Author's Note: I honestly believe that it wasn't my fault this chapter is so late, but if you blame me for having a fifteen page term paper, being assigned millions of projects in every subject, studying for finals to pass my freshman year of high school, having a 103 fever, and getting an EKG, blood work and x-rays, then I apologize.


How to Love

Chapter Nine: Continued Questions

Hermione was absent for the following week. Dumbledore didn't seem as present either, but he was sure to make an appearance during dinner, which blanketed silence over any rumors that claimed he was taking on Sirius Black single-handedly. However, the headmaster looked more and more haggard and winded every day; he took on the appearance of an avid traveler.

Harry's curiosity shot through the Great Hall's sky-mimicking roof when Hermione sat at the Gryffindor table for breakfast that Monday as though she had done this every day for two school years just like him. She looked different, though, somehow. It wasn't in her actions: they were as casual as possible – too casual. Maybe her face wasn't as pale, or her cheeks weren't as hollow, or her hair wasn't as bushy. Whatever it was, Harry needed to pinpoint it down.

"I'll be right back," he told Ron and Ginny.

"Where –" Ron began, but he cut off when it became obvious that Harry wasn't going to turn back around.

Hermione didn't look at him when he sat down, but said, "Came here to bother me with some more questions?"

"Hey, you owe me a week's worth of answers," Harry replied, smiling, but then he remembered that her eyes were focused elsewhere and couldn't see his smile; it faded quickly.

"If only a week's worth was zero," she said in a hopeful voice that was followed by an exaggerated sigh.

It was when she pushed a few strands of hair away from her face that he saw what made her look different. The scar around her neck was gone.

"What happened to the scar?"

Hermione froze for a moment, and then finally turned to face him. "Wow, I don't know, I just woke up and it was gone," she said with raised eyebrows and a mocking smirk that was only too similar to Draco Malfoy's.

Ignoring her, he continued. "Is that why you weren't here? You went somewhere to get it removed or something?"

"It doesn't even take a week to simply – my God, I was told you were smart," she said impatiently.

After another letting out another sigh, she looked around the Great Hall and Harry copied the action. He was now aware of the curious eyes gazing upon them. He was used to this; there was always someone staring at him in the Great Hall, and even though there were more pairs of eyes on him than usual, it didn't make him feel uneasy – after all, he wasn't doing anything wrong. Harry quickly realized that although Hermione did not possess the fame that he did, she did not seem fazed by the attention.

"And besides, I could've just covered up the scar if it was impossible to remove," Hermione continued, as though the fact that he was not retaliating yet was something she needed to fix.

"Then why didn't you?"

"I could ask you the same question," she said, looking up at his scar for a split second. Then she thought for a moment before continuing into what became a bit of a rant that raised her voice a little too much. "Although it's kind of stuck with you I guess. Stupid trademark. I don't understand what makes you so different from the rest of us. You don't even remember defying the killing curse."

It was her attitude toward his popularity, fame, and any other thing that set him aside from the other students that made Harry gravitate towards her in the first place, and he felt his mood slightly rise with his curiosity.

"Thanks. I mean it," he added when Hermione looked at him to decipher whether he was being sarcastic or not. "You don't care about my fame so, er, thanks."

"And you don't care about the fact that a totally pissed off boggart looking like absolute crap was after me in Defense Against the Dark Arts, so I guess we're even now." She paused and looked up at the enchanted ceiling. "Well, you do care in the sense that you want to ask me about it, but you're not staring at me as though I'm actually going to turn into Anthony. What are you looking at?" she added towards a first year staring at her from a few seats down with something between curiosity and fear. The first year shuddered and Hermione pulled out her wand. "Go, you eavesdropping, useless little –"

"Maybe that's why people are staring at you strangely," Harry said, not able to suppress a grin. He had to admit that Hermione's attitude toward the first year was slightly amusing.

Hermione, who had been concentrating on the small wizard that was now running to another part of the Gryffindor table, turned to face him and shrugged but did not speak, so Harry continued.

"So, why were you gone last week?"

"Oh, you know, just taking a little vacation," she said casually. Her breakfast was suddenly of a great interest to her.

Playing along, he asked, "To where?"

"Where I used to live. Professor Dumbledore took me there," she said. This might have been a good piece of information if Harry knew anything about where she lived.

"Why?"

"Don't worry about it," Hermione said in the kind of tone one would use to calm someone down. She even patted his arm.

"I'm not worrying."

"Don't pry, then. Better?"

A little insulted, Harry looked around at anything but Hermione. His eyes landed on her breakfast that she had only taken one bite out of. "Aren't you hungry?"

She looked down at what he had been talking about. "I don't need to eat much." Then she laughed softly to herself, as though thinking of an inside joke that Harry had been excluded from. "You want this?"

Pushing her food aside, he said, "No, thanks."

"Don't eat much, either?"

"I already ate with Ron and Ginny," he lied.

Hermione looked over him at the two Weasleys as though their appearances would provide proof. "I don't like that Ron kid."

"I noticed," Harry said.

She refocused her gaze upon him and said, "He's like the poster child for birth control."

Harry raised his eyebrows at her. "That's taking it a bit too far." As Ron's best friend, it might have been his duty to leave Hermione and say that she had to accept their friendship or not speak to him, but he knew that he was the one who needed to accept something: that was just the way she was.

Hermione shrugged, as though taking things a bit too far was fairly common for her. "Ginny seems alright, though," she redeemed. "And she has the biggest crush on you."

He had noticed this far before he met Hermione, and agreeing with her, Harry said, "I know. It's only because I'm famous."

"Not necessarily," Hermione said, now breaking their eye contact and cutting her food, although Harry knew she wasn't going to eat it.

"Oh yeah?" His eyebrows were raised once again.

"Give it a few years and you'll be more fanciable. You're way too skinny and short right now, though," she said, looking up at him at the end of her last sentence with a smirk playing on her lips. The fact that she saw him as potentially being "fanciable" confused him, but he did not press the matter. There were more important things to talk about, such as,

"So –" But before he could continue, Hermione cut him off.

"You answer one of my questions first, Captain Curious," she said sternly. "Were you or were you not kept in a cupboard when you were younger?"

"What are you –"

Cutting him off again, Hermione said, "Answer the question." He glared at her. "Please."

"Why?"

"I haven't forgotten the rules of the game. After all, I made them myself," she said defiantly, her smirk returning to bother him. "I answered when you asked where I was going –"

"It was actually very vague –"

"—and I answered, so you owe me an answer."

So were they back to the questions game? Harry sighed and replied with, "No, I wasn't kept in a bloody cupboard. That's one of the randomest questions I've ever heard."

"Are you sure?"

"Of course I – why would I not be sure?"

"You see, Harry," she said, and it took Harry a few moments to register the fact that she was referring to him by his first name, "I was talking to Professor Dumbledore while I was gone, and I asked him the same question. I remembered when you were talking to Hagrid about a cupboard. He answered the same way you did."

"He answered honestly, then."

"No, he didn't," Hermione said. Her brown eyes were giving him a blazing look, but Harry was determined to not be the first to look away. "You see, you were basically saying that you had been kept in a cupboard and were glad that your living situation had changed."

Immediately conjuring a lie, he said, "I got trapped in a cupboard here, Dark magic and all that –"

She cut him off again. "No, you were talking about the Muggles you lived with." He opened his mouth to speak, but she said, "I'm not stupid."

"Why does it even matter?" Harry said, now angry that she was going to lengths to find out about his home life while the only measures he took were asking her questions. "And you do realize you wasted a question by making it rhetorical, right?"

"It doesn't matter," Hermione said stiffly in a pitch higher than her own, looking away from him. "I just wanted to be absolutely sure about it, that's all."

"Why? So you could use it against me or something?" Harry didn't know where the words were coming from, although he could guess that his anger was playing a role in it.

"What – no, I wouldn't use it against you. That's ridiculous." Her tone was still high pitched and stiff. People who had been staring at them before had decided that the two talking was nothing of interest, and so by now none of them had appeared to sense the sudden tension within the atmosphere. "No, I was just curious. You would know how that feels."

"Yeah, I do," he snapped. "And you owe me an answer now."

Hermione looked as though she was going to protest, seek a loophole in the rules of the game, but his tone seemed to have changed her mind. "Alright. Shoot."

"How exactly did you get that scar around your neck?"

"It's not there anymore," Hermione replied, raising one eyebrow.

"Don't get smart."

"Alright, alright," she said in that same tone used to calm someone down. Then, with the most casual voice Harry had ever heard, she said, "Someone tried to kill me."

Although he already suspected this, the proof of it sent a small shiver down his spine. "W-Who?"

"Nobody important."

"Hermione –"

"It doesn't matter."

"Why would it not matter?" he asked, bemused.

Hermione shrugged and began cutting her practically uneaten food again. "You didn't know them."

"Then can you tell me why someone would want to kill you?"

She looked at him, then back at her food. "They weren't well and went after me, seeing as I was the only person around. Just wanted to take their anger out."

"Through murder?" he asked. He had a vivid image of an angry Uncle Vernon and wondered how angry he would have to be to actually commit murder.

"Attempted murder," she corrected him, and then shrugged again. "Stuff happens."

"But – but someone tried to kill you," he said, still trying to grasp the concept of Hermione's casualness.

"But they didn't succeed," she retorted.

"Are you sure you're not going to tell me who did it?"

Hermione nodded. "It really doesn't matter."

"It was Anthony, wasn't it?" The idea had popped into his head when he remembered Anthony with a scar that was scarily similar to Hermione's.

The bell rang, and Harry cursed under his breath when Hermione didn't answer and walked away from him as quickly as possible.


Author's Note: Sorry that this chapter sucked and was short. And sorry if this chapter seemed irrelevant and confused you; I swear I know what I'm doing, haha. Oh and I'll be on a weekly updating schedule again, I promise. I might even update quicker than that since it's summer, but we'll see :) The next chapter features Dumbledore. Woo. I realize I probably lost a few readers by updating so late…if you've stuck around, thank you very much :D