(A/N: Hot DAMN, my inbox is bursting! Thank you so much to everybody who reviewed, followed, and favorited- it made a suckish day much better. Few things.
One, I'm changing the timeline of this particular story to third year. I know in the last chapter I said fourth, but I realized that the Tournament had already started by Christmas and I didn't want to have to squeeze in the ball and the challenges and what not. So, they are now third years. But there was some really great Harry/Hermione interaction in the fourth book, so I'll come back to that soon.
Two, because more than one person asked, I'm extending this from a two shot and making it a collection of related oneshots. *happy dance* Also, I'm taking requests and ideas for Harry/Hermione.
And three, if you have any concerns or issues with this story, don't put them under "guest" so I can't reply. I try to make a habit of replying to people, but please don't say stupid or hating stuff under "guest" (you know who you are, genius. The pairing box was correct, you just can't read. If you want Ron/Hermione, then go and find it.)
On the off chance you read all of that, back to the story. Ron bashing ahead, in the next chapter.)
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Unusprisingly, the incident with the Slytherins had Ron agitated the entire rest of the day, making him short tempered and generally awful to be around. He sulked through the castle with Neville and Hermione in tow, inconsolable and angry at everything.
It was a typical hours long Ron tantrum- he nearly gouged his own eye out with his wand in Transfiguration, set a foot of scroll alight in Charms, lost ten points for cursing at a prefect, broke two vials in potions and snapped at Neville hard enough to make Snape SMILE for spelling a word wrong on the ingredients list.
That had been the last straw, and by dinner Hermione was at the end of her rope. When they got to the common room and started studying, and he was STILL grumbling about it, she snapped.
"Stupid, slimy gits..." he growled, slumped down in an arm chair and throwing wads of parchment angrily into the fire. "Evil, the lot of them...talk about my family...forget a hex, I'll shove my wand so far up their arses...pale, pasty wankers-"
Hermione, who had been trying to focus on her homework, gave up at that moment. "That's it," she exclaimed, closing her potions book with a snap and giving a hard roll of her brown eyes. "That's it. I'll do this somewhere else. You're not helping at all and I can't work around your moaning."
"Oh, what, like it's just me?" Ron grumbled. "You're not the least bit mad? After what they said about you?"
"No, Ronald, I'm not." Hermione snapped, lying through both her teeth and the hard blockage in her throat. "It's done, it happened, so please get over it."
"Where are you going?"
"The library," she huffed, grabbing her stuff and reaching for her bag. "Maybe you'll have stopped acting like a four year old by the time I come back." She shot Neville an apologetic glance, but started for the portrait hole just the same. If she spent any more time around Ron she'd burst, and it wouldn't be pretty.
Hermione swept through the quiet corridors with a red face and heaving chest. Tears stung the corners of her eyes and she wasn't exactly sure why. Yes, the Mudblood comment had hurt, but she expected nothing less from Malfoy.
She wasn't surprised at Ron, either, and his horrible behavior. She'd been dealing with it for ages, but that didn't mean she liked it. Actually, it was getting really annoying. His temper always managed to ruin things; flying off the handle and then skulking for hours later didn't help anyone.
Her lungs tightened in anger, and her footsteps resonated on the stone with force. She shoved open the doors to the library and dumped her bag on the first table she saw, simmering in irritation. With a curse, she realized that she'd left the book she needed in the common room. She groaned. Meekly coming back for it after her dramatic storm out would make her look stupid, and on sheer principle, she refused.
"Perfect. Just bloody perfect..." She plopped down into her chair and gripped her hair in both hands, trying to slow get breathing. Through a gap in her elbow, she saw another bag at a table across the room...next to an open copy of the book she needed.
Hermione inhaled and glanced around at the silent library. The owner of the bag was nowhere to be seen. She doubted anyone would notice if she borrowed it for just a second.
Immediately, guilt started bubbling in her gut, but the thought of going back to the common room and facing Ron brought her to her feet and across the floor. She grabbed the book and started to turn back-
"I was USING that, Granger."
That voice...
The color drained from Hermione's face. She twisted, and her fears were confirmed when her eyes fell on one smug Harry Potter, arms crossed and eyes narrowed.
"I...I didn't..."
"See my stuff here? Maybe you need glasses instead of me."
Smirking, he gestured at the bag, and she looked despite herself. Sure enough, there was a Slytherin badge pinned to the strap, and Harry P. written in messy scrawl across the flap.
Damn. Nice going, Granger, very well done...
Fighting the blush crawling over her ears, Hermione handed him the book. "Here. Sorry. I'll just...get it when you're done."
Potter didn't move to take it back. "I didn't say you couldn't use it, did I?"
Hermione didn't think her face could get any redder. "N-no...but we can't use it at the same time?" Why had that come out like a question?
She was wrong- Potter raised an eyebrow, and she felt her ears burn. She hated the way he looked and how it made her feel, as if he knew everything about the world, and she was just a dumb little kid guessing at the answers.
"I don't know, there's this thing now called sharing?" Now he was mocking her. Git. Her lips turned down at the corners.
"I didn't think you'd want to share with me, Potter."
His brows furrowed. "Why would you- oh. Right." He gave her a blank stare. "'Course. Because all Slytherins are prats, right?" He shook his head and turned away. "Forget it, Granger. Keep the book."
Hermione chewed her tongue. For some strange reason, she had the urge to stop him. "Wait, wait, I'm sorry. I wasn't thinking, we can share."
"Finally got there, have you?" he muttered. But he sat down all the same. Hermione gingerly sat in the seat next to him.
"You don't have to sit there, you know," he said, eyeing her tenseness. "I can read upside down."
"It's fine." She opened the book, making an effort to relax her shoulders. He rolled his eyes, but grabbed his pen and unfurled a roll of parchment.
They fell into a mostly comfortable rhythm. Whenever he needed to change the page, he'd slide a finger underneath and wait for her to nod okay before flipping it. There was no sound but the scritch scratch of their quills. She jumped a few times when their arms brushed, but he ignored it.
For Hermione it was surreal, almost dream like. She was spending time around Harry Potter, (around, not with, she wasn't with him. They just happened to be in the same space at the same time,) studying with him, and no hexes or insults were flying. It made her want to take a photograph.
She peeked at him out of the corner of her eye, and was suprised at how...normal he was. His teeth weren't fangs, his eyes weren't snakey slits, (they were a very pretty green though...they almost glowed, like neon,) and there was no stench of his poor, rotting victims around him, contrary to Ron's favourite belief. (He actually smelled a bit like the turf on the Quidditch pitch and something else that, weirdly, reminded her of Treacle tart.)
He was just a teenager, like her.
After a while, most of the awkward atmosphere was gone. Hermione sucked in a breath and cleared her throat, prompting Potter to glance at her.
"I, uhm...I'm sorry, about earlier. With Ron." she started quietly. "He shouldn't have said...that. Sometimes his temper..."
"It's fine." Potter mumbled, cutting her off. After a minute, he sighed. "I'm sorry too, about Draco and what he called you. Not all of us think like that."
"Oh, really?" Hermione muttered, mostly to herself. But she was so close that he heard it. He turned on her, and she flinched, but instead of anger, his face was serious. "Yes, really."
She bit her lip and turned back to her work. There was another brief pause, before he looked up again.
"Okay, Granger. What?"
"What?"
"What is it with you?" he asked, frustrated. "I only said we could share the book to mess with you. But then you go and say yes. And then you apologize for Weasely, like you actually care, and you don't hate me."
"I never said I didn't care!" Hermione protested. Then, realizing how she sounded, she back tracked. "A-and I don't hate you!"
He snorted. "Come on. All the Gryffindors hate me. I saw the looks on their faces when I was Sorted." There was pain and bitterness underneath the casual tone in his voice, and it made her flinch.
"We don't...we don't hate you. It's sort of...complicated. I suppose we were disappointed...we thought you'd be on our side." she explained. It had been a crushing blow to the Lion house, learning that the fantastic Harry Potter, Boy Who Lived, defeator of the Dark Lord, someone who was sure to be a great wizard, was meant for Slytherin of all places.
"Side," he echoed, rolling his eyes. "There are no sides, Granger. Just magic, and people who are either afraid of what it can do or aren't."
"That doesn't sound like you," Hermione retorted without thinking. Potter fixed her with a strange look. "How would you know what I sound like, Granger?"
"I...I don't." She had the urge to charm her mouth shut. Hermione sighed and looked him full in the face. "That just doesn't sound like something you would say on your own."
He was quiet for a bit after that. As she looked at him, REALLY looked at him, at the whirling, tormented emotion in his eyes, something happened- the same thing that had happened in the corridor at breakfast- and it was as though she was truly seeing him.
This Harry Potter wasn't the same as the skinny, specky first year she remembered from first year. That one had been small and humble, wide eyed and innocent like the rest of them.
She remembered his questions, his polite manner, his easy smile as she, Ron and he sat in the compartment, exchanging stories and rumours and laughs. She remembered the stunned expression on his face when the Sorting Hat put him in Slytherin, the tears that lingered in his eyes as he was death marched to his new house.
She remembered him in Second Year, and the uproar that rocked the school when he came back from Christmas break with bruises the size of potatoes and two blackened eyes. She remembered the scandal of the Malfoy's becoming his legal guardians, and how Draco boasted for months about Harry Potter sleeping in his guest room.
She remembered the hate and fear that had resulted from the Chamber Of Secrets incident, and how most people still believed it had been him attacking MuggleBorns and refused to hear otherwise.
"He's a Slytherin," they'd say. "He's a Parselmouth. It HAD to be him." A few people still believed that he had tried to steal the Sorcerer's Stone in their very first year, and that only Dumbledore's interference had stopped him.
Harry Potter now was a symbol, with his Quidditch tousled hair that could make any girl swoon when he flipped it, his new designer robes and trainers, the best broomstick money could buy and the skill to match, quality glasses...and above all an attitude that danced the line between cocky arrogance and acceptable, that the world owed him something, and yet he didn't care about its attempts to make it up to him. He acted as though he knew they didn't trust him, and couldn't care less.
In that moment though, Hermione saw beneath that facade, and saw the Harry Potter hiding under it- the eleven year old she met on the train who stammered when he was looked directly at, and had been forced to adapt and change himself to his situation. The mask had slipped away.
Life and the Dark Lord had taken his parents. His relatives pummeled him for being born a wizard and the Gryffindors ostrasized him for being unfortunate enough to be in Slytherin, so he had turned into a Slytherin to survie, else be cannibalized by his housemates.
The revelation was shocking, like a lightning bolt from heaven. Hermione gasped in her throat and looked away from his burning emerald orbs, hands trembling, terrified that he might see himself reflected in her eyes looking back at him. She knew in her heart that her suspicions were true, without him saying a word.
Potter turned from the truth and pity in her face like it burned him, balling his hands into fists. "No one cares what I say," he hissed. "No one cares what I do. Even when I try to be...I'm Harry Potter, aren't I? I'm a Slytherin. That's all I'll ever be. So why not give them what they want? No one gave me a choice and no one wanted to. That stupid hat-"
"H-Harry, Harry, wait-"
"Keep the book, Hermione. I'll borrow Draco's tomorrow." He stood up abruptly and gathered his things, while she sat there, stunned. He started to walk away, and something stopped him. Probably the same something that caused her to call him back earlier.
He turned, hesitated, but finally said... "...G'night."
She let out a small squeak as he left that was almost a reply, and she sat there long after he was gone.
He'd called her Hermione.
