" I'm sorry, Harry..."
He didn't move the slightest bit, not even when one of Hermione's tears streaked down and landed on his pale, cold and death-like face. She just shook her head miserably as she let his lifeless hand slip out of her small grasp.
All my fault, all my fault... she kept repeating those awful words to herself. The slashing, harsh rain could even be heard inside, but Hermione completely ignored the brutal noise. However, she couldn't help but remember when...
" Rain, rain, just go away..." she sang weakly.
She looked up into the gray, mucky sky as the raindrops mercilessly hit her skin. She shivered: it was so cold outside today! You could barely realize that it was the end of April!
" Crookshanks, come back!" she cried once again.
No answer. Not even a faint meow or a tiny crack of a branch. ' Please Crookshanks, be okay...' Hermione prayed for her cat. But she couldn't help but worry for herself, too. ' I can't stay out here for long but...' She suddenly started to cough violently. She tried to stop but it was useless... She dropped to the floor and hugged herself tightly as she continued to cough brutally. Tears swelled in her eyes, or was it the rain? She didn't care a bit... no one expected her here...
She had lied to Harry and Ron that she was going to the library: she knew that if she told them that she would go outside in this kind of weather to find Crookshanks, they would absolutely refuse to let her get out of the castle. Her lips twitched a little, forming a little, barely recognizable grin on her face. At least she knew they cared for her...
Suddenly, the rain stopped slashing into her skin. She blinked: did the rain stop already? 'No,' she replied to herself as she saw that the rain was still out there, attacking the earth with all its force... But why wasn't it hitting against her? Slowly, she looked up and gasped...
He was smiling gently at her, with a huge sky-blue umbrella covering both of them from the wrath of the weather.
" H-...harr-... Harry?" Hermione asked faintly.
His grin widened, but then it got wiped out almost instantly when it was replaced by a rather, deep stern look. It reminded the girl of Professor McGonagall; she suddenly laughed at the thought. She was usually the one with that look!
" I don't know why you're out here in this kind of weather, Hermione," the boy suddenly spoke up. " But most of all, I don't know why you even thought about lying to both Ron and me!"
She shivered one more time, but she still kept that small, but relieved smile on her visage.
" Crookshanks got lost and I couldn't leave him in this kind of weather," she answered weakly.
" Hum..."
In an abrupt motion, Hermione realized that Harry had company: a small blur of an unmistakably ginger color was hiding behind the boy's legs. Suddenly, a soft, shy meow could be heard.
" Crookshanks?" Hermione questioned.
As if on cue, the cat darted towards her mistress and began rubbing himself against her wet body.
" Nasty cat came to me as soon as I came out to look for you," Harry told her, as if reading her confused mind.
" Oh..." she started petting her pet, before bursting into giggles.
" What's wrong?" he frowned slightly.
" How did you know that I wasn't in the library?" the girl asked.
" Well, there is the fact that Crookshanks wasn't in our common room when Ron and me were playing chess, and... I looked for you in the library and you were nowhere to be found... so the conclusion came to here..."
She nodded, just as he reached his hand to her.
" C'mon, get up; you don't want to get a cold, do you?" Harry laughed.
Hermione shook her head and grabbed his hand gently as she struggled herself on her feet.
" Thanks, Harry... For coming after me..." she whispered to him.
He gave her a comforting smile and shook her head.
" That's what friends are for..."
" That's what friends are for..." Hermione repeated those words quietly, afraid to burst into tears if she said it more loudly.
Unexpectedly, a knock could be heard from the door.
" Come in," she said, knowing whom to expect.
The door slowly creaked open, and a young woman in her early thirties came in. She was dressed in a long, black flowing robe and she also wore a black headdress bordered with white.
" Hermione," she said in a tiny whisper, gradually walking towards the saddened girl.
Hermione said nothing at all, but merely nodded at the figure. The woman realized that the girl was sitting on the bed, next to the silent victim. She sighed as she sat beside her. After a few moments, the girl looked up and murmured:
" Nurse Mary-Rose..." she wanted to ask a question, but she couldn't finish it.
" What is it, child?" the nurse asked gently.
Hermione shook her head vigorously, but the woman already knew what she wanted to ask.
" You want to know if he's going to be all right, am I correct Hermione?"
After spotting the older child's small, but unmistakable nod, she continued:
" Seriously, I don't know, but..." her gaze darkened. " It's really going to be a miracle if he'll ever wake up from his... sleep."
The girl just dropped her head down in disappointment.
" Come on Hermione, don't give up hope," Nurse Mary-Rose caressed the girl's cheek as she lifted Hermione's head up.
" Why shouldn't I?" she questioned sullenly.
The lady could see that she was fighting with all her might so she wouldn't already burst into tears.
" Are you sure you don't want to tell me about it?" the nurse asked nicely.
Hermione shook her head. It was just all too painful... She remembered her last adventures with him, two months before...
The school's huge library was eerily quiet, although it was still in the middle of day. Most of the people would seem uncomfortable with this heavy silence, but Hermione enjoyed it. No silly chatting, or non-stop giggling. She sighed happily as she buried her head into one of her favorite books: Hogwarts: A History. Harry and Ron were both outside: Harry was, as usual, having his Quidditch practice and Ron decided to tag along and watch. The orange-haired boy had tried to persuade Hermione to come along, but she refused: sometimes, going into the open air and watching Harry practice the same boring moves all over again was simply... not so exciting. Harry seemed very much disappointed when she refused, and with one glance at his face, the girl reconsidered going outside. But then he shook his head and reassured her that it was just fine, whether she went or not.
She was used to be lonely, especially in the first few months of her first year at Hogwarts. She sighed: she didn't know where she would be if she never made friends with Harry and Ron... She was just about to turn the page when the doors slammed open with a brutal, violent noise that maybe can have been heard from another classroom! Madam Pince, the librarian, immediately marched towards the culprit, ready to scold her/him.
Just the normal stupid wizard punk that loves rule-breaking... Hermione thought as she listened to Madam Pince's yells with indifference. However, she was eventually curious on who the librarian was shouting at and decided to sneak a glance at the culprit. But as soon as she realized who it was, her jaws dropped.
He was listening to the Madam's screeches with semi-closed eyes, bored of course. He fought the urge of yawning directly towards the librarian's face. He knew that he really didn't want to make her madder: she was already fuming!
" Mr. Potter! I'm disappointed at you: I thought you knew the rules of the library!" Madam Pince scolded the teenage boy one last time.
" I'm sorry, Madam... I promise, this is the first and last time I'll ever slam the heavy doors of the library again," Harry vowed innocently.
The librarian glared at him, and for a nanosecond or two, the boy thought that she was going to throw a fit again. Luckily, the woman only threw her hands into the air in exasperation, before marching off, muttering:
" Children... no, teenagers! They have no respect for elders as they grow up!"
She was practically fuming by the time she got to her desk. The boy stared at the librarian until he was sure she wouldn't hear him, and then he yawned. Just then, his gaze went over to Hermione, who was the only one sitting on a medium-sized table, reading a book. He smiled in relief at her.
Hermione was surprised when the boy abruptly noticed, and her heart fluttered when he smiled at her. Harry was about to walk to her table when both heard muffled laughter just outside the doors of the library.
" Really..." Madam Pince mumbled angrily under her breath but nobody really heard her.
" What's that?" Hermione asked worriedly to Harry.
" Rather... who's that?" he replied, suddenly grumpy.
The girl was absolutely confused until the mysterious person entered the library. The first noticeable feature of the wizard was his hair, which was bright orange. Then his freckles and his laughing face.
" Really, Ron... that's enough!" Harry hissed softly but furiously at his best friend.
" What's going on?" Hermione asked, now more confused than ever.
Ron walked towards their table, with a comic grin on his face. When he sat down on a chair across Hermione, he burst out laughing again.
" SSSSSSSSSSHHHHHHHH!" the librarian marched towards the second boy, with an angry expression on her face. " Be quiet: it's a library!"
" Yes, Madam Pince," Ron whispered, so silent it was believed that Madam Pince was the one yelling and making noise.
The librarian marched off again without another word.
" Okay now, what's so funny Ron?" Hermione murmured.
" It's nothing really..." Harry muttered, trying to cover it.
" Nothing: HA!" the other boy retorted back. " You should have seen his face when he saw her with...?"
But he was violently cut off when Harry cast a mouth-zipping spell on him.
" Hmmphrff!" Ron managed to muffle as he struggled to unzip his mouth.
" It can't be that bad, can it?" Hermione asked, frowning. Then she performed the counter spell. " Parles Libertos!"
Ron's mouth immediately unzipped itself.
" Thanks Hermione," he breathed a sigh of relief before glaring at the one who shut him up in the first place. " When I'm done talking about what just happened, I'm going to strangle you good, Harry!"
Harry said nothing for a moment, and then he replied instead:
" Fine, you can tell her, but just let me start, okay?"
Ron grumbled a few words, but shrugged and nodded. Harry drew a chair and sat beside Ron.
" It's over..." he murmured.
Ron burst out laughing right after he said that.
" It never even started!" he managed to respond after several fits.
" It's gone..."
For once, Ron stopped laughing.
" Really... all of it?"
" Yes... all of it," Harry answered firmly.
Hermione was starting to get confused... and annoyed.
" What are you guys talking about?" she snapped.
" Okay, okay," Ron took a deep breath. " You know that Harry had a crush on Cho since our third year's Quidditch match, right?"
" Euh... right," Hermione replied, not knowing what next to expect.
" And you know that you-know-who came back to power in the end of fourth year..." it was not a question, and for once, Ron was totally silent as his face grew dark. " He murdered Cedric when he unexpectedly fetched Harry... And in the end-of-year feast, Cho was crying for him, right?"
" Yeah... but Ron, you shouldn't meddle in other people's personal affairs!" Hermione scolded her freckled friend gently.
" Fine, it's wrong!" Ron shook his head in disbelief. " Anyway, in the end of March, Harry admitted his feelings for her..."
" He did what!" Hermione suddenly screeched. " I never knew that!"
She looked away and saw Madam Pince, glaring at her with intense fire.
" I thought she knew better..." Hermione could hear the woman sigh.
" Yes..." Ron drawled quietly. " But Cho said that she couldn't just forget Cedric so easily... she told him that she couldn't just get somebody else to replace him so early..."
" Urgh," Harry winced at the memory.
" Yeah, and it was such an embarrassment for our little hero here who could have faced ten basilisks, but who just couldn't face a simple mere girl that he decided to not to tell anyone."
" But how come he told you?" Hermione asked, a little angry and hurt.
" I didn't..." Harry answered before Ron could. " He threatened me, tortured me, and in the end, he tricked me into telling this to him."
" Oh..." Hermione burst into giggles silently.
Ron smirked while Harry buried his head into his arms in frustration.
" Anyway..." Ron returned to the subject. " Just today, when Harry's Quidditch practice was almost over, we both saw Cho flirting with another boy!"
" How do you know that you just got the whole picture wrong?" Hermione asked skeptically.
She knew that sometimes, Ron could jump to conclusions so easily.
" Because!" he urged. " We could practically hear her! And she asked him out!"
" She did?" she asked, incredulous.
" She did..." both boys replied to her back.
" This was how it went..." Ron suddenly imitated Cho. " 'So Eric... do you want to check out this great bar at Hogsmeade together on our next field trip?' 'Sure Cho, I have nothing else to do...'"
Ron changed back to his normal voice.
" Hypocrite... that's what she is..." he concluded. " She fell for a sixth-year boy in Hufflepuff."
Hermione was startled. Sure, she didn't know Cho, but she would have thought that she knew better than to...
" Her friends even told me..." Harry mumbled grouchily. He mimicked them. " 'So Potter... I guess you'll never get the girl of your dreams... Cho already found someone better and she had long forgotten about Cedric!'... Urgh..."
" Hey, you don't need her..." Ron was about to pat his friend's back when Harry withdrew.
" Don't worry Ron, I don't need your consideration for me," he said. " Not that I'm being sarcastic or anything..." he added quickly to not to hurt his friend's feelings. " I'm just saying... it's over. My feelings for her are gone now."
" Are you sure?" Hermione asked. " I mean, just because you're upset with her because she never meant her word, doesn't mean you didn't get over the event yet..."
She stopped when Harry gave her a strange look. She shivered: she didn't know what it meant. Was he angry, frustrated, sad...? She thought she knew every look he gave her. A happy look, an angry expression... but that gaze seemed so strange, new... mysterious...
" I know Hermione, it's all gone now..." he then whispered calmly.
" Hey! Now I can tell Ginny that she has a chance with you!" Ron perked up cheerfully, hoping to change the subject.
However, Harry only shook his head.
" Ron, I really don't think I'm ready to... experience these 'things' now... I just need space on these subjects..."
" Are you sure?" Ron asked, surprised.
" Yes," he answered firmly. " I mean, this is all so complicated and who knows? Relationships can break before it even got started! And it can also affect our friendship..."
" It can?" Hermione and Ron both cried.
Harry nodded. Hermione wanted to ask a special question, but she decided against it.
" I don't need her," Harry repeated in a whisper before he got up and declared out loud: " I need to go back to our common room!"
" Why?" both his friends asked.
" Do you know what I'm dressed in?" Harry asked.
Hermione looked at his clothing and quickly got it: he was still wearing his Quidditch robes! All three of them burst into silent giggles. When it died down, Harry continued:
" Seriously, I need to go..."
" I'll come with you!" Ron said suddenly. " I mean, I just remembered: I have a Defense Against the Dark Arts homework due tomorrow!"
Hermione gave him a stern look that read: " You should have thought about your homework first before going to Harry's Quidditch Practice". Harry noticed that too and chuckled to himself meekly before saying:
" Don't worry Hermione, I did all my homework... I think..." he trailed off under her stern gaze.
" I have to go now: see you later, okay Hermione?" Harry then waved briefly at her before running out of the library with Ron.
As soon as both boys were gone, Hermione sighed. Now that his feelings for Cho is gone... Can she really have a chance for him? He didn't know her feelings for him, unlike in Ginny's case, and it could be so sudden... too sudden even.
She shook her head. She probably should at least try...
Can I really make him realize my feelings for him? Do I even have chance...?
