Chapter 7: Passionate Problems
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"Wait a second, you, the girl who claims love is just an excuse for pain, wants to help two people get back together?" Lane asked raising her eyebrows.
"Basically, yeah," I muttered.
"And that's why you called us out here? So that you could tell us your friend from that private school is coming to visit and your going to set her up?" Charlotte asked yawning.
"I didn't call you guys out here, Nicole did," I said accusingly. We all turned to look at Nicole, who was fixing her lipstick.
"I called you guys to come here, so that I could tell you, I got us all dates," Nicole said before closing here eyes and bracing herself for our replies.
"No way," Lane said. I just shook my head like normal and Charlotte started rambling about how she promised her Mother that she'd help her go shopping for a birthday present for her aunt.
"Guys, come on, it's been summer for almost a full month now, and we've been just sitting around. It's time to have some fun, have a couple summer flings, SOMETHING," Nicole said moving from her lipstick to her eye shadow.
"Well, who are they?" Charlotte asked taking a long gulp of her coke.
"There these guys from this great band," I started panicking immediately. Band?
"NO!" I yelled and Nicole rolled her eyes.
"I know, you have a no musician rule, but these guys are really hot, their band is called Sinkerbait." I let out a sigh of relief.
"Oh," I mumbled and Lane looked at me suspiciously.
"I thought you were talking about the Marauders. And I was talking to one of the guys in it and....yeah," I explained.
"Oh, there good, but there kind of old news, Sinkerbait is the new thing," Nicole said smiling widely.
"When is this date you set up for all of us?" Lane asked pulling a pencil out from behind her ear and shoving a handful of jellybeans in her mouth.
"This weekend," Nicole said in that strange way people do when there mouth is open because there putting mascara on. Lane started penciling it in to her pocket calendar, fitting it in between photo shoots, (She was a model for some brand of makeup) and an interview with the dean of admissions at Oxford.
"I'm not sure," Charlotte said crunching a few of her chips. She had a thoughtful look on her face, obviously remembering the last date Nicole had set up, in which she'd gotten the shy guy that started shaking when he got nervous, and managed to spill his beer on her, along with half a plate of salad.
"Come on, it'll be better then last time, I swear, besides he guy your with is a football player, goalie I think," Nicole said grinning proudly as charlotte gave in. "What about you Herm?"
"I would, really, but I already have plans," I lied.
"Really, what?" Nicole asked, obviously knowing that I was lying.
"Uh, well, that thing with my friend Ginny," I reminded her.
"So get her over here in the next two days, and set her and this guy-friend of yours up for the same night." Nicole muttered as if it were the obvious way to solve the problem.
"It's not that easy," I said stubbornly.
"Oh come on, Hermione, it might be fun," Lane coaxed. I sighed.
"Unless you have it bad for someone else," Charlotte added raising her eyebrows. I glared at her.
"Fine, I'll do it," I finally agreed reluctantly. Nicole smiled, satisfied with her attempt to get us to have a "fun" summer.
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"Granger, he's coming, AGAIN," Nell groaned as Ron came back for the fifth time that day insisting that we should take our dinner breaks together.
"Ron, I swear, when I get my break, I'll come over and get you," I snapped before he could ask, yet again, if I was on break yet.
"I know, I know, I just wondered where you wanted to go," He said smiling.
"I don't care, but I'm going to get fired if you keep-" I was almost yelling at this point. Ron raised his hand, palm facing me, like policemen do when telling a car to stop.
"Relax," He cooed. Which really only made me angrier then I already was.
"And your going to get fired too if you don't actually spend some TIME in the one-hour-photo," I pointed out. He waved his stop-sign-hand dismissively.
"They wouldn't fire me, they love me there," He gave me a winning grin, I scowled at him and he sighed, his face going from grin to dejection.
"I just want to make sure you don't back-out on me, it wouldn't be the first time," His voice was almost bitter.
"Ron, please, can we talk about this later?" I hissed.
"I didn't mean to let the others hear about our 'Thing' in your room. Your not mad at me about that, are you?" His voice was low and serious.
"No!" I snapped, "I just don't want to get fired-"
"Because Harry said he mentioned something about it the other day and you just sort of sidestepped it. And so I hope your not mad about it, and I hope you don't start ignoring me again-" He was talking quite fast now, but even though I was only catching bits of what he was saying he still managed to make me feel miserably guilty.
"Hermione, just take your damn break, in fact just leave, I'll cover for you," Nell finally snapped. I smiled at her thankfully and pulled Ron out the door.
"I'm not mad at you," I said as he pulled me into the big white van that their band traveled in.
"Good," He said grinning. He pulled his wand out of his jacket pocket and snapped it at the ignition, which started, then he got in the seat, and the van started driving itself. "Outside the van it looks like I'm driving, so we don't freak anyone out," He explained. I nodded sliding into the seat next to him.
The ride over was annoyingly silent, except for the mindless humming of random tunes, compliments of Ron Weasley. I wanted to say something, I really did, but I just couldn't think of anyway to bring up what I wanted to talk with him about.
His problems...
"Where are we going?" I finally asked. He turned and looked at me still humming.
"You'll see," he mumbled. I sighed and he went back to his humming.
He snapped out his wand, pointing it at the brake, as the van pulled into the driveway of the yellow house that he lived in.
"We're eating HERE?" I asked as he got out, ran around to the other side of the van, opened my door and pulled me out.
"Well, you said something about wanting to talk, and here we can be alone, so-"
"Ron, I JUST want to talk, nothing more," I said quickly. He nodded.
"I know, just talk," He muttered reassuringly, but the look in his eyes was scaring me a bit. He grabbed my hand again and started leading me inside, as if I were incapable of going anywhere without someone else leading me. He stopped halfway there, bending down to pluck two dandelions from a dead-looking patch of grass. He put the dandelions in a small glass cup, halfway full of water when we got inside, and set them on the table.
"So, what are we talking about?" He asked pulling some things out of the refrigerator.
"Uh, well, I was talking to Harry..." I sort of trailed off as he nodded; I walked up behind him and stood on my tiptoes to peer over his shoulder at what was now sizzling on the stove. "What are you making?" I asked. He set the spatula down next to the stove and turned around grinning.
"My specialty, French toast," He said wiping a strand of hair out of my face, "And the only thing I've figured out how to cook yet," He added. I smiled rolling my eyes as he turned back around and picked the spatula back up. "So what are we talking about, other then my fabulous cooking?"
"Well, Harry said something about how..." I took a deep breath, feeling suddenly nervous, why was I bringing this up? Everything was fine, why did I have to bring up bad news?
"About...?" Ron prompted.
"Um, problems," I ended. He looked back at me over his shoulders, his eyebrows drawn together in serious thought.
"What sort of problems was he telling you about?" He asked in the low serious voice that he only used in very serious situations. I wished I hadn't said anything that I had just left well enough alone.
"Well, he didn't really tell me what KIND of problems they were, just that there were some," I explained. He nodded and then turned back to the sizzling toast.
"So now you want ME to tell you about my problems?" He asked, but his voice wasn't playful, like it normally was.
"Um, well, I suppose I just wanted to apologize, if the problems are my fault," I mumbled.
"They are partly," He said his voice dropping in temperature.
"Well, I'm sorry," I started walking back to the little table, that had a large crack going down the center, and one leg shorter then the others.
"Are you?" He asked looking over at me. He caught my gaze for a second and raised an eyebrow before looking away, to pile the toast onto two plates, one paper, one plastic.
"Well, yeah," He looked back over at me.
"Were you sorry you left before we came to find you?" He asked his voice rising in volume.
"I was, but I had to go," I said matching his volume. And I was sorry.
"Because of me, right?" the words were so sharp they cut through me like a knife.
"I didn't understand anything anymore, everything changed," I said a bit shakily.
"Even me, and Harry?" He asked sharply.
"Especially you and Harry!" I shouted, but it came out with a little sob. He walked over to the table setting the plastic one in front of me and the paper one in front of himself.
"I don't want to make you cry," He whispered leaning towards me and pressing his thumb against my cheek, catching a single tear. He turned sitting down and handed me a fork.
I was so angry at him then. I'm not quite sure why, but I was. I was so angry at him. And, I suppose, I was angry at myself. I was angry that me leaving had affected him, I was angry that him being affected, had affected me.
"You've made me cry before why is this time any different?" I spat. It was so cold of me. So awful, I'm ashamed I even thought it, but it came out. Especially after he had stopped the yelling, how was it that I had started it again, me, the mature one?
"You really don't understand, do you?" He asked fire blazing in his eyes. He stared at me eyes narrowed, as if not only looking at me, but looking in me. I shivered and he looked away shaking his head.
"Why don't you tell me then?" I asked, my voice sounded strangely loud almost like it was echoing. He turned looking at me, and took a long bite of toast chewing slowly and thinking.
"Why don't you explain to me why you left?" He asked. I bit my lip, and he ran his hand through his hair, our renowned symbols of nervousness.
"I already told you, everything changed after the war, everything is still changed," I finally answered. He was staring at me in this exasperated way, and I knew he wanted more, but I just didn't know what to tell him.
In truth, I wasn't even quite sure all my reasons for leaving, I just knew that after I saw them in all that pain, and after all those people died, that I didn't want to be there anymore. That I wanted to be a regular girl, with a regular life, a life that wouldn't let me down every time I turned around. I didn't want to be so close to anyone, especially male, to break my heart, to make me want to settle like my mother had. But I couldn't say all that to Ron, I just couldn't.
"You remember that room, the one with the dementors?" Ron asked breaking my train of thought and brining me back to the present. I nodded, shivering again. "I dream about that room, every night since you left, I've dreamed about that room, about what I saw, and the worst part is, I know why I saw it, but I can't do anything about it."
I was lost. I didn't understand, what did me leaving have to do with what he saw in that room. I had always just figured what he saw had to do with a massive amount of spiders he had come in contact with in his second year, but what did that have to do with me?
"Why aren't you eating?" He asked breaking another of the long silences that were all too common in our conversation.
"Um, I'm not very hungry, I'm thinking," I explained sheepishly. We sat in silence a while longer, while I considered what he had said, and what I had said. It just didn't make sense. I suppose I looked confused though, because then he explained, in this serious, nervous voice that reminded me of back when he was a boy and he wanted to tell me something, but was too embarrassed to just say it.
"Hermione, I saw you in that room. I saw every time you were angry at me. Every time I made you cry, every time you were in danger... I saw you.... and then you left."
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Ok, another chapter is coming soon, don't worry. I know, I kinda left this one hanging. But another one is coming!
Please drop me a note!
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"Wait a second, you, the girl who claims love is just an excuse for pain, wants to help two people get back together?" Lane asked raising her eyebrows.
"Basically, yeah," I muttered.
"And that's why you called us out here? So that you could tell us your friend from that private school is coming to visit and your going to set her up?" Charlotte asked yawning.
"I didn't call you guys out here, Nicole did," I said accusingly. We all turned to look at Nicole, who was fixing her lipstick.
"I called you guys to come here, so that I could tell you, I got us all dates," Nicole said before closing here eyes and bracing herself for our replies.
"No way," Lane said. I just shook my head like normal and Charlotte started rambling about how she promised her Mother that she'd help her go shopping for a birthday present for her aunt.
"Guys, come on, it's been summer for almost a full month now, and we've been just sitting around. It's time to have some fun, have a couple summer flings, SOMETHING," Nicole said moving from her lipstick to her eye shadow.
"Well, who are they?" Charlotte asked taking a long gulp of her coke.
"There these guys from this great band," I started panicking immediately. Band?
"NO!" I yelled and Nicole rolled her eyes.
"I know, you have a no musician rule, but these guys are really hot, their band is called Sinkerbait." I let out a sigh of relief.
"Oh," I mumbled and Lane looked at me suspiciously.
"I thought you were talking about the Marauders. And I was talking to one of the guys in it and....yeah," I explained.
"Oh, there good, but there kind of old news, Sinkerbait is the new thing," Nicole said smiling widely.
"When is this date you set up for all of us?" Lane asked pulling a pencil out from behind her ear and shoving a handful of jellybeans in her mouth.
"This weekend," Nicole said in that strange way people do when there mouth is open because there putting mascara on. Lane started penciling it in to her pocket calendar, fitting it in between photo shoots, (She was a model for some brand of makeup) and an interview with the dean of admissions at Oxford.
"I'm not sure," Charlotte said crunching a few of her chips. She had a thoughtful look on her face, obviously remembering the last date Nicole had set up, in which she'd gotten the shy guy that started shaking when he got nervous, and managed to spill his beer on her, along with half a plate of salad.
"Come on, it'll be better then last time, I swear, besides he guy your with is a football player, goalie I think," Nicole said grinning proudly as charlotte gave in. "What about you Herm?"
"I would, really, but I already have plans," I lied.
"Really, what?" Nicole asked, obviously knowing that I was lying.
"Uh, well, that thing with my friend Ginny," I reminded her.
"So get her over here in the next two days, and set her and this guy-friend of yours up for the same night." Nicole muttered as if it were the obvious way to solve the problem.
"It's not that easy," I said stubbornly.
"Oh come on, Hermione, it might be fun," Lane coaxed. I sighed.
"Unless you have it bad for someone else," Charlotte added raising her eyebrows. I glared at her.
"Fine, I'll do it," I finally agreed reluctantly. Nicole smiled, satisfied with her attempt to get us to have a "fun" summer.
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"Granger, he's coming, AGAIN," Nell groaned as Ron came back for the fifth time that day insisting that we should take our dinner breaks together.
"Ron, I swear, when I get my break, I'll come over and get you," I snapped before he could ask, yet again, if I was on break yet.
"I know, I know, I just wondered where you wanted to go," He said smiling.
"I don't care, but I'm going to get fired if you keep-" I was almost yelling at this point. Ron raised his hand, palm facing me, like policemen do when telling a car to stop.
"Relax," He cooed. Which really only made me angrier then I already was.
"And your going to get fired too if you don't actually spend some TIME in the one-hour-photo," I pointed out. He waved his stop-sign-hand dismissively.
"They wouldn't fire me, they love me there," He gave me a winning grin, I scowled at him and he sighed, his face going from grin to dejection.
"I just want to make sure you don't back-out on me, it wouldn't be the first time," His voice was almost bitter.
"Ron, please, can we talk about this later?" I hissed.
"I didn't mean to let the others hear about our 'Thing' in your room. Your not mad at me about that, are you?" His voice was low and serious.
"No!" I snapped, "I just don't want to get fired-"
"Because Harry said he mentioned something about it the other day and you just sort of sidestepped it. And so I hope your not mad about it, and I hope you don't start ignoring me again-" He was talking quite fast now, but even though I was only catching bits of what he was saying he still managed to make me feel miserably guilty.
"Hermione, just take your damn break, in fact just leave, I'll cover for you," Nell finally snapped. I smiled at her thankfully and pulled Ron out the door.
"I'm not mad at you," I said as he pulled me into the big white van that their band traveled in.
"Good," He said grinning. He pulled his wand out of his jacket pocket and snapped it at the ignition, which started, then he got in the seat, and the van started driving itself. "Outside the van it looks like I'm driving, so we don't freak anyone out," He explained. I nodded sliding into the seat next to him.
The ride over was annoyingly silent, except for the mindless humming of random tunes, compliments of Ron Weasley. I wanted to say something, I really did, but I just couldn't think of anyway to bring up what I wanted to talk with him about.
His problems...
"Where are we going?" I finally asked. He turned and looked at me still humming.
"You'll see," he mumbled. I sighed and he went back to his humming.
He snapped out his wand, pointing it at the brake, as the van pulled into the driveway of the yellow house that he lived in.
"We're eating HERE?" I asked as he got out, ran around to the other side of the van, opened my door and pulled me out.
"Well, you said something about wanting to talk, and here we can be alone, so-"
"Ron, I JUST want to talk, nothing more," I said quickly. He nodded.
"I know, just talk," He muttered reassuringly, but the look in his eyes was scaring me a bit. He grabbed my hand again and started leading me inside, as if I were incapable of going anywhere without someone else leading me. He stopped halfway there, bending down to pluck two dandelions from a dead-looking patch of grass. He put the dandelions in a small glass cup, halfway full of water when we got inside, and set them on the table.
"So, what are we talking about?" He asked pulling some things out of the refrigerator.
"Uh, well, I was talking to Harry..." I sort of trailed off as he nodded; I walked up behind him and stood on my tiptoes to peer over his shoulder at what was now sizzling on the stove. "What are you making?" I asked. He set the spatula down next to the stove and turned around grinning.
"My specialty, French toast," He said wiping a strand of hair out of my face, "And the only thing I've figured out how to cook yet," He added. I smiled rolling my eyes as he turned back around and picked the spatula back up. "So what are we talking about, other then my fabulous cooking?"
"Well, Harry said something about how..." I took a deep breath, feeling suddenly nervous, why was I bringing this up? Everything was fine, why did I have to bring up bad news?
"About...?" Ron prompted.
"Um, problems," I ended. He looked back at me over his shoulders, his eyebrows drawn together in serious thought.
"What sort of problems was he telling you about?" He asked in the low serious voice that he only used in very serious situations. I wished I hadn't said anything that I had just left well enough alone.
"Well, he didn't really tell me what KIND of problems they were, just that there were some," I explained. He nodded and then turned back to the sizzling toast.
"So now you want ME to tell you about my problems?" He asked, but his voice wasn't playful, like it normally was.
"Um, well, I suppose I just wanted to apologize, if the problems are my fault," I mumbled.
"They are partly," He said his voice dropping in temperature.
"Well, I'm sorry," I started walking back to the little table, that had a large crack going down the center, and one leg shorter then the others.
"Are you?" He asked looking over at me. He caught my gaze for a second and raised an eyebrow before looking away, to pile the toast onto two plates, one paper, one plastic.
"Well, yeah," He looked back over at me.
"Were you sorry you left before we came to find you?" He asked his voice rising in volume.
"I was, but I had to go," I said matching his volume. And I was sorry.
"Because of me, right?" the words were so sharp they cut through me like a knife.
"I didn't understand anything anymore, everything changed," I said a bit shakily.
"Even me, and Harry?" He asked sharply.
"Especially you and Harry!" I shouted, but it came out with a little sob. He walked over to the table setting the plastic one in front of me and the paper one in front of himself.
"I don't want to make you cry," He whispered leaning towards me and pressing his thumb against my cheek, catching a single tear. He turned sitting down and handed me a fork.
I was so angry at him then. I'm not quite sure why, but I was. I was so angry at him. And, I suppose, I was angry at myself. I was angry that me leaving had affected him, I was angry that him being affected, had affected me.
"You've made me cry before why is this time any different?" I spat. It was so cold of me. So awful, I'm ashamed I even thought it, but it came out. Especially after he had stopped the yelling, how was it that I had started it again, me, the mature one?
"You really don't understand, do you?" He asked fire blazing in his eyes. He stared at me eyes narrowed, as if not only looking at me, but looking in me. I shivered and he looked away shaking his head.
"Why don't you tell me then?" I asked, my voice sounded strangely loud almost like it was echoing. He turned looking at me, and took a long bite of toast chewing slowly and thinking.
"Why don't you explain to me why you left?" He asked. I bit my lip, and he ran his hand through his hair, our renowned symbols of nervousness.
"I already told you, everything changed after the war, everything is still changed," I finally answered. He was staring at me in this exasperated way, and I knew he wanted more, but I just didn't know what to tell him.
In truth, I wasn't even quite sure all my reasons for leaving, I just knew that after I saw them in all that pain, and after all those people died, that I didn't want to be there anymore. That I wanted to be a regular girl, with a regular life, a life that wouldn't let me down every time I turned around. I didn't want to be so close to anyone, especially male, to break my heart, to make me want to settle like my mother had. But I couldn't say all that to Ron, I just couldn't.
"You remember that room, the one with the dementors?" Ron asked breaking my train of thought and brining me back to the present. I nodded, shivering again. "I dream about that room, every night since you left, I've dreamed about that room, about what I saw, and the worst part is, I know why I saw it, but I can't do anything about it."
I was lost. I didn't understand, what did me leaving have to do with what he saw in that room. I had always just figured what he saw had to do with a massive amount of spiders he had come in contact with in his second year, but what did that have to do with me?
"Why aren't you eating?" He asked breaking another of the long silences that were all too common in our conversation.
"Um, I'm not very hungry, I'm thinking," I explained sheepishly. We sat in silence a while longer, while I considered what he had said, and what I had said. It just didn't make sense. I suppose I looked confused though, because then he explained, in this serious, nervous voice that reminded me of back when he was a boy and he wanted to tell me something, but was too embarrassed to just say it.
"Hermione, I saw you in that room. I saw every time you were angry at me. Every time I made you cry, every time you were in danger... I saw you.... and then you left."
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Ok, another chapter is coming soon, don't worry. I know, I kinda left this one hanging. But another one is coming!
Please drop me a note!