe it was the concern about what might be gleaned from his reply if the letter was taken by Voldemort's henchmen en route, but even the salutation came to him with effort. He frowned down at the parchment in confusion, consulted Ron's letter, then decided the easiest path would be to go about answering the questions Ron had either seriously or rhetorically put forth in his own correspondence.

'Don't worry about not getting around to writing us; sounds like you're busy what with the dragons and all. Better you than me. Hermione and I are keeping busy, too.'

Harry stopped, reread his words, and hoped nothing too telling could be taken from that. Try as he might, he couldn't see how their 'project' might be inferred from his words. He shrugged and continued.

'Things are good here. I'm having a good time, and I'm pretty sure Hermione is, too. We've gotten all our homework done for the summer holiday already.' Harry didn't see a need to mention that pesky History of Magic that just seemed cursed to never find its way clear to completion. He tried to imagine Ron's face when he found out that his two friends were done while he would still undoubtedly have all his assignments looming over him. It brought him a small sense of victory and vindication. Harry stared a short time at the fresh ink letters on his parchment then slowly resumed. 'I really think you ought to lay off a bit on Hermione about the homework, mate. You know that's important to her. Just in bad taste to go on teasing her for it. Besides, since we've done our homework together I've finished mine in half the time it would have normally taken. Well worth it, if you ask me.'

Harry stopped again, stumped for what else to say. Maybe it was fighting him because Ron wasn't one much for letters. Harry was good at talking to Ron, but writing to him felt weird. If this were a letter to Hermione he was sure it'd be much easier to write. He could just picture her lying on her stomach on her bed with his letter, one hand propping up her head as she read every word, pulling the surface and hidden meaning from every sentence, even if he had no bloody clue what the hidden meaning was. He could picture the way she'd be formulating her reply in her head even as she read his letter. When he tried to picture Ron, the image he conjured was always his friend in a rush, only barely stopping to take the time to read his mail, the way he read homework assignments, scanning and putting away as though the mere effort amounted to completion, hurrying off to do something more interesting. A check mark, a chore done, a task finished. He wouldn't take the time to really read what was being said. Ron was just like that.

Harry yawned sleepily and put pen back to paper. Knowing that Ron would only take note of the fact he had been written back, probably not so much what was said in the letter, he hurried through the rest.

'Well, I'm totally knackered, Hermione and I have had a really full day and I'm sacked. Well past time to turn in. Give my best to your family. Tell your mum not to worry about me, I'm fine. Tell Ginny to watch herself. Look forward to seeing you again at start of term.

'Harry and Hermione'

Harry rolled the parchment up, tied it, then put it on the dresser next to Hedwig's cage so he wouldn't forget to send it in the morning when Pig was back. He'd gone out for a bit of nighttime hunting with Hedwig, though Harry had no doubt his familiar had ditched the scatterbrained scoop as soon as possible.

Harry promptly changed into pajamas, crawled into bed, and within a matter of minutes was sound asleep.

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Two more weeks of summer passed, and while the sheer tedium of the routine Harry and Hermione had established might have driven some teenagers to boredom, the pure simplicity and safety of it was a gift in Harry's eyes.

Monday through Friday he and Hermione had the days alone to themselves while Miranda and Jake were at work. Harry, for the first time granted the luxury, discovered a bit of a passion for sleeping in. He'd not seen Miranda and Jake off to work for weeks, but once he knew that Hermione's parents didn't mind, he relished the simple pleasure of sleeping to late morning or noon that he'd never known before. At the Dursleys' he was expected to be up in time to cook his uncle breakfast and get an early start on his never-ending list of chores. At Hogwarts, it was hard to sleep in when bunking in a room with four other boys. At the Weasleys', there was always something going on, be it Missus Weasley reading the riot act to Ron, the twins blowing something up in their room, or the ghoul in the attic bumbling about noisily. Harry had never been anywhere quiet enough to even think about sleeping in. And then he summered with the Grangers and found peace and quiet for the first time... and found he liked it. He felt like he was catching up on years of denied rest. He made sure, however, that he was always up in time to make lunch for himself, Hermione, and Miranda.

Hermione was always up early to bid her parents farewell; Harry usually came into the kitchen to start lunch to find her at the table reading. Sometimes she'd help him with lunch, usually she was better left reading aloud to him, either from whatever book she had or the muggle newspaper or the Daily Prophet, while he moved through the kitchen he was growing to know quite well. It was those simple noontimes that Harry would probably recall most fondly about his summer at the Grangers'. He felt so bloody normal, even when Kimmy was underfoot assisting him with meal preparations. When he was making scalloped potatoes at the stove while Hermione read to him from a muggle post, her bare feet swinging absently, her hair pulled into a loose ponytail, Crookshanks sunbathing in the window, he could almost forget that he was Harry Potter, the Boy Who Lived.

After lunch, he and Hermione would do a bit of studying until their food had settled sufficiently for them to either run, swim, or lift weights. After that, it was lying out in the yard or by the pool having a 'nature' session. They found that after exercise it was easier to reach the proper state of mind. So far, neither Harry nor Hermione had 'tokened' anything, but Hermione wasn't about to give up and Harry honestly didn't mind the wasted afternoons. He didn't consider them 'wasted'. When he stopped to think about what might be in store for him next term, he was eager to waste as many unproductive, quiet days with Hermione as he humanly could.

In the evening Miranda and Jake would come home, they'd all have dinner at the table almost like a family, talking about their days, hearing stories from the office, deciding if they wanted to watch a movie or maybe head out to the ice cream parlor for a sweet treat after dinner, and Harry began to feel like maybe he wasn't such an imposter here. Miranda had taken to him, kind and level-headed, much like Hermione (nowhere near the strung terrier Molly Weasley was and not as affectionate toward him, and though Harry did love Ron's mom he realized he preferred Miranda's energy level), he could always talk Quidditch with Jake, and Hermione was Hermione. She could just sit there and say nothing and Harry would have a good time.

It drove thoughts of the Dursleys far from his mind, like the last vestiges of a bad dream long since past, and every now and then he let himself forget to remember Voldemort.

In dastardly defiance, Harry's History of Magic homework had not yet managed to get done. Wonderfully, that seemed to be the worst of Harry's problems.