Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter. And I'm
glad of it too! I mean, who would want to be a multi-millionaire and a
best-selling author with people loving you all over the world? Not me! ;P
~ Enchantress! ^^
So
there we have it.
The
situation between the friends was the strangest they had ever encountered
before. Ron and Hermione didn't even look at each other and avoided one another
like the plague.
Ron
felt a mixture of regret and anger and Hermione didn't forgive him for what he
had done. Harry (even though he didn't show it in front of her) was so hurt by
Cho that even though he tried to bring his friends back together, his heart
wasn't in it. He wasn't successful either. Harry was so sick of all fights that
he started moping about alone and neither Ron nor Hermione thought of
comforting him since they had enough troubles of their own.
A whole week passed but nothing new happened. Even the
teachers had noticed the strange behavior of these students. Ginny and the
twins had tried talking to each of them to find out what was wrong, but they
had just got stormy looks and bad tempers as a result.
Then one day, Saturday to be exact, Ginny made up her mind. She
was sick and tired of having a cranky Hermione around.
If Hermione had studied too much before, now she ate, slept
and breathed books. Even Professor McGonagal, who as a great believer of
studying day and night, asked her to be sensible about it.
"Hermione!" said Ginny, addressing the girl who was spread
over a scroll doing her homework in the Gryfindor common room. Hermione looked
up, a bored expression on her face and stared at Ginny who had her hands on her
hips determinedly. "I want to talk to you… now!" said Ginny, her face serious.
Hermione sighed, stretched her arms and got up. "Yeah?" she
answered. "What?"
Ginny again noticed how sick Hermione looked. Her skin
seemed to stretch over her deathly pale face and her eyes appeared hollow and
lifeless.
Ginny chewed her lip for a second. What was she going to say
to someone older than she was? She didn't know. She just knew she had to try
her best.
"Come with me, Herm, let's go out…" Ginny replied noticing
the interested faces of the other girls in the room looking at the two of them
intently.
Hermione sighed again and she put her scrolls and pens back
into her bag and came with Ginny as they left the room. "This had better be
good," Hermione said as they entered an empty classroom. "I have important
things to do."
"Herm, it's a holiday. Besides, I bet you've done homework
in advance too!" said Ginny smiling at the other girl, hoping she would cheer
up.
Hermione stared at her, obviously uninterested.
Ginny made an impatient face.
"Okay, Hermione. To business," Ginny said, trying to sound
strict and competent as she sat down on a desk. "What is going on here?" the
girl looked at her friend for an answer.
"What?" said Hermione, her eyelids half closed in boredom.
"Awright, I'll do the talking, you just listen,"
Ginny said, exasperated. " Hermione, I may be smaller than you… I may be dumber
than you, I may be an idiotic busybody who doesn't mind her own business, but I
care about what happens to you, Harry and my brother! You're my friend!" Ginny
passed a tongue over her bottom lip uncertainly. "I don't know what happened to
all of you guys suddenly! You're had so many adventures, saved each others
lives… even defeated You-know-who so many times! You were always in that
together, as a team. You guys can't do much without each other! You're the
smart one, Harry's the talented one and Ron's the reliable one! How can you
stay without them? Look, I know Ron can be a moron, trust me, I'm his sister.
But he really cares about you… he's always talking about you at home! When you
came to our place, he was all over trying to make everything perfect for you! I
know he has a strange way for showing his feelings, but that's just the way he
is! You should know! If the letters you got hadn't had bad things written about
him, my first guess would be that he was the one writing them! Hermione, Ron
really likes you… I've seen the way he looks at you. Face it; he's miserable…
you're miserable! Poor Harry's just plain zonked out by all this! I can't talk
to those two, they wouldn't understand… but you're a closer friend… and you're
a girl. You can make everything better… give them another chance—give Ron
another chance—I'm sorry for whatever he's done! But trust me, I bet he
had one of his stupid ideas at heart, not something to hurt you." Ginny took a deep breath.
She had practically said the whole speech in one go.
She gazed at her friend standing opposite to her.
Hermione had her head bent and all her brown hair were
cascading around her shoulders. Her expression was hidden. She turned her back
to Ginny and said in a low, husky voice: "I… I've got to go…"
Ginny looked at Hermione sadly as the door shut behind her.
*
"Hermioniny… I have somethink to say to you," said Victor
Krum as he strolled over to the bench Hermione was sitting on. It had been an
hour since the lecture Ginny had given her and Hermione had nowhere to go where
she could find privacy. The dormitory was full, the common room probably had
Ron there, doing his homework and the castle seemed too crowded to her.
Then she had found a neat little corner on the ground that
was sheltered by a canopy of trees. A single white washed bench had been placed
there and as soon as the scent of the pearly white blossoms that hung from the
trees filled her lungs, Hermione had decided that was certainly a place made
for brooding.
She sat there for an hour, thinking over incidents that had
happened the last fourteen days or so. Suddenly, in barely two weeks, her whole
life had changed.
She
had lost her two best friends, she didn't like Victor anymore, the teachers
were worried about her, she had constant throbbing headaches, she was
constantly on watch for any suspicious boys lurking about her, she had received
about twenty-nine letters, Ginny and the twins were worried about her…
Head
in her hands, Hermione wondered whether it was all her fault. Should she have
told Ron to take her out? Would none of this have happened if she hadn't held a
grudge? Had Ron acted this way because of some weird, unknown reason, but he
hadn't wanted to hurt her, as Ginny said? Was Harry so depressed because of Ron
and her or had something else happened that she had not even paid attention to?
Was Ginny right? Should she apologize to Ron?
But then, rebellious thoughts came rushing into her mind. Ron
should have asked her out, it was never the girl asking the boy out! And
who could blame her for holding a grudge? If your friend (who happens to be a
boy) was desperate for a date and still didn't ask you out, then why
shouldn't you gold a grudge? It was human nature! And if Ron had a good reason
for behaving like he did, he still had no right- no right at all- to look
through her stuff in the middle of the night! And Harry… he was acting strange…
very strange… maybe she should try to help him at least. He was her friend. But
apologizing to Ron also made Hermione's blood boil. He should apologize
to her! He was the one acting stiffly… she had done nothing wrong!
Hermione's head starting hurting again… the more she
thought, the more confused she became, the more hurt she would get. Sometimes
she felt liking crying at the confused situation and sometimes shouldn't want
to flush Ron down the drain! She felt like a mass of conflicting emotions!
When she thought her head would burst with all her thoughts,
she heard someone walking towards her. She looked up with a pained expression
plastered on her face.
It was Krum and he called out to her. He looked grave.
"Hermioniny… I've been looking for you," he said, sitting
down next to her. "I've got something important to tell you," he added, staring
ahead like some kind of robot.
"I think ve should be friendz… just friendz. I have this
feeling that ve will nat make a very good… what do you call it… couple? Yes,
couple. I have my interests, and you have yours. They conflict. If ve keep
steady…" Hermione felt as if he was talking about a Quiditch match, not a break
up. "it shall nat be good. I am sorry if I have hurt you, I did nat mean to,
Hermioniny."
Hermione didn't know whether throw her arms around him and
thank him, or to burst out crying since she had lost another… friend?
"It's al-alright," Hermione croaked. "I always thought of
you as my friend, Victor, let's still be friends." She said, not looking at him
either.
Anybody watching them would've been amused! Two people, a
boy and girl, sitting in a lonely romantic spot together, neither of them
looking at each other and talking to each other as if they were twenty feet
away!
Victor as so relieved by this that he actually broke into a
radiant smile and impulsively hugged Hermione and kissed her on the cheek.
"Thank you, Hermioniny!" he said, his face flushed. "You
relieve my mind so much!" he said and then thanking her again, strode away.
Hermione shook her head, happy after a long time, and gave a
short laugh. He clearly had expected her to make a scene.
This time her thoughts were a degree more cheerful.
*
Please
review! Thank you for reading! Next chapter's gonna be IT!!! The whole plot unfolds
in it! Do visit soon to read it! ^_^