CHAPTER SEVEN: The Science Of Boys
For the third time that morning there was someone knocking at Hermione's bedroom door. It had been Ron the other two times, so she had no doubt it was him again, trying to coax her either into coming out or letting him in. She ignored the knocking like she had the previous times, using her homework as a focus for her concentration.
It probably didn't look good that the Head Girl had locked herself in her room, but it was a Saturday and she had a lot of work to get done that weekend. Fighting with Ron was not on her agenda for the day. He was thickheaded but she figured he would take the hint eventually and leave her alone.
The rasping sound at her door sounded louder the second time. She sighed. "Ron, go away, I'm working."
"I'm not Ron and I'm not going away, so you better let me in Head Girl."
She heaved a louder sigh this time. Lavender Brown was on the other side of the door, and short of hexing her, Hermione didn't have much of a chance of making her go away. Sharing a room with her for four years had taught her that much.
Hermione unlocked the door and opened it, revealing a second unpleasant surprise. Lavender's best friend, Pavarti, was standing there with her.
"It's about time," Pavarti said, hands on her hips.
"What do you two want?" Hermione said shortly.
"Since you weren't at breakfast," said Lavender, pushing her way passed Hermione and into the room, "and we heard Ron talking to Harry about some fight he had with you, we thought we'd come up and see how you were doing."
That was the biggest load of bullocks Hermione had heard in her life. She and Ron had fought plenty of times in the past and the social high-class twins of Gryffindor had never come to check on her before. "Why don't you tell me what you're really doing here? I'm pretty sure it's not to check on my well-being."
Lavender looked at Pavarti before saying, "you're upset with Ron because Seamus was showing him my magazine."
"Maybe you should have eavesdropped a bit more closely because that's not what we were arguing about,"
"We did," Pavarti chimed in. "The words 'Modern Teen Witch' popped up more than once."
Hermione wished then she hadn't let them maneuver their way into her room. If they were still in the hallway she could have closed the door on them and avoided feeling any more embarrassed about the whole thing.
"I'm not mad at him," she tried unsuccessfully to convince them.
"Yes, you are, but that's not why we came up here," said Lavender. "We're here to give you some advice."
This just kept getting better and better. If Hermione had never taken any advice from them in their previous six years at Hogwarts, she was definitely not about to start now.
"Hermione, you've surrounded yourself with Harry and Ron for so long that you've forgotten they're both guys," Lavender began. "I know you've known Ron a long time, but underneath all those years of friendship and everything else you've two shared he's still just a guy like the rest of 'em. And with very few female influences here at Hogwarts that's why you've never noticed this before,"
"So what you're saying is I'm being childish for catching my boyfriend looking at a few pictures and having it bother me?"
"That's not it all," said Lavender, shaking her head. "guys look at that stuff because it's in their nature. I don't like it when Dean does it either, but it happens. It's not right, but it also isn't wrong,"
"I bet even Harry was looking at it," Pavarti said knowingly.
Hermione had a hard time believing that. Harry wasn't like other guys.
"See, look, you're thinking like the best friend again, instead of like an objective woman," Lavender said, catching the way Hermione was mulling over Pavarti's assessment.
"Harry's a decent guy," she said in her friend's defense.
"But he's still a guy, Hermione," Lavender insisted. "And the sooner you learn that the better. Every guy, no matter how decent they are, all share the same common goal, and that's to have a good shag with some girl."
"You may be the most book smart person here, Hermione, but when it comes to guys you really are a novice," Pavarti said to her.
Though it came out sounding like an insult, Hermione didn't think that had been Pavarti's intention. Really, all the other girl had done was state the truth. When it came to the subject of boys, Hermione was as less experienced as Lavender and Pavarti were experienced in the area.
Knowing she would regret it later, Hermione asked, "then what do you think I should do about Ron?"
She caught the mischievous looks the best friends exchanged and was regretting her decision already.
"If you're going to fight with him about this, at least make it worth while," Lavender said.
"I don't fight with him so I can make it 'worth while'," she said sharply.
"If you want to teach Ron a lesson, maybe you should make an exception this time,"
Hermione was digging herself a deeper hole by asking, "how?"
Seeing they had finally sparked the Head Girl's interest, Pavarti walked over to her and said, "like this,"
Before Hermione could do anything to stop her, the other girl had unbuttoned the top two buttons of her blouse.
"What are you doing?" Hermione shouted at her.
"Helping you make a statement," Lavender told her, coming to stand beside Pavarti. "Trust us, Hermione. If you straightened your hair a bit and added a little makeup you'd have Ron ogling over you instead of any photo,"
"No way," said Hermione adamantly, stepping away from both of them. "I am not letting you two do some makeover to me,"
"You don't need a makeover," Pavarti said, assessing Hermione's appearance. "You're already beautiful, you just need a little something to help you stand out."
I can't believe I let things go this far, Hermione thought with some shame. "I appreciate you coming here and educating me on the subject of guys and their needs, but I am not doing anything to change myself, not even if it's to prove a point. Now if you two don't mind I have a lot of work to do."
Looking somewhat defeated that she hadn't taken them up on their offer, they vacated her room. And it couldn't have been at a better time, because for about two seconds there Hermione had actually considered their insane idea.
Hermione felt more than a little ridiculous standing outside the Great Hall entrance. She wasn't sure if it was because she had let Lavender and Pavarti get to her or the fact that she had done this to herself without their help. It wasn't as if she had done anything too drastic, but it was enough to have her worried that everyone would turn to stare at her.
When Lavender and Pavarti had left her room, she had gone back to her essay for Professor Lupin's class only to give up on it an hour later when her mind refused to focus.
As Head Girl, and before that when she had been a Prefect, she had gotten her own bathroom, but she had never really made much use of it before this morning. She had never taken that long to get ready so her roommates had always been more than happy to let her use the bathroom first. But this morning she had made full use of the luxury of not having to worry about anyone else needing it.
She had tried to rationalize her decision by thinking that it wouldn't be such a bad thing if she fixed herself up a bit, when all along she knew the real reason for it was to see the expression on Ron's face when he saw her.
So using one of the many charms she had come across in her readings, she straightened her hair completely, making it lose all of its natural curls and puffiness. Next came the hard part. Her mother had bought her makeup over the years to wear on special occasions, but she had rarely ever touched it – especially at Hogwarts. There just didn't seem a point to it. She was there to learn not to get noticed.
She had considered asking Lavender or Pavarti, but her ego wouldn't allow it. She had scolded them too much over the years for worrying about makeup to ask for their help with it now. She was quite pleased with herself when she looked in the mirror afterwards and could see she was still wearing less than either one wore to Lupin's early morning classes.
She had rushed out of Gryffindor Tower for lunch, passing only a few second years in the common room on her way out. She had made it downstairs before noticing that the top two buttons on her blouse were still undone. Feeling a surge of confidence that she didn't know she possessed, she left them that way.
That confidence wasn't making walking into the Great Hall any easier. Taking a deep breath to steady her fluttering stomach, she started walking.
She had this horrible fear that everyone would stop talking and stare at her, but that never happened. The discussions going on at the different house tables continued, no one even looked up at her as she passed. So far, so good. It wasn't until she was almost at the Gryffindor table when Neville saw her and his eyes widened. Hermione swallowed as she watched him elbow Ron in the side. Ron looked up and his mouth fell open when he saw her. Harry, who was sitting across from him turned around to see what was going on and his expression mirrored Ron's.
Every guy, no matter how decent they are, all share the same common goal, and that's to have a good shag with some girl, Lavender's voice rang in her head.
She took a seat, glad to see that not everyone was staring in her direction – not that she looked up very far, because she couldn't bring herself to look at Lavender or Pavarti. They would undoubtedly be giving her their biggest we knew you wanted to do this all along look because she had gone ahead with their advice, even after kicking them out of her room in a huffed state.
Ron having remembered that his mouth was still hanging open, closed it, while she took a seat on the bench beside him.
"Hi," she said shyly, piling food onto her plate without looking at what it was. When he continued gaping at her, she said, "you're staring at me,"
That seemed to knock him out of whatever trance he'd been in. "You're – you're wearing makeup," he stammered.
She couldn't keep her face from going red at his comment.
"You never wear it," he went on. "Why are you wearing it?"
She didn't reply, opting instead to pick up her goblet of pumpkin juice and drink from of it.
"You're still on about that bloody magazine, aren't you?" He said, as realization dawned on him. She heard him swear under his breath. "Are you ever going to let it go?"
"Maybe I decided I just wanted to dress myself up a bit," she said coolly.
"What would you do that for?"
A noticeable hush fell over the table when he said that, and Hermione found herself clenching her fists under the table. She looked at Harry for support, but all he did was stare back, silently begging her not to drag him into this.
"I certainly didn't do it for you, so don't worry," she snapped at him.
"So who are you dressing like a slut for then?"
"RON!" Harry had brought himself into it then. His expression was furious as he stared down Ron. "Apologize for that, now!"
Whether Ron was going to apologize or not, Hermione never found out. "Don't bother," she said, her voice a mixture of anger and hurt, "you're slutty girlfriend is leaving."
She thought he would follow her, but then again, even Ron had enough common sense to know he was the last person she wanted to speak with.
For the first Quidditch practice of the season Harry had expected his team to be a little rusty, but not the completely terrible performance he had gotten out of his players. They practiced like they had only played the game a few times in their life, when most of them had at least three years of experience or more.
He should have known the practice was doomed the moment Ron turned up at the pitch in a foul mood. They did some basic practice drills before mounting their brooms and starting the real practice. Seamus and Dennis Creevy, two of the team's Chasers, took turns throwing the Quaffle at Dean to warm him up. It took about a good fifteen minutes before Dean was close to the Keeper form he was last year. Then it was time to scrimmage. Harry wanted to see how well they played and then the next practice they would work on tactics. This practice was simply to get the Gryffindor team back into the Quidditch frame of mind.
Things might have gone better if Ron had been thinking with his head instead of his temper. Ron was normally a very good Chaser, but his head was somewhere else today. He hogged the Quaffle so much that it got to the point where Seamus and Dennis were teaming up against him to steal the Quaffle instead of helping him score. It ended up in a nasty yelling match on the ground, leading Harry to believe that's what Ron had secretly been aiming for all along.
After putting himself between Ron and Dean, who was sticking up for Seamus, Harry called the practice. With everyone's temper running high, they were somewhat slow to depart. After finally having convinced Seamus that punching Ron in the face would not solve anything and getting his Chaser to walk back and take a cold shower, Harry was beginning to wonder how stupid Ron could be for trying to challenge the entire team.
When it looked like Harry had everyone trudging back to the school – in dark moods, no less – he called after the instigator of it all. "Ron, stay behind,"
Most of the anger had melted from Ron's posture but he had his arms folded over his chest and was staring at Harry in a way that meant he was anything but calm.
"The captain wants a word with me?"
Ron was testing him, and Harry hated talking to him when he was being totally irrational like this. "What the hell is your problem, Ron?" His voice betraying the anger he was feeling. "The Quidditch pitch isn't your personal arena to take out the problems you're having with Hermione,"
Ron took offense. "Hey, I came here to practice."
Harry felt himself rapidly losing his head. "That is such a load of shit, Ron. You came down here to take out your frustrations on us. In case you haven't noticed we're all on the same team!"
"Look, Harry, if you've got something to say just say it," said Ron.
"You were so out of line today," Harry said, taking a step towards him. "You had no right to call Hermione that." He couldn't even bring himself to say the word. How could Ron have even considered that word in connection with her?
Ron hung his head and ran his hands through his sweat-tangled hair. "I know I shouldn't have said that. I lost my head for a moment. But what was she trying to prove anyways?"
"Maybe she wasn't trying to prove anything. There was nothing wrong with the way she looked."
"Of course you wouldn't think that," said Ron, narrowing his eyes suspiciously at his best friend. "I saw the way you looked at her."
Harry couldn't believe what he had just heard. "Ron, are you hearing yourself? I wasn't looking at her like that,"
"Whatever, Harry," Ron mumbled, seemingly unconvinced. "Are we done here? I'd like to take a shower now,"
"Yeah, we're done,"
Ron started back for the castle, Harry waiting a few minutes before following. He wanted to ensure there was a safe distance between himself and Ron.
Ron stormed through the portrait hole. He kept his gaze focused on the staircase that lead to the boy's dormitory, completely ignoring everyone in the common room. He heard Harry enter a few moments later, but didn't stop. He didn't need another lecture from his captain, especially in front of half of Gryffindor.
Harry thought about following Ron up to the boy's dorm to finish their conversation, but he knew that it would accomplish nothing except more shouting and maybe a few thrown punches.
He spotted Hermione and Ginny sitting on one of the couches in the common room. He flung himself down on the chair across from them.
"Rough practice?" Hermione guessed, seeing his strained look.
He took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes. "What practice? It was more like a free-for-all."
He explained to the both of them Ron's attitude and what had happened down at the pitch.
"Hermione, can you please talk to him? He's been unbearable all day. He even accused me of checking you out at lunch today,"
Both girls gave him a look.
"Which I wasn't of course," he added quickly.
Hermione sighed. "If he has something to say, then he can say it to me, but I'm not going to him. He made himself pretty clear at lunch what he thought of me,"
"You know, Ron, he thinks with his temper instead of his head. I think he just didn't know how to react,"
"You were all ready to jump across the table and come to my rescue when he called me that name, and now you're defending him, which is it Harry?"
He wished now he had just refrained from saying anything, because somehow he seemed to have made her angry with him. "I'm not defending him," he tried to tell her. "What he did was wrong, but can't you two just talk it over like you always do?"
"I refuse to talk to Ron because I'm making a point," she said simple. Gathering her books off the sofa, she walked towards the portrait hole and left Gryffindor Tower.
Harry turned to face Ginny, who was still sitting there. "And what point would that be?"
"You wouldn't understand," she replied.
If Harry heard right it sounded like she was a bit ticked off with him. What did I do?
"Don't worry about my brother and Hermione," said Ginny afterwards. "They're both as stubborn as Hippogriffs, but they'll work through this – if they don't kill each other first."
Harry didn't find that last thought comforting at all. But he had seen them beyond furious with each other many times before. Hopefully by Monday morning things would blow over because he was not looking forward to facing either one of them with weapons while they were like this.