CHAPTER THIRTEEN

I didn't know for sure weather or not Hermione had been to talk to Krum until the next late that evening, because I had realized fifteen minutes too late that she was supposed to meet him at six and I was in the Great Hall eating dinner with Harry and Colin by then.

Colin was in the middle of telling Harry and me a story about some muggle thing which he called a dark room; I found this somewhat interesting, but Harry seemed bored out of his mind.

"You only can take out the film when its pitch black, and –"Colin was saying when I interrupted him.

"HARRY! What time is it?"

"Six fifteen. Wh – OH!"

"Come on Harry; sorry Colin we, er, promised Hermione we'd get an early start on homework tonight," I said quickly.

"Oh, o-ok," poor Colin seemed disappointed that he couldn't finish his story about the dark room, but my mind was too full of Hermione and Krum to care much.

Harry and I dashed up the stairs as I silently prayed that she hadn't left. I wasn't quite sure why I was so worried; I knew she could usually be counted on to make the right decision, even if others didn't understand why. Weather or not she was making the right decision, however, the last thing I wanted was for Hermione to become Krum-obsessed once again.

We finally arrived in the Gryffindor Common Room, panting slightly as we looked around. I began to panic as I realized Hermione was nowhere in the tower.

Without saying a word to Harry, I ran up to her dormitory only to find it deserted. Panic quickly rising in me, I tried to tell myself that Hermione would, of course, have a good reason. I knew she had her stubborn moments, but what was she trying to do? Prove that she can resist Krum's potion? She may have occasionally been stubborn, but never stupid; and that would be an idiotic thing to do.

"She's not there," I said to Harry once I had reached the fourth to last stair.

Harry remained in the chair he was sitting in, his head resting on his propped up hands. Only his eyes looked up at me, his eyebrows raised.

After slowly walking down the last four steps, I walked over to Harry.

"Let's go look around the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom," I said glumly.

"Okay," said Harry flatly.

We started to slowly walk out of Gryffindor Tower and towards the classroom, our pace consistently speeding up. By the time we were almost there, Harry and I were practically running and stopped abruptly when we realized we were almost passing the room.

We were now walking incredibly slowly; the last few steps towards the classroom door lasting forever. We were almost there and I began to reach my hand out to turn the knob. I had no plan, no clue of what to expect or how to react if Krum got angry. Perhaps I would just peak in and hope no one would notice, or maybe I would open the door wide to find Krum staring angrily at me. Either way, my hand was centimeters away from the knob and I was about to touch it when the door burst open and someone appeared standing in the doorway.

I let out a short scream and jumped backwards, accidentally stepping on Harry's feet. Apologizing being far away from my mind, I gasped "Her-Hermione!"

Although I had expected to see Hermione before my hand had reached for the knob, I still got a shock to see her standing there.

"Her-Hermione?" I said, suspiciously this time.

"Hello," she responded distantly. She then turned her head around, said "Good-bye, Victor," in a flirty voice very unlike her own and left towards the Gryffindor Common Room without a word to us.

"She is so stupid! We told her what was going on and she went to Krum anyway!" Said Harry angrily.

"I know, I mean, does she not trust us or something?" I asked. Although, while Harry's voice was mad, I just sounded disappointed.

"But then again, you know Hermione! She usually does things everyone thinks is crazy until she finally decides to explain herself," I said in a small voice, desperately trying to convince myself that she had done the right thing.

"I hate it when she does that," Harry responded.

"Come on, we might as well go back to the common room."

All energy gone, we dragged our way around corners and up stairs until we were finally there, where we found Ron hunched over a book.

He looked up as he heard us enter. I caught a glimpse of his eyes and they looked terribly sad. For that moment, all the anger I had felt towards him seemed to evaporate and I found myself sick with worry that there was something behind the way he had been acting; that his angry outbursts and rude comments were just a cover up for something deeper.

"Is something wrong?" I asked as I approached him.

"No," he snapped. "Why?"

"I dunno, you look kind of... sad."

"I'm fine," he said, although it sounded as if he were trying to convince himself more than me.

I stood there for another minute, examining my nails to try and make the situation feel less awkward.

When Ron didn't say anything, I got up feeling slightly less pity for him and went to sit next to Harry, who was already trying hard to concentrate on his homework.

"You don't think there's something wrong with Ron, do you?" I asked him.

"Er..." said Harry, unsure of what to say.

I let out a tiny laugh. "No, I mean, do you think there's a reason behind the way he's acting? He seems a bit... well... depressed."

"Well maybe he's realized what a stupid git he's being," said Harry, although he didn't sound as if he truly meant it.

"Maybe..." I said. "Where's Hermione?"

"Probably in her dormitory so she can day dream about Krum without being disturbed," said Harry coldly.

After this, neither of us talked much as we did our best to concentrate on homework and get it done.

By ten o'clock, the common room was already staring to clear out and by ten thirty, Harry announced that he was tired and was off to bed.

At eleven, I had still not finished my homework thanks to my constantly wandering mind and persistent looks towards Ron, who appeared to be doing his homework more thoroughly than ever before. This was a sure sign that something was wrong.

I walked over to him and sat down on the floor.

"Are you sure you're all right?" I asked softly. No matter how mad I got at him, Ron was my brother and I loved him to death. If I thought about it for a moment, he meant more to me than anybody else. Although it was very unobvious, there was something indescribable between Ron and me, something no one would be able to understand and although it certainly didn't seem it, I felt that in the end, he could understand me better than anybody else.

"I'm FINE!" said Ron, forcefully.

"Okay, okay. I'm sorry," I said, my voice slightly hurt.

Without another word, I slowly made my way up to bed, wondering how on earth Harry and I were going to get that book we needed to make Hermione unobsessed with Krum.

I couldn't fall asleep until very late that night, though. I lay in bed for hours wondering about what Hermione had said; that she thought it was more than just Krum being mad at her for not loving him anymore. I didn't get it though. What else could it possibly be?

And how were we supposed to get a teacher's permission to get a book from the restricted section? Let alone, the specific book we wanted. The only teacher I could think of who would be dumb enough to let us would have to be Krum. I then came to the conclusion that, if it were any other book, he would most certainly sign for us.

But even Krum, quiditch loving, duck-like and dumb Krum, would think twice before signing to give us a book that may destroy his plan, whatever that was.

I just didn't get it though. What did Hermione mean? What other reason would Krum have to be doing this to her?

And then I came to my own conclusion as I remembered what Hermione had said: "I know you may not like Krum, but he would never do something like this".

Hermione had once fallen under Krum's spell (not literally, I mean), and couldn't help but see him differently than the rest of us did. I had always trusted Hermione's judge of character one hundred percent and I couldn't think of a single occasion where her impressions of a person had been incorrect. I did feel, however, that this had to be an omission. Love blinds people, I knew that, and I also knew that Hermione was no exception. She saw in Krum what the rest of us couldn't and what she saw was, more than likely, inexistent.

Then again, maybe those qualities were there, or maybe Hermione saw the same traits in him as I did, only to her, they were good traits.

I knew that Crabbe and Goyle thought Malfoy a god and respected him greatly while Harry saw that same person, those same qualities, as something worth less than pigeon droppings.

I still doubted that Hermione was right to think it was anything more than just a broken heart, though.

And Ron- I was honestly starting to worry about him now. I more than anyone knew how he could act like such an idiot sometimes; I knew how horrible he could be. It seemed different this time though. I knew Harry just didn't see it and for the past few days Hermione was too angry to even give herself the chance to realize something was wrong and now of course, wouldn't be able to notice anything. I seemed to be the only one who could see the change but I had no idea -

What about the invisibility cloak? I suddenly thought. I felt so stupid. Why hadn't I thought of that before? We could get the book we needed by going under Harry's invisibility cloak.

With that thought in mind, all my worries and wonderings seemed to disappear as reality morphed into fantasy and I slowly drifted off to sleep.