When the Bell Tolls - Dramione

2.

June 2; 1:18pm

Neville's face scrunches up when he sucks his tongue off the roof of his mouth, the teacup clinking off the saucer as he set it down. "A bit sweet."

Hermione reaches out and pushes it towards the seat across from her at the table, casting a quick Warming Charm, and pushes the empty cup towards Neville. "Leave it for Ron."

"Ron is more about it tasting like a sweet than actual tea," Harry clarifies at the hesitant look Neville gives his new teacup. "Hermione's always going on about cavities."

"Which he's had plenty of," she says, defending herself. "If the wizarding means of tooth care weren't so easy for the patients, he might consider less sugar in everything he eats."

"Didn't your mum offer to show him the Muggle way?" Harry takes four sips of his tea before he's satisfied enough to put the spoon down.

Hermione's lips quirk at the memory of one of the first times she had brought Ron to her parents' home when they were dating. "My dad, actually. It wasn't until after we broke up that he liked him at all."

"Your dad is a bit intimidating. I remember the first time I went with you for dinner there and he just stared at me. The whole time, I heard the buzzing of a drill going in my head."

Hermione laughs, and Harry looks up at the sound to grin at her, flipping to another page in his menu. "He wasn't sure what to think of you." She pauses for a moment, a heavy quiet falling into the pit of her stomach. "It was after the war, and after I had told them everything."

It hadn't been the best time for them to meet Harry and Ron for longer than five minutes, but they had demanded it, and she hadn't been able to refuse them anything at that point. Ron had been nervous enough to knock over everything around his dinner plate, and it had been the first time she had seen a feast in front of him that he hadn't rushed to consume. Harry had been quiet, and however he might have recalled it now, Hermione had known her father was far more unnerved by Harry than the other way around. There's a static of magical energy around Harry, only aided by the legend that precedes him. Hermione had seen him plain, at his best and at his worst - she rarely noticed him as anything other than her best friend. Sometimes it's impossible to grasp the world through the perspective of someone else, because we are who we are no matter how much we change.

"...and I think I'll have the cheese this time." Neville snaps his menu shut and hands it to the waitress with a smile.

The cheese is the only new thing to what he orders every time, but she doesn't say anything since, "The chicken salad," is always her choice, without fail. Enough to make her full, but light enough to not make the return to work grueling.

"I'll have the special," Harry tells the woman, pushing his menu into Hermione's outstretched hand without looking up from his watch. Harry orders something different nearly every time, and she's sure he won't be satisfied until he's tried everything.

Hermione hands both menus to the waitress with a small smile, and then glances up at the restaurant's door for a glimpse of red hair. "We'll have someone else joining us shortly."

Ron is always late. Hermione used to tell him their lunch would be twenty minutes earlier than it was, but once he caught on, he was back to being late again. It used to annoy her to no end since they always took lunch in Diagon Alley, so it made for a two minute walk for Ron to get there. She knew he had customers, but he could have easily planned it out better.

Hermione slides her chair slightly against the corner of the wall to view the door better around the heads of diners, and then glances at the windows lining the left wall. The restaurant across the alley serves better food, but they have two single windows at the front, and the tables are packed in to the point where a person was stuck in their chair if people occupied the table next to them. It made her feel completely trapped, and when they had tried eating there three years ago, they had stayed as long as it took her to sit in a chair.