Chapter nine
Ginny ran up the stairs as quickly as she could, and Harry ran after her, smiling. He couldn't help but think she sounded a bit like Hermione.
"S-S-Snickerdoodle!" Ginny gasped as she almost slid past the fat lady. The fat lady gave her a strange look as she clambered inside the portrait hole, then whispered something that sounded almost like "she's quite the odd one, she is.." as she swung closed. Ginny tried to catch her breath, then climbed the stairs to the girls dorm room. She was about to reach into her case to take out a small phial when she stopped in her tracks and noticed that Hermione was already asleep. Ginny sighed, relieved, and walked over to her case. Instead of the phial, she took out a small white bottle, then walked into the bathroom and came out with a glass of water. Ginny observed her for a few moments, then shook her gently.
"Hermione, I need you to wake up..." she whispered.
"Hmm? wha-"
"Oh, Hermione! How do you feel?" she asked with an achieved grin.
"I feel, well, tired, for one thing...ouch! I've got a really bad headache...do you have something I could take, it's killing me!"
Ginny calmly opened the bottle and took out two blue pills. She handed them to her along with the glass of water. Hermione gratefully accepted the pills and downed the water. She might have noticed Ginny's a priori intentions if she hadn't been in so much pain and anguish.
Harry was barely out of breath when he made it through the portrait hole. He gave the fat lady the password, but she didn't open until she was able to get her two cents in: "You'd better watch out, that Weasley's a crazy one!" Harry chuckled as he climbed through. Crazy maybe, but amazing...
He stopped when he saw Ron sitting in a chair, almost invisible, facing the fire. He looked completely absorbed by the flames. Harry stopped and watched Ron to see if he would notice him. He opened his mouth to speak, but before he could say a word, Ron lifted his finger and pointed towards the girls' dorm. He didn't even bring his eyes away from the fire, it was like an automated response.
Harry would have stopped to ask how Ron was, but he was a little preoccupied with Ginny's revelation. Not that he was trying to purposely be a bad friend to Ron, but he figured that it was all right this once since Ron probably wouldn't have talked to him anyway. He ran up the stairs and opened the door without even thinking to knock. He walked in just as Ginny was helping Hermione sit up.
Hermione couldn't figure it out, but Ginny seemed ecstatic about her migrane. She sat down on Hermione's bed and motioned Harry to sit down on the chair next to them. Hermione looked at both of them and held her head in her hands.
"So Hermione, lemme ask you...have you seen Ron lately?" Ginny asked with a broad grin.
Harry looked at her with surprise. What, does she WANT to hear Hermione yell again? But this time she didn't yell.
"Ron? No, I haven't seen him in ages...why? Is he all right? Is something wrong with him? Where is he?" She quickly fumbled with her blankets, possibly to search for him, looking panicked.
Ginny chuckled, but held Hermione back in her bed, while Harry looked astonished. How did she--
"You mean she--she doesn't hate him anymore?" Harry asked,
still confused. What had been going on?
"Hate who? Ron? What are you talking about? I don't hate Ron!"
"Hermione, of course you don't. I knew that wasn't like you at all, I knew it! Try and stay calm, it's gonna hurt for a while...oh, and you'll probably need this," Ginny handed her another blue pill and some more water.
"Ginny, will you please explain what's going on?" yelled Harry and Hermione at the same time.
"Okay, okay! I knew that something had to be wrong when you came back into the great hall, because right before you had been so cheery talking about Ron!"
Hermione blushed.
"I couldn't figure out what it was though...I thought maybe someone had hit you over the head or something. (she and Harry chuckled at the thought of someone hitting Hermione over the head...) I really had no clue what was going on. I thought really hard about it, until finally I remembered when I had been talking to Colin about the hate potion we've been studying in class!"
She looked at Harry and Hermione, hoping for some sort of praise, or at least some acknowledgement of understanding, but she was met with confounded expressions, so she continued explaining.
"Okay, well the hate potion...basically people make it when they've tried everything else to fall out of love. It's one of those last resort potions I suppose. Anyway, it seems like it would be a perfect potion, because it works for one whole day, until the drinker assumes sleep, which is when the potion wears off, and it only takes one day for the damage to be done-"
"D-damage? What do you mean, damage? What kind of damage?" Hermione cried, worried. Ginny took on a bit of a troubled look now...How do I explain this to her without making her feel awful?
"Well, you see, the potion works by, um, causing the drinker to become irrationally cruel to the object of their affection...understand, that's how it works, the drinker suddenly only sees the bad qualities in the person and acts accordingly. See, if you need this potion, you obviously can't get over the person on your own, so the potion just sort of does it for you..."
She could see the hurt in Hermione's eyes, so she stopped.
Hermione was trying to understand all of this. Did this mean that whole time, she had been cruel to Ron? The one person she cared about most? How was this possible? She could only imagine what Ron was thinking right now. Her heart was sinking like a dumbbell in quicksand. She could feel the tears gathering behind her eyes. She looked at Ginny with absolute fear of knowing anymore about the situation, but she asked for more anyway.
"And why does my head hurt so badly?" she finally was able to get out.
"Well, you see, the potion doesn't let you off completely scot-free, which is why you wake up with a headache; it basically taps into your conscience and returns all of the heartache you've caused the day before in the form of a headache, so, depending on how much heartache you caused the person, your headache will give back proportionally. Clever, isn't it?" she said rather proudly, not realizing she was saying it out loud. She put her hand over her mouth in astonishment and looked at the floor.
Harry had been standing off in the distance for some time now, taking all of this in. Someone gave her a potion to fall out of love with Ron? So, either someone hates Ron and wants Hermione, or hates Hermione and wants Ron, I suppose. But who even knows about them liking each other? They can't even admit it to themselves! This is ridiculous, someone is obviously really quite jealous...
"Hermione, what did you do when you came upstairs during breakfast? You know, when you said you had forgotten something?" Ginny asked, trying to put the pieces together.
Hermione tried not to think too hard, her head was really bothering her. She couldn't help but worry even more, because this obviously meant that she had caused Ron a tremendous amount of agony. She was backtracking through everything she had one that morning…
"Well, let's see, I went up the stairs, and I saw someone standing by the portrait of the fat lady. I looked closer, and it was Lavender and…Ron, I think it was. I stopped to listen to their conversation—not that I would normally do that of course—but I stopped to listen, because I didn't want to be seen by them, for some reason. Um, what were they saying?" she said this last part more to herself.
"They were talking about the ball, and Lavender was asking who he was going with. When Ron told her I had asked him, she scoffed! Ooh, I got so mad I could have strangled her right there, talking about how he should have gone with her instead, and not with a dull bookworm like me…" she could feel her cheeks begin to burn red, and Ginny tried to calm her down a bit.
"Okay, so that explains why you were so upset I guess. So the question is, who gave it to you? And when? It wasn't when you were upstairs, so the only time it could have been was at—"
Ginny gasped and looked at Hermione, who looked very confused indeed.
"Hermione, I am so, so sorry…"
"What? What do you mean?"
Ginny sighed and struggled to get the words out of her mouth.
"Um, when we got downstairs, I had a glass of pumpkin juice in front of me, and the only glass of orange juice was, well, in front of your plate, so when you went upstairs I uh, switched the glasses…I really hoped you wouldn't noticed, cause I really can't stand pumpkin juice, and…"she gulped abrasively and continued.
"You came back and drank it, so that must mean that the pumpkin juice had the potion in it. But that means—"
Ginny's eyes grew wide as she ran her fingers through her hair.
"I was supposed to drink the potion," she whispered.