Love Complications (Part 5)
By Firenze
A/N: This happens after "Enchanted" and the other four parts before this, you know the drill. Here's the basic summary: There's a lot of hurt feelings, more betrayal, enmity, and arguing. All you people who think you know me, and what I'm going to write: don't be so sure. I've got this storyline so twisted and confusing that if you know, you must either be Lady Unicorn, or you're inside my head. Like I said to Lily Granger: expect the unexpected.
Oh yeah, here's the basic theme of this part: "What goes around, comes around." (Well, I remembered that from the "Survivor" finale. If anyone else was ripping furniture apart when Rich won, e-mail me so we can complain about it together.)
Disclaimer: J.K. Rowling pretty much owns everything in this fic, except the plot, and I am not connected whatsoever. I'll say it again – please seek help if you still think I may some way be the creator of these amazing characters, settings, and everything. I made up a few stupid potions and that, but nothing else.
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"Love, Losses, and Lies"
Harry couldn't believe his eyes. He said nothing, didn't move, and barely breathed for a few moments. The tension in the room was so thick that you could have sliced it with a knife and served it on a plate. Everyone's eyes determinedly avoided everyone else's, except for Hermione and Ron, who kept stealing glances at each other every once in a while.
And after a minute of hostility, Harry turned around and slowly walked away. He felt like punching someone, because his rage was uncontrollable, yet again, he felt so crummy that he wanted to curl up in a little ball on his bed and cry his eyes out. The result was, he shoved the portrait forward, burst through it, and stomped away, though ready to cry.
In his phase of gloom and misery, he blocked out everything happening around him, leaving him in a black pit of despair and loneliness. He felt like no one understood him anymore, when someone brushed by him in his or her haste.
"Oh, I'm sorry," they apologized quickly. "I wasn't looking where I was going –" The person stared at him. "Obviously, neither were you," they remarked, seeing Harry's completely blank and lifeless expression.
He heard their voice very faintly, echoing in the abyss of desolation that existed only in his mind. By their sweet and kind tone, it was Cho. "Hullo," he said dully.
She had been a lot nicer to him after Cedric's death, and they were actually becoming friends. He had gotten to know her, and after a while, he decided she wasn't his type. "Harry, what's wrong?" she asked quietly. "You look horrible."
He sighed, and was caught up in his self-pity again. "I caught Hermione kissing Ron in the common room."
"Hate to say I told you so," she said heavily, "but you should have never dated her." Cho sounded very sympathetic and tried her best to console him. "I knew that this would happen sometime, and it's always hard to lose a loved one." Her eyes were lined with tears.
He didn't say anything; they just plodded down the hallways, going nowhere in particular. Harry still had that dejected feeling, and held back the strong urge to just burst out crying.
"I mean, you need someone who can care for you, and who would never be disloyal to you—" Cho paused, and Harry saw the words on the tip of her tongue.
The two of them were quiet and unmoving, but then she took a deep breath and looked him right in the eye. "Like me," she whispered finally.
Without him even realizing, she had inched even closer and pressed his lips to his. All of Harry's worries and bad feelings instantly vanished, but he knew that, also because of this, that they would be back in a flash.
* * *
Ron was entirely lost with kissing Hermione. Everything he had wished since his third year to come true finally was. He was kissing the most beautiful, perfect girl he had ever known. Yet suddenly, at the moment, she seemed very tense.
"What's the matter?" he asked her, breathily heavily.
"This just isn't right," she finally muttered. Why did she always get bad vibes about someone else when she was kissing someone?
"Why not?" he asked casually, well aware of what her reply would be.
"Harry. It just isn't fair to him. I don't even know what's come over me at all, but I know I shouldn't be doing this. He's my boyfriend and I love him." Hermione repeated this in her head several times, but she didn't convince herself fully.
"I'm sure you're going to run after him and pretend this didn't happen," Ron said sullenly. "This whole moment just never existed. Go ahead."
"I have no choice," she said, biting her lower lip. "I suppose Harry hates me now." Her eyes really stung, for she felt so bad about cheating on him. "I gotta go," she said, springing out of the chair. "I'm sorry!"
She left Ron all alone on the armchair, and now everyone was feeling completely horrible.
* * *
"Harry, I'm so sorry about what I did—" Hermione began, bent over panting, when she reached him. Then he eyes widened and she did a double take.
Cho was kissing Harry, and he yanked himself away from her. "Hermione!" he cried weakly.
Now she felt even worse. It didn't work, and her dream was wrong. She trusted Ron, and Harry hated her, and then cheated back on her with Cho anyway.
Cho moved aside. "So how does it feel? To see your loved one kissing someone else?"
For once, she spoke without tact, and her thoughts came out of her mouth. "Not as bad as you're going to feel, you slutty b—"
"You did it first, and now you can have it come back and bite you in the as—" she retorted.
"Whoa, calm down!" Harry cried, intervening. "Both of you just calm down, and I –- I'm leaving." He walked off back to Gryffindor Tower, not wanting to get in the middle of this catfight.
Hermione growled at Cho, and then walked off to the library to vent her feelings by herself. Cho just snarled, did something incredibly rude with her finger, and stalked away to the Ravenclaw area.
And back in the Gryffindor common room, resuming his chess strategies, Ron was completely oblivious to the destruction he was causing to a could-have, should-have, and would-have been perfect relationship and the friendship of an inseparable trio.
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Double Potions, Harry's favorite class with his ever-so-favorite teacher, Snape, with his favorite house, Slytherin. They were working on various antidotes. He paired up the class, Gryffindor/Slytherin, with the exception of Harry and Ron, because everyone now knew about their "situation," and Snape naturally loved causing antagonism.
Harry and Ron were assigned to make the antidote of a Divulging Potion, called a Concealing Potion. Basically how a Divulging Potion worked was a person's darkest secret was revealed and exposed, so people could have it used against them. Or it brought it the feelings they were trying to hide and make them realize it. So to leave things how they were before was where the Concealing Potion took place.
They worked in silence, not talking at all, strain between them growing. Harry was angry, and he felt the time to act was now, when Ron couldn't slip away. Just like Karakoff had done last year to Snape.
"So why did you do it?" he asked softly, pouring out three tablespoons of powdered thyme to the boiling cauldron.
"Do what?" Ron asked in the same stiff, yet as calm as possible manner.
Put that damn love potion on Hermione, you great, blithering prat! He urged, to yell, but Snape would be sure to take off plenty of points and assign a detention, so he tried to remain as civil as possible. "Whatever you did to Hermione."
"What makes you think I did something to her," Ron asked, clearly annoyed, avoiding Harry's eye and chopping up five tulip stems into tiny pieces very savagely, "and she didn't act on her own?"
"Because I know things about her that's she's told only me," Harry answered. "I've practically seen into her soul, the way she spilled her heart to me. I know she'd never do that herself."
"Right," he retorted, "of course you trust your girlfriend when she cheats on you. Why? You think I bewitched her? Because I'm not good enough, and she'd never go for me?" Ron's patience was running out quickly, and he nearly chopped off a finger in his anger.
"Calm down, Ron, let's be courteous about this. I just want to know, did or did you not give Hermione a love potion? Because those are illegal at Hogwarts, and you were never much one for rules either."
"No," he said angrily, finally staring Harry in the eye. "You got that? I didn't even need to. Hermione's always loved me anyway, so I didn't have to waste my time."
Harry could have scoffed, but he held it in. To be sure he made no cruel remark, he shut his mouth.
"She had it in her heart, but she refused to see it, to believe it. So don't blame me."
Now he was ready to explode. "And why the hell shouldn't I blame you? This is your entire fault, you liar! What kind of sh—" he began, and saw Snape out of the corner of his eye, nearby, telling off Neville for melting Goyle's cauldron and sizzling a hole through the tabletop –"sh—tuff are you talking about?"
"All I did was help her realize what was inside her heart," Ron said coldly, and turned away.
Harry was about to retort, but then he realized something.
For the rest of the time, he didn't say a single thing to Ron, and vice versa. They made the antidote perfectly, and any unknowing person would think they had used great teamwork. Luckily, Snape had no time to say anything to them, because time was running out.
When class was finally over, and they were cleaning up, Harry transfigured a measuring spoon into a clear, glass vial. He dipped it into the cauldron, before dumping the light bluish potion into the drain, and hid the filled vial in his pocket before Ron came back from rinsing off the equipment.
If Ron had been telling the truth about Hermione…Harry thought he had found a way to foil his plan.
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Hey, people,
NEWSFLASH: the next part should be the end, the finale, or maybe it's just the end of this series with room for another follow-up. You know me (Meaning, that's what it is, and there's a HUGE plot twist). So the more who review this, the sooner I post the last one!
I've never done this before, but I'm desperate for reviews (and I feel really evil), because I need to know what everyone thinks, and I want to know your predictions. Here's how it works, all right?
5 reviews: 1 week (You can do better than that)
10 reviews: 4 days (Fine, but not enough)
15 reviews: 2 days (Thanks! But you can still do more!)
20 or more: Tomorrow! (Thank you, thank you, thank you! I know that's a bit much, but I'll personally mention all your names in the next part!)
That's right! Now start reviewing, and I mean it!