I'm very, very sorry about the late state of this chapter; gah, it's been more than a month. But's it's been a fairly hectic month, so I beg your apologies.

Disclaimer: I, abbyepic, do not own the Harry Potter series, nor do I make any money off of this fan-based work. I only own the events and original characters of this work, Hero Complex. Please do not sue me.


"I'll miss you, Kate."

"I'll miss you, too," I said into the mouth of my mobile phone. I twirled a lock of hair around my finger absently as I mused. "Is it some kind of requirement that nearly everyone that I want to spend time with goes away during the summer? It isn't fair."

In the last few years, all of my friends going away for the summer was becoming some kind of tradition. I really shouldn't have been surprised that it would apply to my first boyfriend, too. Still, it was one of those things that I tended to want to pout and whine about. Lizzie, Nina, and now Noah, too - it was hard not to feel like they were abandoning me to a summer in Little Whinging while they went off on adventures in other places. I wanted them to have a good time during their holidays, but I wanted to be part of their good times. It definitely made it hard to feel happy about sending them all around the bloody world.

Noah, on the other end of our conversation, paused for a moment. I heard the muffled sound of someone coming in over a speaker and knew what was coming almost immediately. "I've got to go. My plane's starting to board. I'll call you when we land in Hong Kong. Love you, Katie."

"Bye, Noah. I love you, too." The call clicked off almost as soon as I said the words, and I honestly hoped that Noah hadn't noticed the short pause before I had said the three magic words.

Noah had first said those three words to me in March, only two months after we had started going out, and at the time I had had a hard time saying them back. I didn't, anymore - but at the same time, I wasn't sure if this was a good thing or a bad thing. I thought that maybe, just maybe, Noah and I were trying to hurry the relationship a little too much. But I had had been in a romantic relationship before; maybe I was just clueless about how these things were supposed to work out. The only romantic relationships I had ever observed before were the ones between my dad and mum and Dad and Maria, which I figured were on a different scale than a teenage romance. I could've been wrong, though.

The whole thing made me very uncomfortable. At least we didn't have any sappy pet names for each other; if Noah took to calling me 'pet' or 'love,' I would probably loose it.

I threw myself down on the sofa and stared at the beige ceiling of my living room, thinking about how weird it was to be in a relationship. I was sixteen and I had a boyfriend that I might love. It almost blew my mind.

I laid there for a while like that and allowed the quiet in my house and the comfort of the sofa to almost lure me to sleep. It was time for an afternoon nap.

The peace didn't last for long. Within minutes, someone was pounding their fist loudly against the front door. Feeling a little annoyed, I stood up, stretched, and went to see who the hell was interrupting my almost-nap. I looked through the peephole - it was just high enough that I had to lean up to see - and almost squealed. Immediately, I undid the lock and swung the door open.

"Harry!" I cheered, launching myself out the door and throwing my arms around him as I hugged him. It only lasted for a few seconds before I pulled away and beamed at him, but it gave me a little tingling feeling that made me shiver. I tried not to let on. "When did you get back?"

He hadn't written me in three weeks, hadn't even mentioned when he might be home. In fact, I really hadn't expected him to be back for another week or so.

"Today," Harry said, in a tired voice. It was his tone that made me look at him a little harder. There were dark circles under his eyes and he looked pale and drawn, like he hadn't eaten or slept in days. I resisted the urge to fix his crooked glasses, which he didn't seem to notice, and to smooth his black hair, which looked even more messy than usual. He gave off the general impression that he had sleep in his clothes and not combed his hair. "We were let out of school a bit early this year," he continued.

Harry looked different in a way that I couldn't put my finger on. He didn't look sullen or moody or even emotionless, like he had when he had arrived home last year. He actually just looked sad. Or maybe the better word would be that he looked a little bit hopeless.

"What's the matter, Harry?" I asked softly. He looked like he might have been sick, or like something horrible had happened. My stomach turned uneasily. I couldn't help but worry about him, when he looked at me like this. His eyes, the same impossible shade of green as ever, looked horribly dull.

"Professor Dumbledore is dead," he told me flatly.

"Oh. That's horrible." I was sorry to hear that. He had seemed like such a nice old man, and it had been obvious to me that he and Harry had been close through the letters I'd gotten over the year. I really would have liked to meet him again, but I supposed that it just wasn't meant to be. "But you know, Harry, he was really old, and sometimes, old people just…" I started slowly, not sure where I was really going with this.

Harry scoffed. "He didn't die of old age, Kate. And before you ask, he wasn't sick, either, and he didn't have a heart attack or something."

Admittedly, I was slightly perplexed.. "Then how did he die?"

"He was murdered," Harry said frankly. "Snape killed him."

"Snape, your science teacher?" I was shocked. Yeah, Harry complained a lot about Professor Snape, his absolute least favorite teacher, from what I'd learned through his letters. He ranted and raved about how cruel and unfair he was, but it was a long jump from being an unfair professor to being a murderer. "Why would he want to kill the headmaster? I don't understand."

"You'd understand, if you knew who Snape really works for," Harry muttered darkly.

I blinked. "Well, if he's a teacher, I think he probably works for the headmaster, right? Unless you've got some sort of mafia set up at your school, but that doesn't seem very-"

"Never mind," he interrupted, before looking up at me almost sharply. I bit my lip, deciding that commenting on his strange behavior was probably not in my best interest.

Since he had left last summer, so many of Harry's letters had been like this conversation - cryptic, like there was something he was trying to tell me but couldn't. I didn't like it at all, but there really wasn't much that I could do about it except maybe blow up like I had last year, which I really didn't want to do. I didn't want Harry to be mad at me; I just wanted him to trust me enough to tell me what was really going on. I hated knowing that he felt like he had to tell me secrets and lies, for whatever reason, but… I hated the idea of loosing him even more. Which meant that I would have to keep my lips zipped and not say a thing.

"Do you want to go for a walk?" I asked, feeling just a little hesitant. He nodded silently, and I finally pulled the front door closed. I forced myself to smile. "Let's go, then."

We walked towards the park, an overwhelming sense of déjà vu spreading over me. A little over a year before, I had been doing the same thing: making small talk about my school and my family and my friends, pretending to be happy and cheerful and not at all affected by Harry's mood. It was one of the hardest things I had done in a long time, and this was only his first day back.

Oh, hell.


"What did the digital clock say to the grandfather clock?"

Harry looked up at me suddenly, as if he hadn't been aware that I was even there. Which was weird, because I'd been sitting on the swing beside him for half an hour, watching him stare at the dirt he kicked up with his dusty sneakers. It was two weeks and a half weeks after he had come back, and for two and a half weeks, I had been dutifully walking to the park with him every day, just to watch something like this happen. I was surprised that I had held out so long without going crazy, unless I was already crazy. Harry was certainly looking at me like I was.

"What?" His mouth fell open with a tiny pop.

"What did the digital clock say to the grandfather clock?" I repeated, slowly and carefully. It was the type of joke that I would get off of one of my siblings' television shows or a box of cereal. I had no idea where it had come from. "You know. It's a joke."

He shook his head, going back to tired-emotionless-Harry-mode. Ugh. "I don't know, Kate."

"It said, 'Look, Grandpa! No hands!'" I grinned cheesily, trying hard not to falter at his expressionless expression. "Do you get it? Because digital clocks don't have hands?" I pushed my arms close to my body and wiggled my fingers at him. "No hands?"

He blinked at me blankly. "Yeah. I guess."

"I might have given that one away too fast," I paused, fishing around in my mind for another joke to tell. While doing so, I finally stopped wiggling my fingers. I thought that I must be starting to look ridiculous. "Okay, I'll give you a make-up joke. What did the pony say when he had a sore throat?"

"I don't know, Kate, but I'm sure that you're going to tell me," Harry said stonily.

I shook my head briskly. "That's not how jokes work, Harry. I ask you a joke. You give me a half-hearted guess. I tell you the right answer, and then you laugh. After that, I tell you another joke. And the process repeats itself. But before it can do that, you have to give it a try. So come on. What did the pony say when it had a sore throat?"

Harry stopped, as if he was seriously considering my joke. "I dunno. 'Neigh?'"

"No, because this is a joke." I made an insulted face. ""It said, 'I'm a little hoarse.' Do you get it?" I gave him another fake smile, which was probably less authentic than the first. I could feel my enthusiasm level dropping by the second. "Do you get it?"

"Yeah, Kate, I get it."

"Okay, so I'll do another one," I started, pausing to think. "Okay, Harry. What's a bear called without teeth?"

He said nothing for a long minute, which meant that I would have to give the answer. "It's a gummy bear! Do you get it?" He said nothing. "Why is six afraid of seven? Because seven eight nine! Do you get it?" He said nothing. "Why did the blonde throw the clock out the window? Because she wanted to see time fly! Do you get-"

"Yes, I get it! Why won't you just shut up already?" Harry snapped, his face pink, his eyes burning behind his glasses. I made a slight squeaking noise as my eyes widened at him.

Neither of us spoke for a long moment.

"I'm sorry," I said quietly after about two minutes of silence. "I didn't mean to annoy you."

He made a grunting noise and looked back to the ground. Something inside me stirred unpleasantly. Seeing him like this made me feel helpless; it was a feeling that I was starting to associate, somewhere deep inside, with that hollow look that Harry had had in his eyes this summer and last summer. I wanted so badly to make it better, yet I knew that I couldn't make anything better. And it seemed like all that I was doing was annoying him, which made me feel even worse.

"Look at me, Harry," I commanded suddenly. I sounded loud, almost angry. He didn't right away, which made me sigh and say, in a gentler tone, "Harry, please don't stare at the ground anymore. Please look at me."

He did, and I could just barely resist the urge to reach out and hug him. He looked like he was done being angry; his face actually reminded me of the dog, whenever someone refused to give him a bite of our dinner. I didn't think that he would want me to hug him, though, so I reached out slowly and put my hand on his arm. It was all instinct; someone in me wanted to reach out to him. He didn't even flinch at our contact, which I took as a good sign.

"Harry," I said softly, "if you want me to leave you alone, I will." Even if I don't want to. "I'll go home. I won't follow you here anymore. Or, if you want me to, I just won't talk. At all. It's just that I'm worried about you.

"I'm sorry, Kate," he sighed. He looked so tired. "I didn't mean to snap at you, it's just that…"

"I know, I know." I shrugged, moving my hand off of his arm slowly. "Things are complicated. They always are, with you," I told him, a bit ruefully. I didn't even feel bad for saying it; it was just so true.

And I definitely didn't feel bad when Harry started to laugh. At first, it was a quiet chuckle, but it got a little louder and a little louder until it was loud enough to make the kids playing in the sandbox a few feet away look up. I smiled, despite my best efforts not to. It was just so nice to hear him laugh; the sound was so rare. And he looked better when he laughed, too. His eyes started to glow and his teeth looked especially white, and he gave the impression of actually being a happy person. I didn't think that I had seen him laugh since he had come home. When his laugh settled down, there was a moment in which Harry Potter beamed at me.

It was so amazing to see that it sent a shiver down my spine.

It was, at that very moment, that I really understood exactly what made me want to hear that laugh and see that smile again, even if I wouldn't admit it.

"Tomorrow," I heard myself saying, "we're going to do something different. Something other than coming here or walking around aimlessly. We're going to do something fun tomorrow, do you hear me? Something fun. And you are going to enjoy it."

"What're we going to do?" Harry asked me; he was obviously humoring me, which made me feel a little peeved. It was like he didn't think that I could make him have fun. How annoying.

"I dunno yet," I told him, smiling brightly. "But you had better come prepared. Bring money, if you've got any. And be at my house by nine-thirty. Nine-thirty sharp, mind you. Alright?"

Harry rolled his eyes. "Fine. Whatever you say, Kate."

I grinned. "Keep that attitude, dear, and we'll be just fine."


Harry was, somewhat predictably, five minutes late the next morning, and entered my living room with a frown on his face, which I also found quite predictable. It didn't matter, anyway, because I was prepared to smile confidently at him as I stepped out the door and into the fresh morning air. I greeted him with a cheerful 'good morning' as I slipped my house key into my pocket. For a moment, as I jiggled the door handle to be sure that it was properly locked, before, satisfied, I turned around and beamed at him.

"Are you ready?" I asked; I sounded happy, probably because I was.

"I guess so," Harry said, looking at me dubiously. "What's the plan, Kate?"

"Well, right now we're going to go get breakfast at the bakery," I said, referring to the same bakery that I had been dragging him to every few days for the last two summers, "and then we're going to go see a film."

"A film?" Harry raised his eyebrows at me. "What kind of film?"

I smiled brightly. "The new Disney movie. Hercules." I started down the walk towards the front gate, but Harry didn't move. When I realized that he wasn't following, I turned. "Is something wrong?"

"Do we have to go watch a cartoon? Isn't there some other movie that you would rather see?"

"Not with you," I remarked, sounding somewhat snide. There wasn't much on at the theater currently; excluding Hercules, the choices were between a few sappy romantic comedies, a horror film, and some kind of biographical documentary. I actually did want to see the romantic movies, but they weren't the sort of things I would want to watch with Harry; I'd rather watch them with Noah, or with Lizzie and Nina, or even with Maria and Penelope. The biography had looked boring, and the horror movie didn't appeal to me at all.

I checked my tone. "Actually, I really want to go see Hercules. Please, Harry. I bet that you'll like it, after we see it."

"Aren't we a little old for cartoons?" Harry asked dryly.

"You can never be too old for Disney, Harry." I told him, trying my best to sound introspective and wise.

He looked silently at me for a long moment, but he sighed and started walking after me after a minute just like I'd known he would.

Four hours later, I was beaming with delight as Harry and I filed out of the dark theater and into the brightly lit cinema, just behind a woman grasping the hands of her two children.

"That was so good!" I squealed to him happily, as I fished my mobile phone out of my pocket. I had gotten in for my birthday, last October; it was mostly a small, thinnish red box with buttons on the front, a tiny green display screen, and a little antenna. I tuned it off of its silent mode before tucking it back into my pocket and looking back at Harry. "Didn't you like it, Harry?"

He shrugged. "It was fine."

"You just didn't get into it like I did," I said dismissively. When watching movies, I tended to get rather…involved. Even watching a cartoon, I would squeak and whimper at appropriate moments like a small child. It was somewhat embarrassing, but I had long since accepted the fact. "I think I actually appreciate kiddie films and fairy tales more now than I did when I was little, you know? Something about growing up makes them seem all the more magical and lovely…"

"'Magical?'" Harry looked amused.

"Yeah, magical." I smiled at him. "They're filled with adventure and love and magic, and no matter how scary the bad guy is, the good guy always wins. There's always a happily ever after. I think that real life should be like that, too."

"You're right. It should be," he said quietly. He was looking at my face with a strange sort of focus, like he was trying to memorize it or something. I felt myself flush, and I threw our uneaten popcorn into the rubbish bin as we got closer to the door. Just as Harry grasped the door handle to pull it open, my mobile started to ring.

"One minute, Harry," I said, pulling it out. The display said, in blocky letters, NOAH. I smiled as I hit the answer call button. "Hello? Noah?"

"Kate. Hey." I could practically hear the smile in his voice, which made my grin larger. It was nice to have a boyfriend who liked you so much.

"Hi. What's going on?" I asked.

"Not much. I was a bit bored, so I thought that I should call you and run up the phone bill a bit before we go out to dinner. What're you doing?"

"My friend and I just got out of the cinema. We went to see that new Disney movie, and I think that we're going to go get lunch somewhere now. How's everything in Hong Kong? Do your parents know that you're costing them a fortune right now?"

Noah had called me all of three times since he had left: once when his family's flight had landed in Hong Kong and once a week after that. His parents were giving him limited minutes on the mobile because they (quite reasonably) didn't want to pay for the outrageous long-distance charges. My parents felt the same, so I wasn't allowed to call him, either.

"Yeah, they know. They're watching me right now, as a matter of fact. Dad's pointing at his watch." Noah and I laughed; his father was infamously impatient. "And the city's amazing, especially right now. I know that I told you last time, but the city is beautiful at night. I wish you were here to see it."

"Me, too," I admitted into the phone, "almost as much as I wish you were here right now."

If Noah was there, I could have had the best of both worlds. I could have him and Harry, standing beside each other. I wondered if they would like each other, if they would be friends.

"I'll bring back lots of pictures, though," he assured me, "and I've got you a special souvenir. I think you'll love it."

"Noah, you don't have to get anything for me," I said quietly.

"I wanted to, though. I saw it and it made me think of you," Noah told me; I could picture his face, the way his hazel eyes would be shining right at that moment. Noah was the type of boy who was almost overly romantic; he was his happiest, I realized, when he was making throwing himself out there to me.

In the background of the call, I could hear the sounds of a busy city, and then I heard what I was sure was Mrs. Collins' voice telling Noah to get off of the phone. He confirmed as much.

"Kate, I've got to go. I just thought that I would call and say that I miss you. I love you, Kate."

Like always, the words sent a chill up my spine that wasn't entirely pleasant.

"I miss you, too, and I love you. Talk to you later, Noah."

"Bye, Katie."

I hung up the phone and turned around to face Harry; he was looking at me darkly, like he was angry with me. "What?" I asked, shifting uncomfortably under his gaze.

"You never told me that you had a boyfriend."

"Why does that matter?" I asked, feeling a little dumbfounded. "Was I supposed to tell you that I have a boyfriend?"

He looked at me, his eyes narrowed behind his glasses, and very plainly said, "Yes."

"Alright, then. I'll tell you all about him." I didn't see what the big deal was, and I thought that I could fix it easily. "His name is Noah Collins. We were in primary school together until he moved to Cardiff with his family for his dad's job. He moved back last year; we met at a party last Christmas. We've been going out since January. He has dark brown hair, freckles, and hazel eyes. He's tall, plays football, and he goes to Smeltings. Right now, he, his parents, and his older sister are in Hong Kong because of his dad's work. Oh, and he's allergic to strawberries."

"And he loves you," Harry said, the words coming out uncertainly.

"Yes. He loves me," I affirmed. My own certainty surprised me.

"And you love him?"

This time I paused. "I think that I do," I said softly. This conversation was too close to my own thoughts lately.

"Why the hell didn't you tell me about him?"

"I didn't know that I needed to!" I said defensively, my face burning hotly. "And who the hell do you think you are, Harry Potter, getting on to me about not telling you something?"

"I don't know what you're talking about," Harry muttered, turning away from me and slipping out the door. Well, since I had already started getting angry, I wasn't about to finish. I hurried after him and caught him walking down the sidewalk and looking at the ground. He looked like he was hardly controlling his temper.

"Like hell you don't know what I'm talking about!" I shouted at him. He stopped, but he didn't turn around. "I'm not that dense, Harry. I know that you keep secrets from me, and lots of them!"

He finally turned. "Oh, you do?" he asked snidely.

"Yeah, I do!" I yelled hotly. "Did you really think that you could just lie to me forever? I looked up your school on the internet. I couldn't find out anything about it! What sort of school is so remote that the post doesn't even run there, anyway? And the secrets that you keep! I'm so tired of them! Like the scar on your hand, the one that says 'I must not tell lies.' How the hell did you get a scar that like that? And your strange stories, about your parents and your friends and your teachers! They only barely make sense, you know!"

I walked right up to him and stuck my finger in his chest. "How does it make you feel that I didn't tell you something, Harry? Does it feel bad? I feel like that every time you say some cryptic remark, every time your letters sound like a secret code! I care about you, Harry, I won't lie about that, but I'm so sick of all of your lies and secrets and your moods!"

I took a step backwards away from him as I felt my eyes start to water.

"Kate-" Harry called after me, taking a step forward. He didn't look so angry anymore; there was an odd look on his face, introspective and sort of heavy.

"Save it, Harry. Save it for someone who wants to hear your lies," I told him, spinning around and hurrying down the street.


This brings me to note that, after this chapter, there will be only two more installments in 'Hero Complex,' including the epilogue-esque last chapter. But, disapointted fans, don't fret - there will be a sequel.