"Sorry," she apologized, ducking her head with a brief laugh. She lingered at a distance, not wanting to get a glimpse of anything she wasn't meant to see — the paper that Ron was hunched over looked suspiciously like notes, and it wasn't hard to guess what he might be preparing them for.

"I just didn't want to interrupt your deep train of thought," Hermione said, lowering her wand and letting the light extinguish. "But I wanted to say hi. Ask how you're feeling. If you have any thoughts about dinner."

She rests against the trunk of a tree, crossing her arms loosely over her chest.