Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, I am not J.K. Rowling, and please
don't take my ideas. Thank you.
A/N: You guys, PLEASE REVIEW!!!!! PLEASE! I have no idea how many people are reading my story if you don't. And I've said it three times already-- even if you don't like my story, review anyway~~I take Hermione's advice on flames and anyone making fun of me: "Just ignore it." So, from a bookworm just like Hermione, here's my fourth chapter!
Harry Potter and the Last Dance
Chapter 4
Harry Potter was confused. He sat there in the Charms classroom, Hermione's note in his hands. To his right, Hermione was engrossed in taking notes, writing down the incantations almost as fast as Professor Flitwick spat them out. Ron sat to Harry's left, his head on his books and his eyes closed. He was asleep.
Slightly amused, Harry grinned and went back to the note, reading it for what seemed like the hundredth time.
"Dear Harry," Hermione's neat writing stated.
"We have to worry about Snuffles before we think about anything else. And you're right, I am worried about you now. Your dreams tell the future or the present, and they haven't been wrong yet! We need to talk. Tell me later what time we could meet in the common room.
"Love,
"Hermione."
At the end of the letter Harry blinked, then sighed. He hated how he always blinked whenever he was suprised. But--what had Hermione been talking about? 'Wait, Harry,' a little voice inside his head announced. 'Look at the first sentence.' Harry's eyes drifted back up the parchment, and read, "We have to worry about Snuffles before we think about anything else."
His mouth dropped open slightly, because for the first time he had caught the double meaning of Hermione's words. Did that mean--? 'No, it couldn't,' Harry thought in shock. This was too good to be true. If Hermione meant what he thought she did, then she felt the same way! She liked him!
Of course, she had always liked him. To be friends with a person you can't be enemies to the core. It takes a lot of love. But never would he have been able to imagine the day when Hermione broke that sacred bond of friendship--or when he himself broke it for that matter--just to find out the if the feelings they had for one another were returned. Well, it at least sounded like she thought of him as more than a friend. Could it be true?
Harry dared himself to glance over at her, and when he did, he saw her leaning one elbow on her books and staring straight at him, her eyes out of focus. Her quill dangled from her hand, forgotten, and the parchment in front of her was marked not with spells, as he had assumed, but with little hearts. Curious and with a sense of dread at seeing some other name (like Viktor Krum's) inside the hearts, Harry leaned over to get a better look.
Hermione instantly snapped out of her thoughts at his sudden movement, and her hand jerked out from underneath her head so quickly the bottle of ink in front of her tipped over, sending a flood of color across her parchment. Harry suspected, by the way she immediately looked at him, that this was no accident, and again he wondered whose name it was inside those tiny hearts.
During the next few days, as he avoided setting a meeting time with Hermione, Harry realized he would rather have not thought about the hearts at all, because every time he did he got a strange feeling in his stomach that would sometimes refuse to go away for hours on end. This was a problem that, try as he might, he couldn't cure himself of. Instead, he would lie awake in his dormitory, watching as the night sky changed from pitch black to grey, falling asleep only when the sun started to peek up over the trees of the Forbidden Forest.
Despite how much Harry loved lying awake until dawn thinking only of-- 'Well, I think of a lot of things, not just....her'--he knew it couldn't go on. He had been getting less and less sleep as time wore on, and it was starting to affect his studies. Even Snape had noticed he hadn't been up to par, though he announced his diagnosis with all of the other Gryffindor and Slytherin fifth years listening.
"Pehaps," Snape had said coldly, his oily hair falling across his face, "Mr. Potter thinks staring at his girlfriend is more important than learning how to correctly mix the ingredients in a Morphing Potion."
Upon the sudden cackling laughter of the Slytherins Harry blinked, his eyes refocusing on what (or more like whom) he had been staring so intently at.
It was Hermione, blushing from Snape's comment but trying ever so diligently to get back to her work. With a small spark of delight, Harry noticed she kept glancing in his direction. 'Maybe,' he thought hopefully. 'Just maybe.'
Snape wasn't through with him yet, however. He swooped down upon Harry with the equal viciousness of an owl chasing its supper. "Mr. Potter," he sneered once more, "tell me how to change your most incorrect green potion--a very serious mistake, I might add--to purple."
Harry stared straight at Snape, trying not to blink or show any fear. 'Think of Buckbeak,' he reminded himself. 'This is just like Buckbeak.' He wasn't suprised when, at the thought of the poor hippogriff, his resolve not to blink only grew. "I don't know, Professor."
Snape smiled, a cruel, hard smile. "Well, it seems fame STILL isn't everything, doesn't it, Mr. Potter? On lucky chances you have survived the Dark Lord throughout the years, yet what do you truly know about magic?"
The room was silent, but Harry could hear a strong buzzing in his ears. He knew he shouldn't even be listening to Snape, but somehow he couldn't help it. Beside him, he saw Hermione stiffen. Ron's jaw was clenched tightly together, and his right hand was on his wand. "I know more than you do," Harry said, so softly he was sure no one else could have heard him.
"Excuse me?" was Snape's response.
"Nothing, it was noth--"
Before he could stop her, Harry watched as Hermione stood quickly, facing the professor. "He said he knew more about magic than you do." It was a fact, plain and simple, though Harry was sure he had never heard her voice go so deadly calm in all the time he'd known her. He marveled at her, the way she stood at that moment, head held high. Then he smiled as he watched her face. She wasn't blinking.
Snape, on the other hand, seemed to be in shock. He had probably never had a student stand up to him with such force as Hermione was doing now. "He said he knew more about magic than you do," she repeated, her eyes glinting fiercely at him, "and I believe him."
Harry blinked, seemingly for the first time in minutes. He couldn't understand why Hermione was standing there, defending him. "Hermione!" he hissed. "It's okay, leave it be!"
Snape turned his angry glare at Harry, pulling out his wand in one smooth movement. Just as he felt his insides turning to ice, Harry heard a loud popping sound. The next second Dobby the house-elf was clinging to his robes, yelling loudly. "You must not speak to Harry Potter like you did, sir! Dobby is Harry Potter's friend! Dobby will save his Harry Potter!"
With a loud crack, a shelf in the back of the dungeon collapsed, letting several nasty specimens of creatures slime their way across the floor. Snape whirled about, snarling at the problem. "Elf!" he yelled, his eyes dangerously shining. Dobby just nodded at Harry, and with a loud pop disappeared once more. "All right," Snape grumbled. "Get out of here--class dismissed."
As soon as they were in the main hall, Harry turned around to Hermione. "Why did you do that?" he asked.
He noticed she was looking at her shoes again, her face crimson. "I don't know, Harry," she said quietly. "I just--I just got mad. He has no right treating you like that!" With those words she stared him straight in the eye, leaving Harry stammering and trying to respond.
"Her--Hermione, I'm really sorry about--about how I haven't, er, answered your note," he finally burst out. Now it was his turn to study the floor. 'I seem to be doing a lot of this lately,' he thought, disgusted with himself.
Hermione just gave him an odd half-smile, and it was obvious she didn't intend for it to be there. "It's okay," she said softly, her mouth straightening at last.
"No," Harry replied forcefully. "It's not, and I really am sorry. I just--er, well, I've been--avoiding you lately, I guess."
This time she grinned playfully. "So I noticed."
He winced. "You did?"
"Of course," she told him deviously."You didn't think I spent all my free time in the library, did you?"
Harry said nothing, because he knew that if he did chances were Hermione wouldn't speak to him for a while and he didn't think he could handle that at all. He liked the way she was grinning right now, though. It occured to him he hadn't seen her truly smile in a long time. It made him feel especially proud to know it was he that made her face light up like that--and he hadn't even been trying to be funny. 'Maybe,' came the thought that so often scrolled across his thoughts lately. 'Just maybe.'
After quite some time of walking along in silence Harry gathered up enough courage to speak. "Er--Hermione?" His brain momentarily froze when she met his eyes but he forced himself to continue. "If you still need to talk--I mean, if you want to--could you meet me tonight?"
He was blushing madly, and he knew it, but that was nothing compared to Hermione's response. Her eyes widened in suprise and she seemed to take an eternity before answering, smiling her brillant smile. "Of course, Harry. I'll be there all night catching up on homework. What--what time can you make it?"
Harry panicked. He hadn't thought of this. "I--er, I mean--uh--"
"How about after it's empty?" she interrupted.
His mind numb with happiness, Harry could only nod.
From a nearby doorway, a certain Ginny Weasley had been watching the conversation. She was upset, but not nearly as broken-hearted as she'd thought she would be. It was obvious what had just happened, after all. It didn't matter that she couldn't hear over the noise of the crowded hallways- -by the way they both were acting, Ginny knew, and told the next person she saw. Unfortunately, that person was Draco Malfoy.
Within a half-hour, whispers surrounded Harry and Hermione as they walked from class to class, passed along on the backs of Slytherins, whom Harry least liked to contend with.
"Potter's going out with the Mudblood."
A/N Like it? Hate it? REVIEW, PLEASE! At least I didn't end this chapter with another letter! I was going to add--er, something important to the plot, but I didn't have enough time. So--while I'm typing the next one up, same deal as last time, guys. I need five reviews before continuing (sorry, but it really is important for me to know people's opinions on my story). THANKS FOR EVERYONE WHO HAS ALREADY REVIEWED! I GOT 8!!!!! :)
LUV, ~ME~
A/N: You guys, PLEASE REVIEW!!!!! PLEASE! I have no idea how many people are reading my story if you don't. And I've said it three times already-- even if you don't like my story, review anyway~~I take Hermione's advice on flames and anyone making fun of me: "Just ignore it." So, from a bookworm just like Hermione, here's my fourth chapter!
Harry Potter and the Last Dance
Chapter 4
Harry Potter was confused. He sat there in the Charms classroom, Hermione's note in his hands. To his right, Hermione was engrossed in taking notes, writing down the incantations almost as fast as Professor Flitwick spat them out. Ron sat to Harry's left, his head on his books and his eyes closed. He was asleep.
Slightly amused, Harry grinned and went back to the note, reading it for what seemed like the hundredth time.
"Dear Harry," Hermione's neat writing stated.
"We have to worry about Snuffles before we think about anything else. And you're right, I am worried about you now. Your dreams tell the future or the present, and they haven't been wrong yet! We need to talk. Tell me later what time we could meet in the common room.
"Love,
"Hermione."
At the end of the letter Harry blinked, then sighed. He hated how he always blinked whenever he was suprised. But--what had Hermione been talking about? 'Wait, Harry,' a little voice inside his head announced. 'Look at the first sentence.' Harry's eyes drifted back up the parchment, and read, "We have to worry about Snuffles before we think about anything else."
His mouth dropped open slightly, because for the first time he had caught the double meaning of Hermione's words. Did that mean--? 'No, it couldn't,' Harry thought in shock. This was too good to be true. If Hermione meant what he thought she did, then she felt the same way! She liked him!
Of course, she had always liked him. To be friends with a person you can't be enemies to the core. It takes a lot of love. But never would he have been able to imagine the day when Hermione broke that sacred bond of friendship--or when he himself broke it for that matter--just to find out the if the feelings they had for one another were returned. Well, it at least sounded like she thought of him as more than a friend. Could it be true?
Harry dared himself to glance over at her, and when he did, he saw her leaning one elbow on her books and staring straight at him, her eyes out of focus. Her quill dangled from her hand, forgotten, and the parchment in front of her was marked not with spells, as he had assumed, but with little hearts. Curious and with a sense of dread at seeing some other name (like Viktor Krum's) inside the hearts, Harry leaned over to get a better look.
Hermione instantly snapped out of her thoughts at his sudden movement, and her hand jerked out from underneath her head so quickly the bottle of ink in front of her tipped over, sending a flood of color across her parchment. Harry suspected, by the way she immediately looked at him, that this was no accident, and again he wondered whose name it was inside those tiny hearts.
During the next few days, as he avoided setting a meeting time with Hermione, Harry realized he would rather have not thought about the hearts at all, because every time he did he got a strange feeling in his stomach that would sometimes refuse to go away for hours on end. This was a problem that, try as he might, he couldn't cure himself of. Instead, he would lie awake in his dormitory, watching as the night sky changed from pitch black to grey, falling asleep only when the sun started to peek up over the trees of the Forbidden Forest.
Despite how much Harry loved lying awake until dawn thinking only of-- 'Well, I think of a lot of things, not just....her'--he knew it couldn't go on. He had been getting less and less sleep as time wore on, and it was starting to affect his studies. Even Snape had noticed he hadn't been up to par, though he announced his diagnosis with all of the other Gryffindor and Slytherin fifth years listening.
"Pehaps," Snape had said coldly, his oily hair falling across his face, "Mr. Potter thinks staring at his girlfriend is more important than learning how to correctly mix the ingredients in a Morphing Potion."
Upon the sudden cackling laughter of the Slytherins Harry blinked, his eyes refocusing on what (or more like whom) he had been staring so intently at.
It was Hermione, blushing from Snape's comment but trying ever so diligently to get back to her work. With a small spark of delight, Harry noticed she kept glancing in his direction. 'Maybe,' he thought hopefully. 'Just maybe.'
Snape wasn't through with him yet, however. He swooped down upon Harry with the equal viciousness of an owl chasing its supper. "Mr. Potter," he sneered once more, "tell me how to change your most incorrect green potion--a very serious mistake, I might add--to purple."
Harry stared straight at Snape, trying not to blink or show any fear. 'Think of Buckbeak,' he reminded himself. 'This is just like Buckbeak.' He wasn't suprised when, at the thought of the poor hippogriff, his resolve not to blink only grew. "I don't know, Professor."
Snape smiled, a cruel, hard smile. "Well, it seems fame STILL isn't everything, doesn't it, Mr. Potter? On lucky chances you have survived the Dark Lord throughout the years, yet what do you truly know about magic?"
The room was silent, but Harry could hear a strong buzzing in his ears. He knew he shouldn't even be listening to Snape, but somehow he couldn't help it. Beside him, he saw Hermione stiffen. Ron's jaw was clenched tightly together, and his right hand was on his wand. "I know more than you do," Harry said, so softly he was sure no one else could have heard him.
"Excuse me?" was Snape's response.
"Nothing, it was noth--"
Before he could stop her, Harry watched as Hermione stood quickly, facing the professor. "He said he knew more about magic than you do." It was a fact, plain and simple, though Harry was sure he had never heard her voice go so deadly calm in all the time he'd known her. He marveled at her, the way she stood at that moment, head held high. Then he smiled as he watched her face. She wasn't blinking.
Snape, on the other hand, seemed to be in shock. He had probably never had a student stand up to him with such force as Hermione was doing now. "He said he knew more about magic than you do," she repeated, her eyes glinting fiercely at him, "and I believe him."
Harry blinked, seemingly for the first time in minutes. He couldn't understand why Hermione was standing there, defending him. "Hermione!" he hissed. "It's okay, leave it be!"
Snape turned his angry glare at Harry, pulling out his wand in one smooth movement. Just as he felt his insides turning to ice, Harry heard a loud popping sound. The next second Dobby the house-elf was clinging to his robes, yelling loudly. "You must not speak to Harry Potter like you did, sir! Dobby is Harry Potter's friend! Dobby will save his Harry Potter!"
With a loud crack, a shelf in the back of the dungeon collapsed, letting several nasty specimens of creatures slime their way across the floor. Snape whirled about, snarling at the problem. "Elf!" he yelled, his eyes dangerously shining. Dobby just nodded at Harry, and with a loud pop disappeared once more. "All right," Snape grumbled. "Get out of here--class dismissed."
As soon as they were in the main hall, Harry turned around to Hermione. "Why did you do that?" he asked.
He noticed she was looking at her shoes again, her face crimson. "I don't know, Harry," she said quietly. "I just--I just got mad. He has no right treating you like that!" With those words she stared him straight in the eye, leaving Harry stammering and trying to respond.
"Her--Hermione, I'm really sorry about--about how I haven't, er, answered your note," he finally burst out. Now it was his turn to study the floor. 'I seem to be doing a lot of this lately,' he thought, disgusted with himself.
Hermione just gave him an odd half-smile, and it was obvious she didn't intend for it to be there. "It's okay," she said softly, her mouth straightening at last.
"No," Harry replied forcefully. "It's not, and I really am sorry. I just--er, well, I've been--avoiding you lately, I guess."
This time she grinned playfully. "So I noticed."
He winced. "You did?"
"Of course," she told him deviously."You didn't think I spent all my free time in the library, did you?"
Harry said nothing, because he knew that if he did chances were Hermione wouldn't speak to him for a while and he didn't think he could handle that at all. He liked the way she was grinning right now, though. It occured to him he hadn't seen her truly smile in a long time. It made him feel especially proud to know it was he that made her face light up like that--and he hadn't even been trying to be funny. 'Maybe,' came the thought that so often scrolled across his thoughts lately. 'Just maybe.'
After quite some time of walking along in silence Harry gathered up enough courage to speak. "Er--Hermione?" His brain momentarily froze when she met his eyes but he forced himself to continue. "If you still need to talk--I mean, if you want to--could you meet me tonight?"
He was blushing madly, and he knew it, but that was nothing compared to Hermione's response. Her eyes widened in suprise and she seemed to take an eternity before answering, smiling her brillant smile. "Of course, Harry. I'll be there all night catching up on homework. What--what time can you make it?"
Harry panicked. He hadn't thought of this. "I--er, I mean--uh--"
"How about after it's empty?" she interrupted.
His mind numb with happiness, Harry could only nod.
From a nearby doorway, a certain Ginny Weasley had been watching the conversation. She was upset, but not nearly as broken-hearted as she'd thought she would be. It was obvious what had just happened, after all. It didn't matter that she couldn't hear over the noise of the crowded hallways- -by the way they both were acting, Ginny knew, and told the next person she saw. Unfortunately, that person was Draco Malfoy.
Within a half-hour, whispers surrounded Harry and Hermione as they walked from class to class, passed along on the backs of Slytherins, whom Harry least liked to contend with.
"Potter's going out with the Mudblood."
A/N Like it? Hate it? REVIEW, PLEASE! At least I didn't end this chapter with another letter! I was going to add--er, something important to the plot, but I didn't have enough time. So--while I'm typing the next one up, same deal as last time, guys. I need five reviews before continuing (sorry, but it really is important for me to know people's opinions on my story). THANKS FOR EVERYONE WHO HAS ALREADY REVIEWED! I GOT 8!!!!! :)
LUV, ~ME~