Love Complications (Part 6 and final)
By Firenze
Summary: I know you want to read it, so I'll make a long story short: Everyone still feels horrible, Hermione now has something new to decide, and it only gets worse for one of the boys when she makes a final decision on who to trust and what to do. No worries, everything will be solved. (Yeah right, knowing me, it's another huge plot twist and plenty of unsettled things so I can write another follow-up.)
Disclaimer: I'll make this fast too, so you can read the dang fic – everything you know from the HP books is; it belongs to J.K. Rowling, I have nothing to do with it, I just write for fun.
* * *
"Everything is Right in the End"
Subtitled: Or is it?
Hermione, who was feeling very bad, sniffled. Her eyes were very red too, from crying her eyes out. Her life was too depressing, and she couldn't handle it anymore. She was positively sick of it.
Ron or Harry? Ron or Harry? Who could she trust? Either way, her decision was wrong. But her most fatal decision had been to cheat on Harry. What had she been thinking? Ron? Could she really love him? Or was she even thinking at all when she did it?
She moaned, and buried her face in her pillow as she had done many times before. Her sobs were muffled by the pillow, and her bitter tears absorbed.
"Hermione?" someone asked uncertainly.
Her senses instantly perked. The beating of her heart quickened, but this time it was for a different reason. She still hadn't decided, and if they were asking to know whom she trusted, she wasn't sure. "Go away," she whined.
"Hermione," the person repeated, pushing aside her curtains and taking a seat on the foot of her bed. "Please stop crying, we need to talk."
She sighed, and took her face away from the pillow. Casting a wary eye at Harry, she was shocked to discover that he was crying too. "What's wrong?" she asked in concern, forgetting her own troubles. Never had she seen Harry crying, in five years of friendship.
"Nothing," he mumbled. "Forget it." He removed his wet glasses ran his sleeve over his eyes. All traces of tears were gone, and Hermione wasn't even sure if they had even been there in the first place, or if they were her imagination.
"Please, tell me!" she begged.
Harry sighed and pulled something out of his pocket. It was a small vile filled with light bluish liquid. "Never mind. Just drink this, all right?"
Hermione eyed him suspiciously. "What is it?"
"Concealing Potion," he said stiffly. "I just want to check something, all right?"
"Now why would I—" she began, but he cut her off.
"Promise me you'll drink it," he said firmly, obviously not going to take no for an answer.
Her eyes, which had considerably dried, threatened to leak again. "The last time I made a promise with you, look at the mess we got into," she said resentfully.
"Just trust me," were ironically his final words, and then he walked back out the door to the dorm.
Now she was only more confused than ever, as she raised the vile in front of her face. Drink or don't drink? she asked herself, and then moved on to something bigger: Should I – can I trust Harry?
* * *
Ron rubbed his eyes and sat up in his bed. A bright, new morning, a fresh new start. Who am I kidding? I'm still in the mess I was in for the past few days. Except today – as Hermione had told Harry and him earlier – today is the day she's going to decide.
It was still very early, and the other boys were asleep, but Ron couldn't get himself back to sleep if he tried as hard as he could, so he dressed and went down to the empty common room.
But it wasn't empty. A bushy haired figure was sitting comfortably in one of the armchairs.
"Hermione," Ron said quietly, walking up to her.
She turned around, and her bloodshot eyes welled up. She seemed to get more emotional for the slightest reasons in the past days, and now she looked as though she hadn't had any sleep. "What do you want?" she asked, gripping something very tightly in her fist.
He was distracted by it. "What's that?"
She shoved her hands in her pockets. "Nothing. Now what is it?"
"I wanted to ask if you had decided," he said timidly.
"I said I would tell you today, I think I would've decided!" she yelled. Too bad she hadn't. "Now leave me alone, I need to think."
What's her problem? Ron fumed, and then when she raised her hand to shoo him away, he saw what she was clutching. It was a tiny vial filled with blue liquid – the Concealing Potion – and his heart dropped. "Oh, all right," he said softly.
"I'll tell you at breakfast," she said curtly, hoping she had her mind set straight then.
"I have some advice. Don't drink that stuff in your hand – speak from the heart." Then he walked back up to his dorm with nowhere else to go.
Running a hand through her tangled hair, which she hadn't bothered to brush, she sighed heavily. Now she was even more lost. What was that supposed to mean? She knew she had to speak from the heart, but what did this blue stuff Harry gave her have to do with it? Was it poison? Another weird potion?
She would have to figure out whom to trust before she drank this (or didn't), and only then could she decide this, and not a moment sooner.
* * *
"Where is she?" Ron hissed. It was the first time he was directing something to Harry in a while, but this time it was spoken at him, not exactly to him.
Harry checked his wristwatch, which Hermione had given him for his birthday since his old one had stopped ticking ages ago, and realized that she was ten minutes late. They were standing outside the Great Hall for breakfast, and there was no sight of Hermione.
Suddenly, she came dashing down the corridor. Her eyes were sparkling – or glistening? Was it happiness or tears? "I've made a decision," she replied, in an oddly croaky voice.
They were relieved somewhat, because the suspense had been unbearable. She drew in her breath, and opened her mouth. "I—"
"Stop!" Harry said, eyes narrowed in suspicion.
Ron sighed in exasperation. "What is it now?" he asked impatiently.
Harry stared right at Hermione, completely ignoring him. "Did you drink it?"
"Ummm…" she said softly.
"Did you drink it?" he repeated urgently.
"Why?" Hermione asked him uncertainly.
"You have to speak for yourself, and you can't have a potion decide it for you."
"What potion?" she wondered, now more confused than ever. "The love potion you put on me?"
"What?!" he asked in shock. "Love potion! You're the one who was in love with me first!"
"But Ron said—" she began.
"Why don't you ask Ron what potion he slipped into your butterbeer?" Harry spat, glowering at him.
Ron looked down at his shoes. "All right, then," he said through clenched teeth. "I put a Divulging Potion on you, all right?"
Hermione put her hands in her pockets, and out of one, she pulled out the vial. "So maybe I should drink this…"
"It's your decision," Harry said quietly. "I can't make you do anything." Unless, of course, I put you under a potion like that sneaky rat over there did.
She unscrewed the cap and smelled the potion. It smelled like a mixture of blueberries and burnt toast. Then in a quick motion, she gulped it all down.
Ron sank to his knees on the ground. "Oh, get up," Harry growled.
Hermione suddenly felt very lightheaded. "Whoa, that was odd." She paused. "All right, I suppose I can make my decision now. I hadn't picked it out yet, because I wasn't sure, but now I'll just speak anything from the heart. I just want to make sure that none of you get hurt too badly."
"Agreed," the two boys said at the same time and snarled at each other.
"Here goes," she said heavily. "Okay, I just want to make sure of everything one last time. Harry, you didn't put a love potion on me." She looked at him, and he nodded. "But Ron, you did put me under a potion."
"It was for your own good," he mumbled.
"Fine. Since I didn't have much time to think this over, I'm going to just tell you exactly what's going on in my mind. I've known you two for five years, and during that time, we had a lot of fun and fights. I always liked Harry, because he was brave, and nice, caring, daring – he just seemed like the perfect guy. Or maybe I just thought that because I was trying to hide something from myself.
"When Ron put that potion on me, it really opened my eyes. Secretly, without my knowing, I'd actually liked him, but I just refused to admit it to myself, because we always fought, and he was so different, and he wasn't as great as Harry. But that didn't stop me from liking him, and even though Harry was the perfect one, I never looked at him as more than a best friend. I was just too afraid to admit to myself that – that—"
Hermione carefully avoided both boys' eyes. "I'm in love with Ron."
Ron had the urge to go wild and start going crazy, because for once, he had finally won over Harry. He'd gotten the girl, he had something Harry didn't.
Harry shoved his hands in his pockets and caught Hermione's eye. She was shocked to see he wasn't crying, or hurt, or anything at all. "That's fine," he said with some sort of relief, "because you're not the only one who realized something. I figured that had we even stayed together, things would actually be worse off."
"What do you mean?" she asked slowly.
"I found out that I don't even really love you like that at all, and it took all my will to convince myself that I did when we were going out. I was just looking for love because the lack of it from not having parents took over, and I went for the closest girl to me – which is you. So I'm sorry if I hurt you, I'm sorry we even got into this mess at all. I thought it was Ron who was in the way of you and I, but in actuality, it was me in the way of you two."
Harry smiled briefly. "You two deserve to be together, and I'm an idiot for not seeing it sooner."
"I think that makes us all idiots," Ron laughed along with the rest of them. He caught Hermione's eye and then swept her up in a kiss.
Harry grinned, knowing that this is how it was meant to be all along.
They didn't even realize it, but most students were done with breakfast. Parvati walked out of the Great Hall, and accidentally bumped into Harry. She then spotted the two kissing. "Ron? Hermione?" She whirled back around. "Harry?!"
Ron and Hermione broke apart for a few seconds and nodded at her, grinning. Then they went back to kissing each other. Harry just smiled to let her know that he was okay.
"Oh my god, I can't believe it!" Parvati shrieked happily.
"You wanted Hermione to get Ron?" Harry asked.
She nodded speechlessly. "Sorry, but I mean—"
He cut her off. "You know what I can't believe?" he replied.
"What?"
"The biggest idiot of all, Trelawny, actually had her third right prediction!" Harry exclaimed. Parvati looked hurt, but she ended up laughing with them too, in the end.
Someone came out of the Great Hall a few seconds later. "What's everyone laughing about?" they wondered curiously.
"You won't believe this!" Parvati shrieked. "It's amazing! Look, Lavender! Lavender…!"
* * *
"…Lavender! Lavender!" Somebody shook her.
Lavender lifted her head, rubbed her eyes, and sat up straight. "What's going on? Where am I?" She stared at the person who was looking back at her. "Ron?"
Ron gave her a small smile. "You fell asleep in the library," he told her. "Lunch is over."
She looked around. Her back ached; she was sitting very uncomfortably at one of the tables, and she had been bent over, resting her head on a thick encyclopedia. "Boy, that was some strange dream," she remarked, fixing her hair.
"What do you mean?" Ron asked her intriguingly.
"It all started in this exact library, when Harry confessed his feelings about Hermione…" she started. She went on to explain every single aspect of what had happened in her dream, leaving the part about their date out. It took a while, but it was quite a story. When she finished, Ron gave a low whistle.
"You have some imagination," he said with a laugh. "But maybe the Harry and Hermione thing wasn't so far-fetched."
"Now what do you mean?" Lavender asked.
With a grin, Ron pointed to a nearby table. Harry was leaning towards Hermione to whisper something in her ear, when Madam Pince walked by.
"No kissing in the library!" she insisted furiously. "If I've told you two once—"
"I wasn't going to kiss her, I swear!" Harry cried.
Lavender and Ron grinned at each other. "Just like your dream," Ron remarked.
"That dream really was something, wasn't it?" she asked, as they walked out of the library to their next class. "Maybe I could write books or something."
"I doubt it," Ron said, figuring she wasn't the intellectual type. "But it does have a good plot, and it's very believable."
"You could say that again. It was like it was actually happening." She casually put her hands in her pockets. "Wait a minute, what's this?" She pulled something out.
"What?" Ron craned his neck to see what it was.
In her hand, Lavender had a rather crumpled, yet still beautiful, pink flower.
"Where'd that come from?"
She just stared at it in shock.
* * *
A/N: What did I tell you, huh? That was seriously weird. If you don't get that ending, you better read the second part like I told you to. I don't think any of you really expected that, except Lady Unicorn. Actually I was going to use that ending for an entirely different story, and this was going to turn out to be the real thing where Harry and Hermione got together, but I figured I could kill two birds with one stone.
Whoa, in 1 day I got 50+ reviews! It almost tops "A Twist of Fate" (68) and that's been out for like half a year. Look what happens when you beg, I got reviews from tons of people I've never heard of! I promised I'd thank everyone, and unlike Hermione and Harry, I try not to break my promises. I even wrote a note for everyone.
Note: these aren't in order that you posted, just in the order I got my e-mails.
1. Vivian - thanks so much!
2. Lily Granger - thanks for all your e-mails!
3. Margaret Conley - thanks
4. Misty's Angel - glad to see you like it so much!
5. Meg - lol, thanks
6. Hermione - I agree! But sorry, I wanted to try something new
7. Katia - I don't call 5 pages that short, do you?
8. Margaret Ferran - thanks for being so, ummm…polite, but no need to beg!
9. Lugia2/Artenis - Hey, I got over two and a half times more! Didn't I?
10. Anonamous - it's spelled Anonymous, by the way
11. (::) - Whoa, great name! I didn't even know "which one" you're talking about
12. Nice - that's the way you should feel, I mean, if you're a H/H fan
13. Kewlguy – Nice try! 2 reviews from the same person count as 1!
14. Ryan - well, you got it!
15. Hermione187 – Awww, I'm not that evil. Anyway, you didn't even need to review under other names, look how many I got!
16. Lizzy – glad you love it. You found out, are you still happy?
17. Danielle – I'm glad you like it.
18. :-) – That's the way the characters are supposed to seem!
19. Tilly – I'm glad it kept you guessing, I had it planned that way
20. PixyChick – Sorry it wasn't H/H. The point of the fic was for everyone to hate Ron, R/H fans or not. And it wasn't Harry's choice to kiss Cho!
21. mdx1 – Yes, are you calmed down now that it's over?
22. Slytherin Pure Blood – Thanks! I will e-mail you!
23. me – presumptuous, awww, I'm hurt. No seriously, I'm nothing like that.
24. AngieJ – Thanks!
25. Genevieve S – Well, did I have you fooled for a few minutes with the R/H?
26. Jeanniefan65 – thanks!
27. Fawkes - you FINALLY posted something after what, 2 months?
28. Amethyst – thank you for still posting even though I had enough already!
29. Prue - thanks
30. Jennifer Phan – well, I did
31. Pepper, (otherwise known as Mommythatgirlisscaringme,makehergoaway) - errr...thanks for the DESCRIPTIVE
reviews)
32. Unicorn Lady - can you read my mind? How'd you know about the dream thing, huh?
33. shipcommander – yeah, it was cruel, but it worked!
34. Nicadon - confusing, ain't it?
35. Danna – Well, I posted it
36. Shazta - yeah
37. Lynn – yeah, Ron is supposed to be that way in this fic. Anyway, your review sounded like something I would write!
38. Rich – it was less than a day! sorry, I haven't started the follow-up though
39. Hillybilly-2000 – a shock, wasn't it? I'm happy you loved it
40. Maple – Thank you so much! And I always thought I sucked at writing…
41. Kate – thanks!
42. Cassandra Claire – you really thought Ron and Cho were in character? Anyway, thanks!
43. Kathy – that was a pretty good prediction, but it depends on how you perceived this
44. Flora – I guess it was pretty weird… Oh my gosh, I know! Sue is such a b****! Okay, sorry
45. HP FREAK - thanks
46. Mariel – thank you!
47. Samantha – I'm sorry for the cliffhangers, but I did post it!
48. Cassie – thank you so much
49. Fanfic Freak – suspense sucks sometimes, doesn't it?
50. Rufus – I will finish Tapestry of Fate (I'm getting pressure from a lot of people, but I'm still in school until next week, so be patient). Not exactly a happy ending, but the H/H will finally come in the follow-up (whenever that us)
(52?) HATE!!!!!!!!!!! - You don't count, that was a mean review; and what are you talking about, I don't even know you
Whew, that was tiring. Took me more than half an hour. If I forgot anyone, I'm sorry!
For all those nice people who reviewed, please review this one! Just say the word if you want a follow-up to have the real H/H, because this has been fun, and I'll be on vacation next month. Thanks for reading!
Firenze