HI! Yet another chapter, again devoted to Ginny-Star, my better reader and foul-weather-friend (teehee- but no, I AM NOT JKR..unfortunately! Coincidentally none of this stuff belongs to me.) I would also like to give thanks to all my reviewers- Straycat, Rocketgirl 888 (you go girl!), Fan, Sadako and of course, Ginny-Star, but I already said thanks to you, so I suppose it's like a double thanks. Oh dear- I'm doing a Gwyneth! Anyway, on with the story. Yours, Hermione Double

Confrontations and Controlled-Over-Hearing

After a few hours of making extensive notes from "A Charmed Life- Higher Studies of Charming Spells" I got bored and went down to the Common Room. I saw Harry and Ron having a colourful conversation, and I wanted to know what they were talking about, and both had their back to me. So I sneaked over and sat on a nearby table with Parvati and Lavender. I pretended to get on with some homework. I don't really know what made me do it, I knew this was eavesdropping, and eavesdropping is wrong, especially on your friends, but I really wanted to know if they were having the conversation I thought they were having. And they were.

''You're a prat sometimes Ron,'

'And you're a stupid git, but I don't complain,'

'Honestly, I know you like her,'

'I DO NOT!'

'You're my best friend, and Hermione's my best friend, I can read you both better than Hermione can "Hogwarts, A History,"'

'Look Harry, you're wrong. Hermione's my friend, and nothing more.'

'But you could be.'

'But we aren't going to be.'

'But you should be.'

'Harry, you're not listening to me. I do not fancy Hermione. Seriously! I don't like her, and she doesn't like me. END. OF. STORY!'

'But.'

'Harry, you're no better at reading my mind than Trelawny is at telling the future.'

I made up some excuse to Lavender and Parvati and went for a walk in the grounds. So I was right. He didn't like me. What was I thinking? I sat on a bench next to the lake and reviewed the conversation I had just overheard. God, I was thick. How could I have thought he would like me? I love him. I really love him. I guessed I'd grow old being single with only Crookshanks and a load of books for company. God, help me!

So, I was sat in the freezing Highlands of Scotland in the middle of winter, with my life in tatters. As Ron says, "I wonder what it's like to have a normal life?" I do often wonder how different my life would have been if I hadn't been a witch and ended up here. But all I had known here was in ruins. Perhaps this was me just being a drama-queen, but I just felt like everything I had ever worked for in my life was now beyond my reach, for everything I did was for him, and it was now as if he had thrown it all back in my face.