Chapter 12
The sun came pouring in through the crack of the curtain of my four-poster bed the next morning and I awoke to feel anything but ready to start a new term. The weight that Hermione had taken off my heavy heart seemed to have come back over night and any chance of hope that remained inside of me seemed to have instantly disappeared. As I lay on my back for a few minutes, anger and confusion swelled up in me and I suddenly felt terribly mad at Ron for reacting at Harry and I the way he did and for the way he kept on talking to Hermione.
I dragged myself out of bed and got dressed slower than usual. Finally, I entered the great hall to find nearly every Gryffindor already seated there. As I walked towards my table, I glanced up at the staff and noticed Hagrid looking around anxiously. I began wondering what was going on, since I wouldn't have been very surprised if he were hiding some kind of dangerous creature somewhere on Hogwarts grounds. A moment later, however, my thoughts were interrupted by loud laughter coming from the Slytherin table. I looked to my right where I saw Malfoy and the other Slytherins cracking up at something it seemed that Draco had said. I suddenly had the urge to grab my wand and curse him for nasty trick he played on me, but I retained myself and quickly walked to the Gryffindor table where I found Ron sitting at one end of the table, faking an intense conversation with Colin, when he realized I was looking at him. On the other side of the table, sat Harry and Hermione eating and not talking much.
I caught Ron's eye for a moment where he glared at me and I glared just as fiercely back. Ron's anger towards me seemed to have increased as well as mine had towards him, although I didn't feel I deserved it all.
After a few seconds, I tore my eyes away from Ron, and went to go sit across from Harry and Hermione.
"'morning," I said to them, making myself smile. "Do you know what's up with Hagrid?" I asked, as I began to eat, remembering his anxious face just minutes ago.
"No, why?" asked Hermione, seeming a bit anxious herself now.
"I dunno, he was acting a bit weird just now. So neither of you are talking to Ron?"
"No,'' Harry said with a grunt. His anger, too seemed have swelled since yesterday.
"He really is over reacting about you two; I mean, not that I saw it, but, well, I know how he can get. And I really don't understand why he keeps on criticizing 'the way I've been acting', do you?"
Harry glanced at me with raised eyebrows. I gave a tiny nod.
"Er- Hermione?" he began. But at that second, the bell rang.
"Oh, come on Harry. Potions. Lets go," Hermione said as I, too got ready to go to charms.
"Yeah, you go ahead. I'll be right there. Uh... Ginny?" I stopped a few feet away from the table, immediately realizing what we had decided to do last night and knowing he wanted to talk about that. Hermione, however, of course didn't know this and she stood in her place for a moment, biting her lip and trying to suppress her smile from turning into a giggle. I gave her a "shut up," look, unable to decide weather I was more amused or annoyed.
She finally turned around, but she let go of her giggle a bit too soon and both Harry and I heard it.
"What's so funny?" Harry asked.
I shrugged. "So, you wanna meet in the library during break?" I asked, making sure the subject of why Hermione was giggling didn't continue.
"Oh, yeah. Right," said Harry, his mind leaving Hermione. "I should go before Snape gives me detention. Bye, Ginny," Harry smiled at me.
"Bye," I croaked. Why did he have to smile at me? Whenever he did, I seemed to freeze up and get nervous.
Harry turned around and made his way to the dungeon. Thirty seconds later, I too, left the Great Hall passing Ron on my out, who ignored me which I found to be just fine.
Charms went by rather quickly, and before I knew it, I was leaving the classroom and moving quickly towards the library.
I arrived there before Harry, and I decided I might as well start looking for the book. Two minutes later, I wasn't getting very far when Harry came into the library.
"Sorry, Snape gave me detention...stupid git," said Harry.
"Why? What happened?" I asked as Harry dropped his bag and began helping me look for the book.
"Hermione told me the potion shouldn't be green," he said simply.
"Stupid git," I echoed what Harry had said before. He let out a small laugh and I smiled.
We searched in silence for a while and by the time we nearly had to go off to our next class, we had gotten no closer to finding the book.
"Should we just ask?" I said to Harry. He waited a second before responding.
"okay," he said a bit uncertainly.
I walked up to Madam Pince and asked her. She looked me up and down, her eyes narrowing as if she thought I wanted to destroy all her books.
"That book is in the restricted section," she said, somewhat coldly.
"Oh, er, sorry," I said awkwardly and rushed back to Harry.
"In the restricted section? Well, I guess we should have known. Why else would Malfoy have taken the stupid Love Potions A-Z?"
"But Malfoy didn't take it, Krum did," I reminded him.
"Well, they're probably in it together and Krum didn't want Malfoy to be caught with a restricted book," said Harry stubbornly.
I raised my eyebrows at him.
"We really need to speak to Hermione about his," said Harry, as if this concluded everything.
But we didn't get a chance to speak to her. Harry and I decided that we would bring it up during lunch, but when Hermione came running into the great hall, tears swelling in her eyes, we decided it would be better if we held back.
"What's the matter?" I asked.
"Nothing," she said quickly, her voice shaking. I glanced at Harry, who shrugged with a concerned look on his face.
She sat down next to me and buried her head in her arms.
"What happened?" I asked quietly. Hermione didn't respond, she just kept her head sitting there with her arms and head leaning on the table for a few more minutes.
I had given up on trying consoling her when she suddenly shot her head back up.
"I just don't get it! Have I become stupid or something?"
"What?" I asked, continuing to be confused.
Hermione looked at me for a moment, her chestnut eyes big and shiny, and then she glanced at Harry. I was sure she was about to tell us what happened but then:
"I told you its nothing," she snapped.
A few more minutes passed where Hermione forked her food a bit without taking a bite and I took a nibble here and there, desperately wanting to know what was wrong with Hermione.
"There must be some kind of mistake," she mumbled weakly. "I just... I don't understand."
"Hermione, maybe we can help, tell us."
Once again, she looked from my eyes, and then to Harry's. Then, however, she looked down and I thought she had once again decided against telling us.
"I've been getting D's in all my subjects!" She squeaked in an attempted whisper, refusing to look up at Harry or I, which was actually for the best because we exchanged horrified looks.
Unfortunately, Ron wasn't out of earshot of Hermione and he let out a nasty comment that no one, not even he, could believe he had said.
"Are you sure they're not T's?"
Hermione sprung up. The tears that she was holding back immediately came pouring out and her cheeks turned a pink rose color. "You- I- How- ARGH!" she spun around dramatically and ran out of the Great Hall.
"RON! WAS THAT REALLY NESASERY?" I yelled at him, causing a bunch of people to look at us. I didn't care though, I was too angry at Ron. I didn't understand why he was giving Hermione such a hard time. Harry and I may not have said anything to him about what we knew, but even he must have figured out that this was not Hermione's fault.
"Yes," he said stubbornly, although he refused to look me in the eye and his voice sounded full of shame and regret. "Besides, they're just grades," he added, trying to make it seem as if what he said wasn't so bad.
"JUST GRADES?! WE'RE TALKING ABOUT HERMIONE!" This time, it was Harry, who did the yelling. I got a bit of a shock, because before this he had just stood there glaring at Ron with disappointment and anger on his face.
At this point, the whole Great Hall seemed to be staring at the three of us.
"Well, she should learn that there is more to life than grades...and Krum," the shame and embarrassment is Ron's voice refused to budge.
"HAVE YOU HEARD HER SAY ONE THING ABOUT HIM?!" Roared Harry.
"Not to mention that I am sure Hermione knows there's more to life than grades and Krum, at least more than you do!" I said, lowering my voice because I was having an increasingly awkward feeling from all the staring eyes.
Ron glanced from Harry, to me, and back to Harry where he then fixated his eyes.
"Oh, why don't you just go marry my sister? I know you want to." At that, Ron left the Great Hall and Harry and I remained standing there, open-mouthed and wide-eyed.
"I am never speaking to him again," Harry said through gritted teeth.
"Good, neither am I," I said.
By this point, the Great Hall was filling up with its usual chatter, the incident forgotten by everyone but Harry and I.
"Lets go look for Hermione," said Harry suddenly, his voice still cold.
"Okay," and I got up and followed Harry away from all the chattering students, although not without glancing at Draco Malfoy, who glanced right back at me, his usual sneer expression replaced with one of great surprise and – I must have been hallucinating – worry.
"Did you see that?" I whispered, although I don't know why since no one was listening anyway.
"See what?" he asked.
"Malfoy's expression!"
"No..." he looked at me suspiciously. "What about it?"
"Never mind," I sighed. I knew he wouldn't think anything of it anyway.
For the rest of lunch, we searched for Hermione. We looked everywhere from the library, to Moaning Myrtle's bathroom, but she remained hidden.
Only when afternoon classes were about to begin and it was too late to talk to her about anything, we found her making her way to the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom.
"There you are! We've been looking all over for you." said Harry.
"Yeah, where were you?" I asked.
Hermione gave a weak smile. "Room of requirements," she said. "I knew no one would find me there. Well, come on Harry, We have to go."
"Yeah, o-okay," he said. As Hermione turned around and started to class, Harry waved and gave a me his smile, the one he seemed to save for me, the smile that seemed to feed me the hope I had lost, that seemed to have all the answers, that, just for a second, made me feel special. I smiled back at him and for once, it felt real; so real, that I ended up smiling all the way to Arithmancy.
While the morning had zoomed by, the afternoon seemed to last forever and I felt full of dread because I knew that by tonight, Hermione would be obsessed with Krum once again, while Harry and I were barely any closer to figuring out how to stop her.
By the time the day was over, my smile had completely vanished but my energy seemed to have increased. I found myself sprinting up the stairs, dying to know what had happened in Defense Against the Dark Arts.
Although I shouldn't have been since I had run so fast, I found myself to be surprised that I was one of the first people in the common room.
I began pacing the room, unable to stand the suspense of learning what had happened that afternoon.
I seemed unable to think straight and I just kept on pacing until finally the common room portrait opened. I stopped dead in my tracks and stared at it, waiting for Harry or Hermione, or even Ron, to come through. My heart sank, however, when Colin appeared.
"Hey, Ginny," he said brightly.
"Hi," I replied, my voice lower than usual.
"Why'd you run up here so fast?"
"Oh... um... I have a lot of homework to get to." At this point, I had no choice but to take a seat and start doing – or at least pretend to do – homework.
Finally, after five more minutes, the portrait swung open again to reveal Harry and Hermione walking casually inside.
I sat in my chair staring at them with a slightly opened mouth, my quill still clutched in my right hand.
I didn't know what I expected, but what I saw just wasn't it. I didn't expect them to come into the common room acting so... normal.
I shook my head for a second and then waved at them.
"How was Defense Against the Dark Arts?" I asked as they approached me.
"Krum taught it. Take a guess," said Harry.
"He's asked me to meet with him tonight at six to discuss my poor grades," Hermione said miserably.
My eyes widened and when I turned to look at Harry, I noticed his had too. We had to tell her now. We had no choice.
Harry was about to speak, but I interrupted him.
"Well, it's his fault your doing so badly, he's a horrible teacher," I said. Harry looked at me, probably thinking I was stupid for not telling her then; but I figured it would be best to at least kind of lead up to it, rather than spring it upon her and that was exactly what I was doing.
"Well then, why aren't you two failing as miserably as I am? And why am I doing so badly in all my other classes?" Hermione asked, her voice becoming higher pitched with each word.
"No, Hermoine, this really is his fault," said Harry.
"Oh, just be quiet!" She scowled as she slumped into a chair.
"No, he's right, Hermione," I said. "It really is his fault." There I was, sitting across from Hermione and Harry standing between us, about to tell Hermione everything. A big lump of guilt fell heavily to the pit of my stomach as I realized that a part of me didn't want to tell her; a part of me that wanted to share this secret with no one but Harry. I had finally been feeling that we shared something more than a "best friend's little sister" bond. Yet here we were, about to throw it away and destroy our secret.
We explained her everything, occasionally interrupting each other if something was forgotten. By the time we were finished, Hermione gaped at us, apparently at a loss for words.
"So, er, yeah, you shouldn't go tonight," I said lamely when no one else said anything.
"Well, I, I don't seem to have much of a choice. He is a teacher," Hermione finally said.
"Hermione! This isn't the time to be trying to make sure you're always on a teacher's good side!" said Harry, making it very apparent that he's been through it countless times.
"No, I mean, it would be a bit odd if I said I didn't want to meet with him, wouldn't it? Everyone knows how much I care about my grades and he'd find it suspicious if I didn't do all that I could to raise them, wouldn't he?" said Hermione.
"He's Victor Krum, he's not smart enough to suspect you of anything. Besides, what could he do to you? He can't tell anyone if he thinks you know because that would mean he'd have to tell them what he did to you,"
"Harry, I know you may not like Krum much, but he would never do something like this."
Harry and I stared at her, until Hermione added:
"Well, what do you think happened?"
"That he still loves you and is mad that you don't feel the same?" I said in a small, high pitched voice.
Hermione raised her eyebrows, suppressing a grin.
"Well, what's your explanation, then?" asked Harry.
Before Hermione could answer, however, we heard a loud thump and turned around to see Ron, who had apparently just come back from dinner and had thrust his books on the floor and was now placing himself in a chair not to far away from us.
"What?" he asked at all our staring faces.
Hermione shot her nose in the air and marched away into her dormitory, while Harry rolled his eyes and got to work on some essay and I just stood there, wondering how some stupid fight could have gotten in the way of saving Hermione from something that could possibly be a lot more severe than I had suspected. I turned my gaze at Ron and, before I knew it, all the anger I had felt for him that morning came tumbling back as I sat myself in the chair nearest to me and tried to concentrate on homework.