A/N: I'm really enjoying being evil! He he! So, here's really what ya'll have been so patiently waiting for…
Disclaimer: No, I don't own them, but if J.K. Rowling wanted to give them to me…I wouldn't be opposed to taking them as a gift.
*** Thank you so much to Triniroo (I really love being evil), DazzlinAngel555 (I'm glad you're enjoying your first Ron/Hermione fic) and Hp addict (thanks for your input) for reviewing! It means so much to me! I hope ya'll like this chapter!
Chapter 13: The Blessing-Curse
"Maybe there really isn't anything wrong with them. Maybe they really are just sick or something," Ron suggested wearily after three hours of searching through text after text and to no avail. Harry was beginning to wonder too.
Hermione however, looked at Ron as if he'd desecrated the Vatican. "Ron! How can you say that?" she chided. "It's obvious that they're cursed! If they were just sick, Dr. Braddock or Madame Pomfrey would have been able to help them out!" Alright, so Hermione had a point. She'd been wrong about the curse once already, so maybe she was wrong with this too.
"Honestly, do you really think they're just sick? Doesn't it seem a little odd then, if they really are sick, that Braddock isn't able to help them?" she asked. "I mean, you make it sound as if Braddock is the one putting them under the curse—
Hermione abruptly stopped talking.
"Braddock isn't doing this to them, Hermione," Harry disagreed with her logic. "He may be a little odd, but he isn't the Dark Lord. My scar doesn't hurt when I'm around him."
"Oh yeah, I forgot about that," she said quietly. Then she slammed the book she was holding shut. "Well then, what do we know about each of them?"
"Not a whole lot," Ron said with a sigh. One by one he counted off what they knew about the girls. "Well, Carmen was a sixth-year Gryffindor. She liked treacle tart. She also liked some unknown seventh-year Hufflepuff, who apparently likes seventh-year Slytherin Dena Crossly. Katie was a seventh-year Gryffindor. She played Chaser on the House Team. That's all we know about her. Lavender was a fifth-year Gryffindor. She was bubbly. She liked Seamus, maybe? Pansy was a fifth-year Slytherin. She was a bitch. She liked Malfoy…uh! How could anyone like Malfoy?" he asked with much disgust. "Well, that's all we know about them. There really isn't anything too shocking, is there?"
Hermione's eyes had gone round and she was looking dazed.
"Hermione?" Ron asked. She had obviously realized something.
She blinked a couple of times and seemed to focus on the boys across the table from her. "What do we know about Amara?" she asked.
Harry sighed. "Well, she lived in the 16th century. She used the Umbra Visius curse to attack anyone found cheating, like her lover and sister."
"What was her lover's name?" Hermione quizzed.
"Cassius."
"And her sister's name?"
Ron answered, "Severina."
"Was Cassius a wizard?" she asked.
They didn't know.
"Was Severina a witch?" Harry countered.
They had forgotten to research the others in Amara's little lover's triangle.
"We don't know," Ron said slowly, quietly.
Hermione began pounding her head with the book till Ron grabbed it away from her. "Careful there Hermione, you'll get a concussion or something."
She stuck her tongue out at him and he grinned.
She had to smile seeing his infectious beam. "There, that's better," he said with a smile.
"What's the connecting link between all of those people?" Hermione asked quietly.
"All of them, except for Katie that we know of, liked someone…" Harry's voice trailed off into a sea of questioning looks between the trio.
Ron stood up. "I'll be back in a minute, OK? I need to use the loo." Ron left and Harry looked at Hermione.
"That's it Harry…that's the connecting link," Hermione told him. Excitement was evident in her eyes and wrapped around her tired voice.
"But then what's the curse Hermione?" Harry questioned. Hermione shrugged her shoulders.
"I don't know. I don't understand…wait! Did we ever read anything on Cassius or Severina?" Hermione asked. "Maybe we've been focusing on the wrong witch…or wizard," she said with finality.
Ron came back then. His face was red and he seemed excited. "Guys! I ran into Alicia and asked her if Katie fancied anyone—
"And?" Hermione asked, too impatient to wait for Ron to finish his sentence.
"And," Ron restarted with an irritated roll of his eyes, "she said that the only boy Katie mentioned in that way was Lee Jordan. She liked him!"
"Did he know?"
Ron shook his head. "Nope. She never got around to telling him. Alicia said Katie was chickenshit when it came to telling people she liked them…isn't that odd? She'd be the first to try one of Fred and George's experiments but she couldn't tell someone she liked them?" Ron pondered out loud.
"That's it Ron!" Hermione whisper shouted. "That's the connecting link! Carmen never told that Hufflepuff she liked him, Lav never told Seamus, Pansy never told Malfoy, although we all knew she did, and Katie never told Lee!" Her brown eyes flashed with thrill.
"Yeah but…" Harry stopped and thought for a moment. "But that night Carmen was taken to the Infirmary she was ranting and raving about someone…or some people thinking she was pretty. Who are they?"
"Yeah Hermione, explain that one," Ron challenged
"Well, where is that book we found that information on Amara?" Hermione asked. She bit her lip and went to the shelves in the back.
Ron watched her walk and Harry found it hard to miss the longing and desire in Ron's blue eyes.
"You really ought to tell her," Harry told him.
Ron shrugged. "She's too perfect for me," he said simply, just before Hermione appeared again, lugging a gigantic book in her arms as well as a couple less gigantic ones.
"Oof," she sounded as she quite literally nearly dropped the heavy book on the table and the others thudded off the huge book. She thumbed through the pages of the largest book until she found the index, in which case she looked up the name Severina. Sure enough, Amara's sister was listed.
Hermione flipped to page 1984. "Aha!" she cried out, when she found Severina's name on the page. She skimmed through it and then proudly shoved the book into Ron's view. "Read that!" she said triumphantly, crossing her arms over her chest.
"Severina, Amara's youngest sister was murdered by the aforementioned witch when she was found having relations with Amara's handsome lover, Cassius, the great wizard of the time. Amara had always been deadly jealous of Severina, who was thought to be the most beautiful witch who had ever lived, comparable to the Greek goddess, Aphrodite, some Wizarding Historians have claimed." Ron looked to Hermione and pushed the book absent-mindedly to Harry, who read the words to himself. "But Hermione, that doesn't really tell us anything, does it?"
Done reading, Harry looked to Hermione with a puzzled expression, completely agreeing with Ron. That small paragraph really didn't tell them anything at all.
"Don't you think she's probably mentioned in other major texts then too, if she was the most beautiful witch to ever live?" Hermione countered.
"OK, I see your point, but the point Hermione, is that we haven't found anything on her other than this, which just states how pretty she was. And who is Aphrodite?" Ron asked.
Hermione rolled her eyes. "Never mind Ron; the curse isn't somehow related to Aphrodite, it's related to Severina! Stay with me here!" she demanded, however not unkindly.
"Um, Hermione, I'm confused too," Harry said quietly.
"Honestly! Do I have to do everything around here?" she asked. The boys could see she was clearly frustrated with them and didn't dare make another sound until she told them to.
"Just, here," she said, pushing two large books in front of them. "One of you look through that one, and the other one look through that one," she directed.
"What are you going to do?" Ron protested.
"I, Ron, am going to look through this book: Ancient Curses and Their Cures," she told him.
Hermione had by far the largest book of the three of them and so neither boy thought it would be pertinent to argue with her.
They must have been searching for an hour or two, flipping page upon endless page hoping to find some information when Harry looked up from what he was reading. "Guys, I think I found something," he announced softly.
Ron's weary eyes snapped to life at the announcement and Hermione's eyebrows raised. "What?" they asked in unison.
Harry cleared his throat for it had been a time since he had last spoken. "The Great Witch Amara was probably the ugliest witch to have ever lived and will ever live. Her sister Severina though was as beautiful as a ray of sun, for which Amara was greatly envious.
It would be pertinent to add however, that while Amara was so grotesque looking she had lovers from a young womanly age of fifteen until her death, 130 some years later. Severina was not so lucky though. It is said that at one point she had been deeply infatuated with the Spanish wizard Marcello, but she never told him and when he died she was devastated and vowed to never let another wizard leave without knowing her true feelings.
True to her vow, Severina never let another out of her company without true knowledge of her feelings. And so, when she told Cassius she loved him, Cassius fell to her womanly charms and the two were quite involved until her sister, Cassius's jealous lover, found out and put them to death with the Umbra Visius curse.
Death did not stop Severina from devising her own blessing, which has been known to be more of a curse than a blessing, the Non Sirce Amor curse. Commonly called the Not Known Love. There is hardly a cure for this condition but there are prevention methods. 1.) The person must admit their love for another or 2.) The person falls out of affection for the object of their eye, meaning they never truly cared for them. The only known cure is within the object of the witch or wizard's affection; s/he must admit their true feelings to the afflicted person. They MUST BE HONEST!
Note: Many cases of this curse are seen in witches, but wizards have a small chance of this blessing-curse falling upon them too. See blessing-curse." Harry finished reading, sighed and then laid his head on the open book.
Hermione had long since been looking at Ron, ever since the name was mentioned. The Not Known Love Curse. Non Sirce Amor. Did that mean she was supposed to tell him how she felt if she didn't want this blessing-curse upon her?
"Is that all it says Harry?" Ron asked quietly.
Harry picked up his head and scanned the page. "The telltale signs include the following: witches and wizards afflicted with this blessing-curse are known to begin seeing things, what they see is unknown for those cured of this curse, for they typically remember nothing from the time they begin seeing things. They start to see themselves as beautiful. Does not result in death but rather permanent torture because they never got the chance to tell their beloved their feelings for him or her."
"Great," Ron said sarcastically. "Nothing hard about this curse, is there?"
Hermione's head thumped to the table. There was everything hard about this curse.
"Not everyone harboring secret affections for another ends up in the aforementioned predicament," Harry added. "It just sounds like it's the luck of the draw," Harry thought with a frown. He looked at Hermione, who was shaking her head back and forth and he knew what she was thinking: she was very susceptible to this blessing-curse.
"It doesn't sound like a blessing to me," Ron piped up. "Rather it sounds like a pain in the ass."
"Ron, don't swear," Hermione chided quietly. "It's not like you have anything to worry about."
"You don't either unless you—
Ron clamped his mouth shut only a moment before reopening it. "You fancy someone, don't you Hermione?"
She sighed heavily but brought her eyes to his level.
"Who is it then?" he asked.
"Never mind Ron," she said. Her eyes flitted to Harry which Ron took as meaning she liked Harry, whereas Harry understood what she was saying. She was saying, "You breathe a word of this to him Harry Potter and I will hex you into the next century." Harry believed her.
She likes Harry! Ron's heart fell to the bottom of his stomach and his world came crashing down at that moment. He looked down at the pages in front of him, tears pricking the back of his eyes.
"Ron?" Hermione's soft question entered his ears. "Ron, is something wrong?" She prayed he didn't realize it was him she liked…she prayed he wasn't thinking of a way to break the truth to her, that he really didn't care for her as anything more than a friend.
He blinked and the threatening tears disappeared. "Yeah, I'm fine."
She smiled briefly and then Harry and she began talking again, asking Ron's input here and there while he thought about love and what a blessing-curse it really was.
Hey ya'll! This is a long chapter compared to the last one and I'm happy about that! And hey, you know what it is now! Did it all make sense? It made sense to me, but if it didn't to you I'd like to know so I can rework the chapter and storyline. Thank you so much for reading and please review!
