Inevitable 2: In Old Friend's Eyes

Hermione pushed her way through a crowd of drunk Irishmen to a seat at the bar. Immediately a fire haired waitress was in front of her, sporting a thick accent.

"Hello there, miss. And what can we be getting for ye today?"

Hermione looked up and met eyes that she had so many times looked into before. She and the waitress gasped.

"Gi-" Hermione began, but stopped herself. She was thinking nonsense, and refused to let herself do so.

"Her-" Ginny began, but stopped herself. She was thinking nonsense, and refused to let herself do so.

Unfortunately, both women did this at the same moment, thereby depriving themselves of the realization that could possibly have occurred.

"Water, please," said Hermione, and Ginny walked away.


Ron opened the door and looked for the woman he was interviewing. He didn't know her name. He felt that knowing her name would have jinxed her, and somehow she would have been terribly awful and he never could have possibly hired her, like all the other woman he had interviewed.

Spotting Hermione, Ron strode through the room to the bar and sat beside her.

"Excuse me," he said, "Are you here for a job Interview?"

Hermione drew her gaze from the red haired waitress who looked like Ginny, and turned instead to her possible employer.

"Yessir," she said shyly, looking down and holding out her hand, "I'm Hermione..."

"Lovely, I'm Ron."

If she was insistent on his knowing her name, at least he could interrupt her and prevent the knowledge of her last name. He wouldn't look at her, he was too embarrassed.

Funny, her name is Hermione.

Funny, his name is Ron.


Unfortunately, they were both too shy to inquire the other about this coincidence of familiar names, and to shy to look in the other's eyes, in which case they surely would have realized what had happened.

As Hermione and Ron carried on blindly with the interview, Harry entered the pub, pushing his way to the bar, sitting down a few places from Hermione, though neither she nor Ron noticed he was there. Ginny did, but by the time his identity occurred to her, she had already begun to wait on him.

"Hi there sir, and what can we be get- Harry!"

Harry wearily looked up into the eyes of yet another fan. Little did he know that she was a fan of a very different kind. Unfortunately, he had never before now looked in her eyes intently, so they brought no recognition to his mind.

"Yes, I am indeed Harry Potter. I will sign anything you wish."

"Oh, no I just... if you will excuse me."

And Ginny hurried off, begging a fellow waitress to serve Harry Potter, and, thinking the man divine, the girl was only too happy to agree to Ginny's Plea.

It was Ron who had the next revelation, and, coincidentally, it too concerned Harry.

Ron looked up, over the woman's head as she talked about something that he was not listening to. His eyes fell upon Harry, and he interrupted her as he quietly exclaimed,

"Oh, shit."

Hermione looked up. His name being what it was, she was sorely tempted to say, "Ron!" but of course, she did not.

"What, sir?"

"Nothing. Just an old friend from school I don't want to see again."

Hermione looked to where he had fixed his gaze, and gasped at the sight of her old best friend.

"Harry," she whispered, but Ron didn't hear.

"He was my best friend if you can believe it," Ron went on. "But after I fell in love with this girl, Hermione, actually, her name was, we grew apart. I just didn't have enough attention for him. Funny, I dealt with being ignored by him for a long time, and I took it, but I guess he just couldn't.

Hermione had turned slowly around and had now come to realize it was not a coincidence that this man's name was that of her first (and only) true love.

"Ron?" she asked quietly.

He looked at her, into her eyes, and found there recognition.

For a long time, they just sat there staring at each other, until Ron whispered,

"I didn't mean to apparate away like that and not come back Hermione."

"Where did you go?"

"Home."

"Oh."

"I-I'm sorry."

"Me too."

Okay, well..."

Hermione then broke the unbearable akwkardness by leaning forward and kissing Ron with all her might.
Harry glanced over to his right. Ugh, disgusting. The things people did in bars! Harry did not want to witness the foreplay of two people who were probably hideously drunk. And to top it all off, they had to have red and brown hair. Well, I don't want to look at that spectacle anymore! He thought.

It is questionable, then, that he continued to stare until they broke apart, and kept on staring thereafter. Looking at the two people, who were laughing and crying at the same time, the slightly mousy woman who had fallen into that gangly man's arms, Harry was reminded profusely of Ron and Hermione in their Hogwarts days, always ignoring him, always leaving him out. That was why he went far away from them after school, to get away from it. He heard they had a fight, and Ron left her, but it didn't matter to him anymore.

At that moment, Ron looked up and met Harry's eyes. Harry gasped slightly, finding that these two people did not merely resemble his old friends, they were his old friends.

Hermione sat up and she and Ron both gazed at Harry, who gazed right back, finally standing up and going over to them.

"Well," he said, "I see some things never change."

At that moment, as they stood in silence, two against one as it had been before, Ginny brought the butterbeer Ron had ordered. The waitress she had made serve that side of the bar had gone home, so Ginny had to do it. Placing the keg on the counter, the forgotten girl looked up and found them all staring at her.

"Ginny?" said Ron.

They had come together again.