Reading the books- Marauders era

Third Book

"It's that day," Harry suddenly burst out, making the others look at him in confusion (or annoyance in Severus' and Lucius' cases). He turned his face towards Hermione, looking at her with wide-eyes imploring her to understand without him spoiling things aloud.

Hermione's brown eyes bounced between Harry's emerald ones, searching for the thing her brother was trying to convey through his wide, pleading eyes. The memories of that particular summer flooded through one by one in her mind -- and -- and -- oh.

The images inside her mind stopped at a particular point in the summer.

Harry nodded, realising that Hermione understood what he was hinting about.

Harry put his quill between his teeth and reached underneath his pillow for his inkbottle and a roll of parchment. Slowly and very carefully he unscrewed the ink bottle, dipped his quill into it, and began to write, pausing every now and then to listen, because if any of the Dursleys heard the scratching of his quill on their way to the bathroom, he'd probably find himself locked in the cupboard under the stairs for the rest of the summer.

But he knew he wouldn't be put inside the cupboard if Hermione was doing good in her 'guarding' duty.

His sister had spared one look at his books and parchments, and had decided to help him by standing in front of their room, door closed.

"Bella would have surely ratted me out," Sirius spoke in a grumpy voice.

"That's Aunt Bella, yeah sure." Draco said, chuckling awkwardly at the end.

"If they ask," Hermione had said, getting up from the bed, "I will tell them that I am on my way to the bathroom. You will be alerted by this, too, and it might even buy you the time to hide the stationary."

His sister might be dumb at times and really bossy everytime, but she does have a good heart which she uses in rare occurances.

"You could have said that without saying that I'm dumb, you know." Hermione pointed out. "Saying that makes you look the dumbest."

Ron Weasley, who was one of the twins' best friends at Hogwarts, came from a whole family of wizards. This meant that he knew a lot of things they didn't, but had never used a telephone before. Most unluckily, it had been Uncle Vernon who had answered the call. "Vernon Dursley speaking."

"That would have been a disaster," Lily said.

Ron, Harry and Hermione looked at each other then sighed.

"It sure was." Ron let out.

Harry, who happened to be in the room at the time, froze as he heard Ron's voice answer.

"HELLO? HELLO? CAN YOU HEAR ME? I - WANT - TO - TALK - TO - HARRY - OR - HERMIONE - POTTER!"

Ron was yelling so loudly that Uncle Vernon jumped and held the receiver a foot away from his ear, staring at it with an expression of mingled fury and alarm.

Ron winced, as if the memory of that day had just came back to him (it did) and he was experiencing the second-hand embarassment.

Ginny snorted while Hermione patted Ron's shoulder, trying to comfort him.

"WHO IS THIS?" he roared in the direction of the mouthpiece. "WHO ARE YOU?"

"RON - WEASLEY!" Ron bellowed back, as though he and Uncle Vernon were speaking from opposite ends of a football field.

Lily laughed loudly, throwing her head back.

"Oh Merlin, I would love to see that." She said as soon as her laughter died out.