Chapter 3

Sunday evening saw Harry and Hermione the only two Gryffindor students not actually stressing over finishing their homework. It wasn't that they were actively wanting to get in trouble; it was that they were the only two actually done.

It was unusual for Harry to be on the other side of the homework spectrum with Hermione, looking in at the frantic scribbling of so many of their classmates.

The previous night, while Ginny went out on her romantic evening with Dean Thomas and Ron bathed himself in everything that was Lavender Brown; Harry and Hermione had worked at their spot in the library. They did it mainly to keep themselves occupied, so as not to drift towards masochistic thoughts.

They had made it interesting by sneaking in a box of Bertie Bott's Every Flavour Beans. They made a pact that they would finish the entire box, no matter what. They were not allowed to look at which one they picked, nor were they allowed to spit them out.

Gosh, anything to make the task of doing homework remotely interesting.

On top of working through all of their homework, they also studied for their upcoming tests, questioning each other on the content as the night turned into morning.

Harry fell asleep first, right there on the table. He dropped his head for a moment and that was it. After getting over how adorable it all was, Hermione woke him and they made their now routine walk back to the Gryffindor common room.

Maybe then they deserved an early Sunday night, if only to make up for the late nights of Friday and Saturday. Which was what Hermione told Harry as they sat together on a couch in the Gryffindor common room. She whispered it, actually, because they were surrounded by students scribbling rather emphatically, merely trying to get something, anything, written down before class began in the morning.

"You're right," Harry agreed, yawning for good measure. He turned to look at her. "I don't want today to end though," he admitted softly.

"And why is that?"

Harry looked down at his hands in his lap, suddenly feeling embarrassed. "Well, see, we, umm, we agreed on the end of the week, and today, well, today is the end of the week. And I suppose I'm wary of, umm, possibly having to face the whole," he dropped his voice even lower; "Ginny thing on my own."

Hermione, absently and affectionately, put a hand over both of his. He was warm to the touch, his fingers continually fidgeting in his embarrassment. "I never said I would leave you to deal with it on your own, Harry," she said soothingly. "All I'm saying is that we just can't hide anymore."

Harry let out a relieved breath but he didn't smile. "What exactly does that mean?" he asked her, his gaze burning into her skin.

She took her hand back to tuck some loose hair behind her ear. "I'm not entirely sure, to be honest."

That made him smile. "Will you let me know when you figure it out? And I say 'when,' not 'if,' because you'll always be the one to figure it out."

"Putting a lot of pressure on me, are you, Harry?"

"Trying to turn you into a diamond," he said innocently.

His analogy confused her for a moment, before she smiled. "Well, you'll definitely be the first person I tell if or when I figure it out."

"When, Hermione. When."

They sat in comfortable silence for about a minute before Harry rose to his feet and then helped her to hers. They stood for a moment, taking in the sound of racing quills on parchment, the exaggerated sighs and the rotten mumbling. It was a feeling Harry didn't miss at all.

"Shall we?" Harry eventually offered.

Hermione just nodded, as she took the first step towards the dormitories.

Harry said a quick goodnight to the boys, particularly Ron, who made a huge show of begging Harry for his homework. He knew it was no use asking Hermione. Years of experience had taught him how stingy the girl actually could be with this kind of thing.

Harry decided to humour him. "If you copy mine," he said, mischief shining in his tired eyes; "then we'll both fail."

That got quite a laugh out of the room. Well, enough to allow Harry and Hermione to make an unnoticed exit. They bid each other goodnight on the stairs, like they usually did, before they headed their separate ways.

Harry was on autopilot as he went through the motions of getting ready for bed. When he finally climbed under the covers, his entire body relaxed. But his mind was still on overdrive.

It took Harry close to an hour to stop thinking about Hermione and Ron, and then to stop thinking about Ron and Lavender, and then to stop thinking about Ginny and Dean and eventually to stop thinking about Hermione and himself. His mind just wouldn't let up. It was still spinning when the first of the boys started dribbling in.

It was Ron's arrival that Harry noticed the most. The boy looked frazzled, with his hair almost as messy as Harry's usually was. Who knew homework could be so defeating?

Ron noticed that Harry was still awake. "Can't sleep?" he asked, moving to stand in between his bed and Harry's.

Harry propped himself up on his elbows before he responded. "Not a wink," he said, shaking his head. "It's weird though because I'm actually dead tired."

"Probably all that time you've been spending with Hermione."

It was a remark that made Harry frown. "What's that supposed to mean?" he had to ask, suddenly feeling defensive.

Ron took an involuntary step back, sensing maybe that he was poking the lion's den. "Nothing. All I'm saying it that you two have been spending a lot of time together."

Harry sat up fully. "So?" he questioned rather harshly. "Have you ever thought about why that must be?"

Ron swallowed. He was definitely not about to voice his real thoughts. There was no way his two best friends suddenly fancied each other. "I don't know," he said instead.

"Well then you're more self-absorbed than I thought," Harry said, spite seeping into his tone. "What do you think we're supposed to do when our best friend suddenly forgets that we exist?"

Ron stared at him for a long time, the entire room falling away. "I knew it," he said suddenly, his own anger rising to the surface. "You so do have a problem with Lavender. I was convinced I was imagining it."

"I don't have a problem with Lavender," Harry said, shifting and dropping his feet to the ground before standing up. "What I have a problem with is the way you've been acting since she came into the picture. We barely see you, Ron. You keep going like this, we're not going to be around when you two end."

Ron squared up to his male best friend, refusing to back down. "Oh, so that's what all this is about, isn't it? You want us to end, don't you? What? Are you seriously that jealous?"

Harry opened his mouth to say something but closed it in sheer disbelief. He shook his head, not as an answer but in more disapproval. Even disappointment. "Wow," he found himself saying. "Those are definitely words I wasn't expecting to hear."

"Can't handle the truth, can you, Harry?"

For a moment, Harry didn't recognise the boy standing in front of him. It was hard for him to admit but he hated that there was a small part of him that knew Ron was right, but for all the wrong reasons. He was definitely jealous of something but it was still unclear to him just of what that was.

"Maybe I can't," Harry said, referring to the fact that he couldn't quite come to terms with the fact that Ginny was with Dean and not with him; "but neither can you."

And that was all he would say. He turned and climbed back into bed, just managing to ignore the sound of Ron cursing under his breath or the prying looks of the other boys. All this extra drama was definitely not what he needed.

It took Harry another fifteen minutes to fall asleep. It was a troubled night, and an even inferior morning. He was angry with Ron, which made the morning all the more worse because the redheaded boy was everywhere. Gosh, was this how Hermione felt? Ronald Weasley was so difficult to avoid. And he was a total and utter goofball, which made staying mad at him that much harder.

But then again, Ron also seemed to be angry with Harry, so they both weren't talking to each other. Even so, they sat opposite each other in the Great Hall, neither of them uttering a single word.

Not even when Hermione arrived. All Ron did was grunt a single greeting and Harry just shook his head at her, his silent words translating to her that he would tell her all about it later.

Harry got up to leave first, excusing himself politely. Hermione waited a few minutes before she left as well. She found Harry sitting in a corridor, his eyes unfocused and his hair more disheveled than usual.

"What happened?" Hermione asked, as she came to a stop right in front of him.

Harry took a moment to gather himself before he looked up at her. "Ron and I, we had a fight."

"Okay," she said easily. "But you and Ron always fight. What's so different about this time?"

He swallowed. "Well, you may have come up," he managed to say, visibly cringing at his own words.

"Excuse me?"

So he proceeded to explain the fight in its entirety. There was no use in leaving anything out. While he spoke, Hermione moved to sit down beside him and listen. When he was done, she didn't saying anything for a while.

"But what does that mean?" she eventually asked.

"I don't know," Harry responded mildly. He hadn't actually allowed himself to think about it properly. He might have been too afraid of the answers he would probably come to.

"Do you think he's the one who's jealous?" she found herself asking.

"Of who?"

"Of us, silly," she said, softly slapping his thigh.

"But why?"

Hermione took a deep breath. "I don't actually know. It's not like he's ever been weird about how close we are before. Maybe he's just seeing something that we're not."

"That may be true."

"Something strange is brewing here, Harry, and I don't know if I like it."

He looked at her. "Does that mean you want to stop all this hanging out?"

Her response came quickly. "No! Of course not. I could never survive this place without you. Don't be stupid."

He laughed lightly. "You've really got to stop calling me stupid. I'm starting to feel conscious of it."

She just smiled at him, as she rose to her feet. "Okay, I've got to get to class. It's quite a walk, if you must know. You're lucky you've never had to make the treacherous journey."

"Because I'm the genius who doesn't take Muggle Studies."

"If that's what you want to call it."

He glared at her.

"Anyway, well, I really should go," she said, even though she didn't move. "Gosh, I wish I could Apparate there."

Harry also rose to his feet. "Break the rules, Hermione Granger, I dare you."

She shook her head, grinning at him. "Such a terrible influence. I'll see you in Herbology."

Like the Monday before, the day went extremely slowly. None of the Golden Trio was particularly chatty, which was a fact not lost on the rest of their Gryffindor class. Their friend, Neville Longbottom, even went as far as to ask Harry if everything was okay, to which the famous wizard responded with a reassuring yet forced smile and a curt nod of his head.

It was at dinner that night that things really came to a head. As usual, Harry and Hermione sat on one side of the Gryffindor table in the Great Hall, with Ron sitting in his normal place opposite them. No words were passing between Harry and Ron, and Hermione wasn't about to utter a word to either one of them, in case she managed to set the other one off. The last thing any of them needed at this point was for the entire Hall to witness a blow-up of what she believed would be of epic proportions.

It was Dean who pointed out that the trio was being awfully quiet, which made Harry clench his fists in sudden irritation. Without thinking, Hermione put her hand over Harry's closest fist to keep him calm. Of course, Ron couldn't know of Harry's feelings towards Dean, so he read the fact that their hands were touching to mean something deeply affectionate. Which, in all intents and purposes, it probably was.

"I knew it," Ron said, his mouth full of Cottage Pie.

Both Harry and Hermione looked at him. "You knew what?" they asked in unison, their wavelengths now so in sync that it was almost creepy.

Ron gestured towards their hands, which made Hermione snatch hers back and hide it under the table. "Have you guys started a thing?" Ron asked softly. He looked genuinely curious, not even the least bit angry like the night before. It seemed as though he had already accepted the possibility of the positive answer to his question.

Harry's eyes widened in utter shock. Hermione's breath caught; she was so surprised by his preposterous deduction.

"What?" Harry asked, having recovered first.

Ron looked from wizard to witch, and then back to wizard, trying to decipher their facial expressions. "I mean, is that why you guys have been acting so weird? Don't you know how to tell me?"

Hermione shook her head fleetingly, as if she was trying to wake up from a terrible nightmare. She needed Ron to stop talking. Right this instant. "Why do you think that?" she found herself asking instead, her curiosity overpowering her need to protect herself from potential, painful heartbreak.

"Well," Ron said, visibly relaxing; "the two of you are always having hushed conversations, as if you're hiding something. And you never usually hide things from me. I guess now I know that it really must not have anything to do with Lavender."

Hermione took a deep, calming breath. "But Ron," she said; "Harry and I are not together."

Ron frowned. "You're not?"

"We're definitely not," Harry clarified, trying his best not to show just how uncomfortable he felt with the fact that Ron had even brought up such an idea. He and Hermione. Together. Surely Ron had to know how unlikely that was. But then again, Ron couldn't figure out that Hermione liked him so Harry couldn't be all that surprised. That was the truth of it though: Hermione liked Ron, and Harry liked Ginny. That was it. Nothing else. Nothing more.

Ron seemed to think about their responses for a moment. "Oh," he sounded thoughtfully. "Then why all the strangeness about Lavender? Seriously. And why all the hand holding? What is going on?"

Harry and Hermione exchanged a worried look, in which an entire conversation occurred. This was definitely not the time to tell the truth. When – no, if – Hermione ever told Ron how she felt, it would have to be just the two of them.

"Guys," Ron prompted.

Hermione, feeling uncharacteristically panicked, cleared her throat before the words came tumbling out: "Harry has a crush on Lavender!"

The shock that Harry felt literally stopped his heart and robbed his lungs of air. He turned to look at Hermione, his mouth hanging open in shock. "What?"

Ron reiterated that, food flying out of his mouth. "What?"

Hermione did not look at Harry, mainly because she couldn't bring herself to see his facial expression. "Umm."

Ron looked at Harry. "Mate, is she being serious?"

Harry couldn't even answer. Denying it like he desperately wanted to do would only make Hermione a liar and Ron would wonder what it was they were covering up.

Ron looked hurt, in all honesty. "Harry?"

Harry swallowed, figuring out that there was really only one way out of this mess. "Not exactly," he admitted. "I've always thought that she was cool. It, umm, would have been nice to get to know her a bit better, like as just a friend though." He kept his tone even, matching it with his breathing. "I'll admit that I was a little shocked when you two got together but I believe I'm fine with it now. Like, totally fine. I'm sorry I've been acting weird. It was just difficult to be around you for a little while, and Hermione has been keeping me company while I dealt with it. But I'm totally over it now. Honest."

Where he had managed to come up with that explanation, he had no idea. He and Hermione were going to have some serious words when they were alone.

After a while, Ron's face broke out into a wide, disbelieving smile. "Blimey. Never thought I'd ever hear that," he marveled. "I got the girl, instead of Harry Potter." There went his inferiority complex again, making Harry want to roll his eyes.

Ron looked at Hermione. "Can you believe this guy? Wow. Ha, and can you believe I thought the two of you were together?"

Harry nodded his head once, unsure of how to proceed. "Umm, so we're okay?"

"As long as you don't try to steal my girlfriend," Ron said, only half jokingly.

"Wouldn't dream of it," Harry said, and it was the truth. "And please don't tell anyone. I'm already embarrassed enough about it."

Ron exaggerated a sigh. "Fine."

After she finished with her dinner, Hermione hurried on her way, hoping to evade Harry. Unfortunately for her, he was a fast runner, and he was not going to allow her to disappear into the girls' dormitories before he managed to have a word with her.

When he caught up to her, he took hold of her arm to stop her. "Hermione?"

"Oh, hey, Harry," she said, feigning innocence.

He gave her a look of disapproval. "Where are you off to so quickly?"

She shrugged her shoulders. "Oh, you know, nowhere in particular. Why? Did you need something from me?"

He cleared his throat. "Stop with that cute innocent face of yours," he told her hotly. "You know exactly what you did."

She blinked a few times. Cute? "I know not of what you speak."

"Real classy, Granger," he muttered. "Why don't you tell me what exactly you thought you were doing telling Ron that I have the hots for his girl?"

She marveled at him for a moment, slightly in awe of his Muggle phrasing.

He was hit by a sudden urge to shake her, if only to wipe the beautifully endearing look off her face. "Hermione?"

She snapped back to the reality of the boy in front of her. From the look on his face, she could tell he wanted answers. "I wasn't."

"You weren't what?"

"I wasn't thinking, okay?" she explained hurriedly. "I panicked. It was the first plausible explanation that came to mind. It was in the moment. I'm really sorry."

"You're sorry," he asked, his voice rising. "You're sorry? That's it? That's all you have to say? Seriously, Hermione? Now Ron thinks I ever once liked," his voice dropped right down to a whisper; "Lavender Brown."

Hermione took an involuntary step back, but her curiosity at his sudden change in stance piqued her interest. "What's so wrong with that?"

Harry took a breath, frowning. "What's so wrong with what?"

"Liking Lavender?"

"What kind of question is that?"

She was persistent. "No, really, Harry, what is so wrong with that? You're making it sound like such an unthinkable thing to like Lavender. I want to know why."

Harry stood silently for a confused moment. "Because."

"Because what?"

He huffed. "Just because, Hermione. Gosh. Why is it so important?"

"I just want to know," she continued to question. "Why, Harry?"

He huffed again, even stomping his foot in mild frustration. "Because."

"Because what?"

"Because she's not you," he blurted out, just wanting to stop her persistent questioning.

Hermione opened her mouth to say something but she closed it quite suddenly, pressing her lips together in a thin line.

Harry felt very self-conscious all of a sudden. Why had he said that? "Umm, what I mean is, well, in all honesty, there isn't even a world where I would pick Lavender over you." Wait. That wasn't any better. "And the fact that Ron even believes that to be true is an insult to me, not only you." Even worse.

"Harry?" Hermione queried.

"No," he said strongly, running with his thoughts. "He needs to open his eyes. He's an idiot. Given a choice, between you and Lavender – between you and anyone for that matter – I would pick you. No question about it." He said the words and then he stopped dead; the shock of their meaning stunning him to sudden silence. Was that true? How much did he mean it? What was he thinking? "I mean, umm, if I were Ron, of course," he added for good measure.

She swallowed. "Of course."

Harry took a step back, suddenly realising just how close to her he was actually standing. His body felt slightly electrified and he needed the space to cool down. "Well, that's all I had to say. You can continue on your way to your nowhere in particular now."

Hermione just nodded her head. "Okay, right, umm, goodnight then."

"Goodnight, Hermione."