Hey, I know it took more than the promised month to get this up. This is the last chapter of "Counterpart." I have the sequel to "Pseudomortis," the prequel to "Pseudomortis" called "Portkey," and a story that I have come to call "Runaway" coming up after this. Hope to see you return to read those stories.

Now that's enough of a delay and onto for what you all have been waiting…(drum-roll please)…Chapter 6!

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Counterpart

Chapter 6-Of Chickens and Relationships

By KZerina

Hermione stayed in the boys' dormitory for two weeks. The first few nights, part of her was using the security. The part that just wanted to stay with him became addicted and couldn't leave.

One evening while the other boys were out of the dormitory, Harry confronted her.

"Hermione," he said, "you've been here for two weeks. Is the trauma worse than I thought? I can help only to a limit, and we have to find something else if it reaches beyond that limit."

Hermione was silent. She was going to have to tell Harry how she felt about him and her addiction. She had dreaded this moment for a while, but now she had to push that away and tell him.

"No, Harry, it's not worse than you thought."

"The first few nights, I needed the security you provided, but then, I became, um, addicted."

Harry was confused. He wasn't quite sure what she meant. "Addicted?"

"Well, you see, um…I'm kind of…."

Hermione glanced up. Harry looked expectant. He knew what she was going to say was important, but not what it was.

"I love you," she said very quickly, kissing Harry's lips briefly before walking away.

She stopped when she felt her wrist grabbed. She turned back and looked at Harry who pulled her into his lap. Hermione couldn't look him in the eyes; only at the ground by his feet.

Harry turned her head toward him and kissed her in return. Hermione opened her eyes wide in surprise. Her breath caught, and she sat there staring in disbelief.

When he pulled away, he bit his lip and smiled. Hermione reflected it. Then Harry pulled Hermione close to him.

"You know what?" Harry whispered.

"What?"

"It's mutual."

Hermione kissed him and knocked him backwards onto his pillow. Both wanted this to last an eternity, and it almost felt like it did.

"Oi, Ron! What'd you do that for?" came a voice from the other side of the door.

Harry and Hermione snapped up immediately. Harry scrambled around and got the first book he found which happened to be his Transfiguration book. He opened it up and Hermione acted as though she were explaining the latest concept to him.

Seamus barged in past Ron and looked back confused. He didn't see any reason not to have gone into the room.

"Ron, you're insane."

"But—but they were…."

"Studying?"

"It's upside-down," Harry whispered, quickly and inconspicuously turning the book over so no one would notice.

"I'm sorry. You opened it."

"You didn't notice."

"What are you two whispering about?"

"She's giving me answers to the test," Harry answered jokingly.

"I want the answers to the test!"

"Oh, Ron! I am not giving him answers to the test. We don't even have a set date for it yet."

"That's never stopped you before."

"I didn't say that. I merely stated it because he wouldn't be studying since we don't have one."

"Humpf."

A knock on the door caught their attention. It opened and in came the twins.

"Oi, Ron, we need you to test these."

"No way. After about sixteen years you'd think I'd know by now."

"Well, either you eat one, or you find some other sucker to."

"Your choice."

"Fine. Give me those," Ron grumbled, storming out the door with the bag of Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes. The twins followed on his heels, curiously awaiting the results of their newest experiment.

"Why did we come up here?" Seamus asked after watching the Weasleys go out the door.

"I don't remember," Dean answered.

"Why don't you go back to the place you think you thought of it and maybe you'll remember," Neville offered.

"Hey! Good idea, Neville! Thanks!"

With that the boys left.

Neville walked to the open door, looked both ways into the corridor, and quietly closed it.

Harry and Hermione turned back to the Transfiguration book, both expecting Neville to go study or something. When he sat on the foot of Harry's bed, they expected him to ask for homework help.

"Um…this is going to be very awkward and I don't know why I'm even asking, but are you two going out or something? I mean, I saw Harry turn the book over and over Ron's arm I thought I saw you two…uh—kissing or something."

Harry and Hermione just stared at him. It was ironic that the usually unobservant Neville would figure out that they were unofficially "going out."

"Could you stop—staring at me? Please?"

"Sorry, Neville," Hermione said, "but…it's just—"

"We weren't expecting that," Harry finished. "We expected you to ask for help on homework."

Neville looked at his feet, blushing, embarrassed about having asked them anything about them.

"It's all right, Neville," Hermione said, putting a gentle hand on Neville's shoulder.

"Congratulations, Neville. You're the first one, besides us, to know of our unofficial relationship. That's something isn't it?"

Neville smiled. He never got to know anything first—well, not anything good anyway. He was still kind of embarrassed that he'd seen, but happy that they didn't care.

"We should have been more careful," Hermione said. Harry agreed.

The door slammed open, making all three of them jump. Ron came huffing into the dormitory still carrying the sack of Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes. He flopped onto his bed, fuming as Fred and George entered.

"Come on, Ron. None of them ate one, so you have to," George said.

"I am not eating one!"

"You have to. You didn't sucker anyone into it so it's your job now," repeated Fred.

"What do they do?"

"They're supposed to give you buck teeth and bat's wings ears," explained Fred.

"Why don't you give 'em to the Slytherins?" Harry suggested.

"Give 'em to Malfoy!"

"Ron, you're just a CHICKEN!"

"Am not!"

"Then why don't you eat one?" Harry mocked.

"Don't you get in on this, too."

"Why not? It's fun."

Ron glared at Harry who only smirked back. "If you're so smart, then why don't you eat one?"

"The bat's wings ears wouldn't match my eyes."

Ron growled while Harry, Hermione, Neville, and the twins laughed. Then, not only did Ron growl, but so did his stomach. Ron turned a little pink in the ears and looked at his stomach.

"I think it's time for a snack."

"We just had dinner," Hermione scolded

"Fred, George, why don't we go get Ron something to eat?" Harry asked, trying to sound innocent and succeeding rather well.

The twins looked confused but went along. "Sure."

Harry knelt down by his trunk and dug through it. He pulled out his shining, silver Invisibility Cloak. Harry stood by the twins and threw it over their heads. All the twins could do was stare.

"How long have you had this?"

"Since Christmas first year. It was Dad's."

"Wow. How come we never knew about it?"

"Because I never told you about it."

Harry led the twins out the door and to the kitchens.

"Do you two have anything else new that you need to try?"

"We've got a work in progress."

"I need one of them then if it might work. I'd like to play a little trick on Ron."

"I think we've got something. It might need a little work, but it won't take long to finish if you'd be willing to help us."

"Good. Come on. We need some normal candy, too—only one of yours. We need to get something substantial for Ron or he'll get suspicious."

The twins nodded and tickled the pear and they headed into the kitchens. Upon entering, House Elves immediately flooded around them, asking what they desired. They asked for a plate of cookies and some small wrapped candies and after receiving them, returned to the Tower and to the twins' dormitory.

Fred and George pulled out their latest project and set it on a table. The three boys made a few modifications to the small candy and took it back with them to the fifth year dormitory.

"What took you so long?" Ron asked as they walked into the room.

"What?" Harry feigned surprise as he looked at his watch. "Whoa, we were gone a while. I don't know."

Harry set the tray of cookies on Ron's bedside table and tossed the new creation to Ron. He handed the other candies out to the rest of the room and sat down on his bed next to Hermione afterward.

Ron, having seen Fred and George pop candies into their mouths without side effect, popped his into his mouth.

Harry clenched his teeth together to keep from laughing as Ron's hair began to turn bright Gryffindor red. Feathers sprouted from his arms, and he hadn't even noticed yet. Soon he had turned into an over sized rooster, crown and all. This candy was similar to a canary cream apparently.

Ron looked out at all the amused faces angrily.

"Maybe we should call it a 'chicken chocolate!'" Fred offered, causing the entire room to burst out laughing.

Hermione fell over into Harry's lap and ended up curling up there when the laughter was over. Strange looks were passed to them as Harry laid his arm on her abdomen. Harry smiled at her and kissed the top of her head.

"So…there is more to this than just comfort?" Ron asked now mostly himself again.

"It's only an hour old at most, Ron. So don't complain that you didn't notice."

"So you were snogging earlier!"

"Were we?" Harry asked innocently. "I didn't think so."

Hermione looked up at him with a confused look on her face. Was he denying that they'd kissed earlier? That they confessed feelings for each other?

"Kissing, yes. But I don't think it was a snog session. You guys didn't let us go long enough."

"Bloody hell! You mean you actually would have snogged?"

Both Harry and Hermione nodded, slightly embarrassed. Ron cringed, apparently disgusted that they would have snogged had they had the chance.

"No one finds out about this. No one, not without our permission." Harry stated very clearly. "If anyone does, he who told will answer to me and I will be angry."

All of the others in the room nodded. They understood perfectly, and none of them wanted to answer to Harry. He was one of the worst people to be around when he was angry, so they left it at that.

No one bothered them about it again until later that night.

The trio was relaxing in the boys' dormitory. They had finished their homework about an hour earlier and were now only lounging on their beds.

"Hermione," Harry whispered so Ron couldn't hear. "Do you want to stay here one more night?"

"Only if it's all right…I don't want to if the others would be uncomfortable."

"You've been here for two weeks now. I don't think one more night will matter much. It's only one more night. If they have a problem they'll live."

"But—"

Harry put a finger to her lips to silence her protests and kissed her gently. "It doesn't matter. They won't have a problem with one more night. Okay?"

Hermione nodded and leaned her head on Harry's shoulder.

It was almost midnight, and they were tired. Dean, Seamus, and Neville came in about 11:30 and were not as tired as the trio but they were ready to go to bed, so Harry, Ron, and Hermione changed and climbed into bed, followed by the other three boys.

"Hey, we're not going to hear anything disgusting from over there tonight, are we?"

"RON!" The whole room came alive with random objects flying in Ron's general direction for his stupid, rude and disgusting comment.

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The END!!!! Finally. I'm really sorry it took this long to get the whole thing out, but my paper that was 80% of my grade came first.

Hope you all liked this story.

Notes to my reviewers:

Centra-gal86: Sorry I made it such a long month. That wasn't my point. I got it up as soon as possible. I'm glad you liked Sirius's excited greeting. I like that too or I wouldn't have put it in.

XT-Zealot: LOL. Please don't destroy a planet. That's not very nice. Anyway, I hope you liked the end.

Melissa: Thanks for reviewing even though you could have gotten a hard copy if you'd wanted—just ask my sister to get one from me and I'll do my best. I know I have more grammatical errors. There's always room for improvement. Thanks.

Nymoue: It's okay. It took me a while to get it up so I think we're even. Thanks. This is the last chapter though. And I agree. I'm a solid H/H fan and they are very cute.

Special Thanks to:

Author: Mesozoic Flower

Non-authors: Razormikey, Taylee, Kat, Melissa, Colleen

Thanks to my reviewers and all of those who helped me write this. I hope to see you reading my other stories! If you'd like, I can e-mail you a response for your review if I have your e-mail and you say you'd like me to.

THANKS TO EVERYONE!

KZerina