All characters and creation are not my property but that of J.K Rowling. Please know this so you don't sue me just because I'm a pervert with a bad sense of character development. I have no money anyway.

The "Friend" (Hermione's Story)

By: Fighta Malcolm Cross of the Haz Mat Team (cuz you are what you drink)                                                      

Rated PG-13 for nudity

 

7:30 am, December 9, Sunday:

 No classes.

    She stared into the bathroom mirror and studied the many individual hairs that fell and curled from her head. Still busy, still brown. She opened her mouth and examined her teeth to make sure that, yes, she did have straight teeth, even after three years.

No one there really notice her and her three old straight teeth and her bushy hair except herself and the idiot Slytherine that unknowingly gave her straight teeth. And he just noticed her hair just for the purpose of annoying her. There was another that notice though but those days were long gone. The only man who ever noticed was probably sailing on a broomstick at the moment looking for victory.

    She looked down on her body, fresh and clean straight from the Prefects bath. A short five foot four. Strong arms from dragging books from one place to another and nice but average figure that was always hidden under the billow of black shapeless robes. But she was exposed now and saw the steam rise off her skin and look and the raise of her breasts.

    They were small. Barely a B-cup.

    She stood on her toes sucked in her stomach and stuck out her chest and look at her profile in the mirror. Her face blushed from lack off air and she gave up. She muttered to herself about being vain and called on her clothes.

    "Accio Robes."

    She dressed and left the bath to the Great Hall.

-----------------------------------

8:45 am

    As she approached the Great Hall she heard laughter. But it was cruel. Mean and high: Lynch Mob Laughter.

"Pertrificus Totalus!" boomed a male voice from the hall.

Her steps moved faster in curiosity and agitation she really knew it she was at full sprint. She busted into the hall along with an agitated Professor McGonagall. What she saw made her heart plummet and fill with anger and pity.

Ron collapsed on the floor and frozen while Harry screamed out counter curses at Malfoy. With that damning, jeering, laughter of the Slytherin and the combine yelling of the Gryffindor, Ravenclaw, and Hufflepuff houses the words of the spells downed away.

"STOP THIS INSTANT! STOP RIGHT NOW BEFORE TAKE 50 POINTS FROM ALL HOUSES! YES, INCLUDING GRYFFINDOR MR. CREEVEY!" McGonagall shouted at the crowed as they parted like the Red Sea.

The spells already left Harry and Draco's wands and one drop after the other. Harry twisted and dragged himself away desperately grabbing his wand and crawling away while Malfoy just slumped down on the floor, vomiting frogs.

The Head boys and Girls from the Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs grabbed Harry and Ron and help them away. Malfoy was hacking and coughing his almost retarded sidekicks lifted and dragged him from the raving mob.

    "Hermione...", Harry groaned desperately

    "Harry." she started to say but then changed her mind. She regained her professional tone of voice to him, then at Ron. "Lets' get you two to Madame Pomfrey. She'll fix you right up." 

    This wasn't the first time it has happen but already seven years of lectures and nothing sinking in made sure that Ron, Harry, and Malfoy, weren't going to stop.

    As The Prefects and Head boys helped them, the Owl Post flew in and in that flutter if brown feathers she spotted a snowy white one: Hedwig, Harry's owl with a light blue letter in her mouth.

The three were all carted away with levitation spells and the crowd was too busy with the posts to care much as she held out her arm for Hedwig to land on and drop the letter. She gave Hedwig a piece of toast and few strokes before she flew away to the Owlery.

    She looked and saw that the letter was from Cho. She was now Harry's girlfriend. They started going out late into his 5th year. She was a nice girl with beautiful hair and an intelligent mind that almost, ALMOST challenged Hermione's. They went out at first, Cho confessed, out of knowing that Harry was the last person to see Cedric alive. As timed went on she started to see Harry's silent but good nature and then she fell in love with him.

That was two years ago and Cho wasn't the only one who fell for him. Seven years of watching Harry grow up into a man at his best and his worst did something to her. The sadness that filled his eyes as time went on with the realization that the world thought he was great or a treat. Never just a child, and forever something beyond his one, short mortal coil. Being with him and feeling all the highs and lows of since they met and created a bond of friendship and trust. She would lay her life down for him, just as he would do for her and they almost had a many number of times.

    She felt the pangs of sadness and loneliness from her own secrets and missed that feeling of the letter flying from above and seeing the careful effort to make it as nice as possible. The imagination coming forth as she heard a deep voice telling her presences was missed.

She placed the letter in her cloak pocket and walk to the hospital wing of Hogwarts. She had a letter to deliver.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------- -----------------------------

3:45 p.m

    The curses turned out to be Lock-legs for Harry and a total Body-Bind for Ron. Malfoy received Frog's Breath and was already being babied by Slytherine girls in his House.

She looked at them Ron and Harry lying next to each other and rolled her eyes. They looked board and expected the lecture they got so many times before about fighting. They already received punishment from Professor McGonagall ("20 POINTS FROM GRINFINDOR AND YOU BOTH HAVE TO CLEAN THE RESTROOMS WITHOUT MAGIC!!!") And were ready for another round. She didn't feel like it though. Too much time has past for this. She wasn't a parent she was...a friend. All these years and she was still just a friend.

    "A Letter from Cho came in today. I thought you might want it right now."

Harry just smile and took the letter and placed on his differently shaped glasses and read the letter in silence. The facial expression told her that it was obviously not a "Dear John" letter as a familiar stupid smile formed.

    "She's in France right now and going over some books about the origins of the a new breed of dragon. I managed to convince her to study them and not actually go near them." He had this strange look of nervousness, as he thought about the Hungarian Horntail he battled with in his fourth year. Hermione focus her attention on Ron who was struggling to get up.

    "You look like a newborn calf," she smiled.

    "Aren't you going to help me?" Ron looked at her with a child's look of annoyance.

    "Aren't you going to tell me why you got in another fight?"

    Ron looked at her and raised his eyebrows and looked even more awkward then before. He slipped and fell on the floor with a heavy thud and muttered curses. He looked very pathetic. His long, lanky, legs and arms shifted slowly as he grabbed the bed and pulled up.

    "Damn it! Help me woman!" he scolded.

She walked toward him and helped him up while Harry looked on with a small, almost well hidden grin. He decided not to risk being embarrassed by his lack of balance and decided to wait a little longer to stand. He noticed a small flash of a smile from Ron while being helped up and that his arm went quietly around her waist before standing up completely straight. They look completely different from one another. Ron stood tall and awkward with his billions of freckles and red hair as a child and it was no different now. He stood a six foot 3. He could rest his chin on the top Hermione's' head. But there, holding on to her, he looked more like a child with his ego hurt more then his body just before he let go.

    "Why are my friends so stupid?"

    "If you were so smart you would have noticed that in the beginning," Ron replied rather smugly.

    Hermione rolled her eyes and look at Harry who replied:

    "He got you there."

She just smiled and shook her head.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------

5:00 p.m

    Ron began to march around as he got his ability to walk back and Harry already was moving more without wobbling when Hermione asked again:

    "Aren't you going to tell me why you got in another fight?"

    "Urm...It's not really important...." Ron ears turn red. He was lying.

    "I'm not in the mood for all this okay? Why? Harry? Why??"

    Before Harry even opened his mouth, Ron answered. "Malfoy...he said...he was going to kill your whole family in front of you just to see the look on your face." He didn't mutter, or stand strangely, but he looked away. "He said that watching you scream would be better then fucking the devils own whores and that he'd make you one, if anyone even wanted to fuck a mud-blood...Then I just went after him and Crabbe nailed me from the left with Body-Bind."

    Her face went trough a swift change of anger, annoyance, and then a strange smile. " You two are going to get killed over me. I'll deal with Malfoy. He's the devils' whore going around from girl to girl, banging all those 3d and 4th years in the Slytherine House."

    "But...."

    "But nothing. He's a jackass and what he says about me is my business and right now I got too many things to worry about Draco. Plus, I'm really mad that you guys dragged me from my studies so I can watch you all stiff and sad looking. The finals are really close"

    "Finals aren't until April!" Ron objected. "What kind of psycho studies months in ad---oh yeah -you- would. How could I forget."

    "Maybe all that red hair rotting your brain and is killing the memory center. I mean it's already gone after your I.Q."

    "Hey!-"

    "Your right," Harry said in already common responded to Hermione "Um.not about the hair Ron.I mean we should know better then to mess with him but it's a little late for that. I have a letter to write Cho anyway. Lets go back to the Common room."

Both men with full walking abilities and the woman beside them both went to the Gryffindor House.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------- -----------------------

 6:45 p.m

    Harry wrote a letter on his usual spot in the common room while Hermione read her book and Ron played carefully with his old chess set. No one spoke much. There were times when silence was the most comfortable thing between all of them after years of talking and trust silenced was enjoyed because the mere presence of each others company was comfort enough. That's what everyone all thought, but for years Hermione felt a little detached from this comfort.

    She secretly watched Harry right about what happen in the past few days, making his writing especially neat and beautiful, biting his bottom lip in concentration as he carefully formed the "L" in the phrase "My Love..."And as she watched his delicate movements with his quill, she took in his looks. He was so gentle at times; it was almost feminine. 

And an old yearning flushed and shifted inside her.  The "I miss you's " and "My darling's". The kindness pouring out and the warmth kept inside, so gentle and sweet.  She longed for it. She wanted to drink in words of love and kindness. But even that was not enough. She didn't want just any letter but that letter. Harry's and as she watch she felt that loneliness of the knowledge of the days that turned to months then years, that she was not his.

  Thoughts that swelled in her made her so sad she slumped in her chair and stared into the fire and cried so quietly that she could blame the smoke for her tears if anyone cared enough to wonder why she had tears in her eye in the beginning. Never mind the fact that everyone knew the fires have no smoke. She was alone and lonely. Cho had Harry after she lost Cedric and Hermione knew that Hermione had no one in the end.

She was just the friend. After all this time, she was just the friend.

She stood and quietly left leaving behind her only the soft scratching of Harry quill, the movement of Ron's' black knight making checkmate and the deep crackle of the warm fire. That, and Ron noticing a sparkle slide down her pale left, cheek.

"Checkmate."