Delusion Chapter 16

Harry Potter was pacing. Pacing because he couldn't stop thinking about how much he hated Pansy Parkinson. Pansy was first-class bitch. She should win the whore award, Harry thought furiously. He hated her. He hated her, hated her, hated her! She was so… ugh, he couldn't even complete his sentence.

Because the truth was, he didn't hate her.

He was simply mad at her.

Very mad.

He'd fallen for her, and he'd fallen fast. He'd fallen so fast he couldn't put his hands out to stop his fall. And now he was paying the price, in the form of Pansy-is-cheating-scum-bitch-yeah-yeah-blah-blah-blah.

He knew they'd already argued it out; that they'd already put this behind themselves in order to get Hermione and Malfoy away from each other.

But… Hermione had seemed, well, really quite angry when he'd brought it up. So angry that he felt that maybe she hadn't slept with Malfoy after all.

But she did like him; that much was obvious. She really, really liked him. Harry wanted to crush Malfoy's pallid little neck. Disgusting, vile, stupid son of a bitch.

It was just as Harry was thinking these forlorn, unhappy, negative thoughts when the girl who had been bugging him burst into his common room. "Pansy?" Harry gaped at her, shocked.

"Harry… Potter," she corrected herself, looking miserable. "Potter. We need to talk."

"What is it, Parkinson?" he bit out, although he was too tired of this whole mess to truly be angry at her any more. He just wanted to let everything go.

"We…we were wrong. And, there is something else. Sit on the couch. You may feel dizzy after I tell you this," she demanded, and so he sat, bewildered as he was.

She proceeded to tell him the most unbelievable things he'd heard. "First off," she started, "it turns out that Granger and Draco weren't sleeping together. But they so like each other. It's sickening. I hate puppy love. I hate love. It's just disturbing! It's just gross! It's just vile. Oh it's so vile; so fil—"

Harry decided now was a good time to cut her off. "Go on," he interrupted, "believe me I know how vile puppy love is but we don't need to spend hours talking about it. Yes, I know they weren't sleeping together – Hermione nearly murdered me when I suggested that they were…but you're right. They're completely infatuated with each other. What else do you have to say?" It was all very routine. Harry didn't let any emotion slip into his voice.

"That… Draco and Granger…they broke us up. They staged the whole thing because they didn't want us together." Her voice was strained.

Harry almost couldn't breathe. He felt as if someone had shoved a bloodpop in his mouth and he was choking on it. "What?" he echoed.

"Yeah. Draco's motive – you were originally a bet, right. Draco cheated. Duh. I should've known. He's a cheating little unmentionable…ooooh I could just squish him! I could just rip his little eyes out and feed them to his stupid owl and ooh---"

Harry was getting a little worried. "Calm down, Parkinson," he instructed, "Yes, Malfoy is a contemptible wretched horrible little thing but we cannot spend hours discussing it. What was…Hermione's motive? Why would she care who I dated?"

Pansy gave him a stern look. "Please. She's terribly bigoted you know."

"Bigoted?" Harry repeated, flabbergasted. "Bigoted? Hermione isn't bigoted! Hermione's like, the most…un-bigoted person I know!"

"Excuse me? I bet she couldn't stand the sight of a Slytherin and a Gryffindor together, which not only makes her bigoted but extremely hypocritical, don't you think?"

"Erm… yeah," Harry agreed after a moment. "That hypocritical little…! Ugh! She makes me so mad! Excuse me!" he stomped out of the room, fuming.

Pansy grinned. It always made her feel a little better when people didn't get along.

-----

Draco couldn't move. Ever since he realized (after Pansy had rudely pointed it out) that he might slightly fancy Hermione, he didn't want to go anywhere near her. The further away he was from her, the better!

What would people say?

Here he was, battling it out so Potter wouldn't get with Pansy. He was completely against Slytherin and Gryffindor relations. And… then he ended up fancying Hermione Granger. How disturbing. How very, very bad.

It would kill his reputation.

His father and mother would be livid. His mother probably because Hermione didn't wear Fancy-Witch-Wear and his father because Hermione was smarter than him. And then there was that little matter of her being a mud blood. Although, contrary to popular belief, his father most certainly did not have dead mudbloods chained to the walls.

His mother would never let that happen. It wouldn't be tasteful.

Morosely, Draco paced the common room. He had to do something about his stupid little crush. And anyway, Hermione would never go for him. Although Draco hated to admit it, he did kind of have that little teenage thing commonly called insecurity.

And what if Hermione didn't like him back? Not only would that hurt his ego, really massacre his reputation, and be generally detrimental…might it also make him feel bad? Yes. In fact, quite bad.

Damn Pansy! Damn her to hell and back!

The best thing was just to keep the hell away from Hermione forever. That shouldn't be too difficult, right, considering they went to a small private school and only had one class (Double Potions) together and generally never saw each other and hadn't been working together for the last few months. It would be totally and completely fine. He'd never see her.

What a lie.

Sighing morosely Draco left his common room. Perhaps bullying a firstie or something would make him feel better. Or using Finch-Fletchley as a punching bag. Lo and behold, he bumped into the one girl he'd totally sworn off.

"Ah, Hermione," Draco could feel himself blushing, which made him just hopping mad. How could he blush? He was the King of All Who Did Not Blush When Embarrassed. He always kept his cool! So what was he doing? He could feel the red tingeing his cheeks; how horrible!

"Draco," she returned cordially. Draco could barely look her in the eyes; he was so nervous and so scared that she would be able to detect the rouge on his cheeks.

"Er…I have to go…kill something," he finished lamely and nearly sprinted down the hall. Fighting the urge to flee, he made sure he walked slowly so that he still retained his Cool Draco image. Oh, God… how could this be happening to him? How utterly depressing!

He wanted very badly to turn around and see Hermione again, maybe just to check out her expression, but he used every ounce of his willpower to prevent himself from doing such an abysmally Weasley-like thing. He would not be brought down to that level. No, he most certainly would not.

Unfortunately this little brush with her certainly clarified one thing. Now that he was aware of his crush, he couldn't help but think about her. All the fucking time. It was so very irritating! Perhaps a walk would clear his mind. He stepped outside into the cool breeze and took a great gulp of air. Quiet at last. Now maybe he could like Obliviate himself or something and forget about this stupid crush on that stupid girl.

No such luck. For yet another person interrupted the peacemaking of his inner psyche: Harry Potter, the Boy Who Lived to Make His Life Miserable.

Keeping his head down should the urge to annoy take over, Draco sidestepped the mopey looking Potter and decided now was unquestionably not a good time for conflict.

Regrettably, Potter had a different idea altogether. "Hey, Malfoy," he said loudly when he saw Draco. "You little dipshit! Do you know what you've done recently?"

"A number of things," Draco suggested, a bit bowled over.

"NO," Potter replied vehemently. "No. You know what you've done? You've sabotaged my relationship, that's what you've done! And you've taken a very good friend of mine to the…Dark Side," he whispered the end two words. Draco could practically feel him capitalizing them.

"Potter," he scowled sarcastically, "how could I have sabotaged your relationship? Unless you're mixing up your bouts of insanity with real life," he smirked.

"Oh, shove it, Malfoy. You know very well I'm talking about Pansy."

Draco went rigid. So Potter knew – obviously, Pansy had squealed. Yet another reason to really despise her. "So? You're telling me thanks for not letting you stay with a complete ditz? A cunning, er, manipulative…ditz…okay, not a ditz, but a real witch with a b!"

Potter stopped suddenly. "Witch with a b?" he echoed. "Oh, witch with a b! She is not! You're the witch… er… she's a witch too… but not with a b! You stupid wizard with a b!"

"Potter. I'm not a bizard."

Potter looked ready to tear his hair out. "Just…oh, you infuriate me," he snapped. "I ought to punch you."

"Yeah, maybe you should," Draco taunted. "Snape'll be here the minute you do and you know it."

"Why? Have you got a dirty little affair going on with him so that he has to protect you every step of the way?" Potter sneered.

Disgusted Draco chose not to reply. "No, but I may have tainted your best friend."

"Hermione!" Potter growled. "How dare you put her up to this? I'm sure you did. She wouldn't have impaired my relationship with Pansy all by herself."

"Au contraire," Draco smirked. "I merely suggested the plan to her. It was her decision and she chose to go along with me."

"She did not!"

"Did too!"

"Did not!"

"Did too!"

"Did not!"

"Did to—all fucking right, we're not in bloody first year. She did, she did, she did!"

"Did not, did not, did not!"

"Did not!" Draco grinned to himself, waiting for the inevitable—

"DID!" Harry burst out.

"Hah, you admit to it!" Draco pointed out gleefully. "See, she did!" He did not care that he had had to resort to the most childish of tactics to get his point across; it had worked, didn't it?

Potter clenched his fists, presumably in uncontrollable anger. "You're maddening," he ground out. "I seriously hope you fall into a ditch and die."

"Feeling's mutual," Draco bit back. "What are you harassing me for?"

"Stay the hell away from Hermione!"

"Then you stay the hell away from Pansy!"

With a harrumph both boys stomped away from each other, not without sending each other deathly glares. Draco was fuming. The nerve of Potter, telling him to stay away from Hermione. No matter that earlier that had been exactly his plan; now, just to irk Potter he had to spend every waking moment with the girl.

And how dare Potter step near Pansy! Pansy was a respected Slytherin; no need dirtying her with Gryffindor filth.

It was only then that Draco realized how hypocritical he was being.

Awww, holy shit, he had a crush on a Gyrffie…

----

Meanwhile, Hermione was in a rather similar predicament. Namely, she too had discovered that she was attracted to someone she'd really rather not be attracted to. It was bad. It was very, very bad. And she hated it.

No, she didn't. She liked it.

She couldn't decide! Hermione had to be on top of things and… not being on top of things was decidedly horrible.

And just when she thought things just couldn't get any worse, Harry stormed into the common room and shot her a very dirty look, so dirty that she instantly knew that he knew and that he knew that she knew that they both knew.

"I know," he snarled at her, "that you teamed up with the ferret to get me and Pansy away from each other."

"I'm sorry," she sighed, "but I seriously thought she was going to play you. I didn't want to see you hurt!" She defended herself to the best of her abilities.

"I don't care! This hurts me so much more than if Pansy had. I could get over that. I just can't get over that one of my best friends teamed up with our enemy to destroy my happiness! And you ended up liking him in the process! Oh, don't deny it! Don't you deny it! I realize you didn't sleep with him – my bad – hah, not really, I'm so mad I could care less what you bloody think, but don't deny that you aren't ferociously attracted to him!"

Hermione paused after Harry's absurdly long monologue. "Er, have you calmed down enough for me to speak?" she asked tentatively.

He flopped down onto a couch. "Yes, I suppose so," he mumbled and crossed his arms across his chest. "I'm very upset."

"It's okay, Harry," Hermione said. "I'm very sorry. I realize now that what I did was wrong. But I am not 'ferociously attracted' to Draco!"

"Yes, you are," he insisted firmly. "but you know what. Just to show you that I am not a hypocrite I say go for it! I doubt your best friends will try to break you up!"

Hermione shot him a look. "Don't play dumb," she realized she suddenly had the upper hand, "because I know very well you tried to break Draco and me up. And that Pansy tried to set us up. And that Sally Anne Perks and Millicent Bulstrode tried to help her. And please don't even inform me of what Ron did because right now he's the only person I like."

Harry was too tired to argue with her. "I agree. Ron…he's cool stuff. He's good. He's a true friend."

"Yeah. Unlike some people!"

"Like you!" they burst out simultaneously. And then they burst out laughing.

Hermione knew at that instant that her feud with Harry was over. That was the best part about having a best friend. Sometimes, you really could forgive and forget.

"I'm sorry," she grinned, and he grinned back.

"Me too."

"From now on we'll just stay out of each other's love lives. Go have Pansy. I'm sure she's a very nice girl." It took all of Hermione's effort to not puke at the words, but she was sincere. If Harry wanted that pug-nosed-bitch-two-faced-loser-crap-girl… then he could have her.

"And you go have Malfoy," Harry returned, although he did look a little bit constipated at the words.

And so they both bolted from the common room, not quite sure if they would follow the other's advice.

A/N: I'm soo sorry it took so freakin' long but I'm so busy!! I've had tons and tons and tons of stuff to do and… I really wanted to get this out on September 12 because Delusion turned a year old that day! That's right this fic is now a little over a year old. I cannot believe it's been a year. Thanks to the reviewers who've been around since chapter 1…heck, thanks to all of you, although I guess last chapter wasn't very good because I didn't get very many reviews.

That's okay. You've got this chapter to review now. Please do. I call this Unraveling Part II cuz it delves into their friendships and stuff. The next chapter is either the last chapter or the second to last chapter I'm not sure yet. What else? Oh right, if you wanna be on the mailing list please leave your email addy. That's it, tell me what you thought!