Disclaimer: same as last chapter
Music: Dido- Life for Rent and FireLass's Girly Mix
Oh, um, in my Hogwarts all the seventh years have private rooms, because that's only fair! (so says the senior)
This story has a lot of fade-to-black, if this makes you sad, you can go somewhere else, you won't find any graphic sex (or really anything) scenes here, ya'll have healthy imaginations, if you really wanna' know, you will.
Chapter 2:
Part I:
Harry stormed into the common room, or he tried to, but it's hard to be angry when everyone cheers as you enter a room. "Nice catch, Harry", "Right in front of that bugger Malfoy's face!" and "Right on."
It was almost an hour before Harry was finally able to reach his room. He stumbled into the room, and threw himself onto his bed. "What the hell, Potter?" Harry chided himself, pulling his hands through his perpetually unruly hair.
He groaned at the knock on the door, "Harry? You okay, mate?"
"No."
"Uh… can I come in?"
"Sure." Harry said, although he rolled onto his side, his back to the door, and consequentially, Ron.
"What's up?"
"Nothing."
"Oh." Ron walked over to Harry's bed, and leaned his back against one of the end posts. "Hermione was pretty worried."
"Sorry."
"I'm sure she'll be fine. But expect an interrogation tomorrow."
Harry groaned, dreading it; and trying to think of a reasonable excuse for not talking to anyone. "I'm just not feeling well."
"That it?"
"Yes, that's it!" Harry's voice was fiercer than he had intended, but he wasn't in the mood to apologize to anyone, not even his best friend; especially when he had just found out that his best friend had neglected to tell him he was being an arse-faced weasel.
"Okay." Ron said, defensively. He sighed, and then started walking to the door, "'Night, Harry. Hope you feel better."
Harry didn't respond, he just waited for the soft 'click' of the door, and then rolled off the bed and walked to the window. He leaned on the sill, staring down at the Whomping Willow (which he always seemed to have a view of). "Fuck 'em." Harry said to no one, "It was just a freak accident. I'm sure it could happen to anyone…. Yea! That's it. It could've happened to anyone."
Harry changed into his pjs and crawled into bed, unfortunately his last thought just before he drifted into the world of dreams was, "But it didn't happen to anyone, it happened to me."
Part II:
"Mornin'"
"Harry, Ron said you were sick last night, are you feeling better?"
Harry heard her, but didn't want to answer, instead he pretended he hadn't heard her, and was busy with spreading some jam on his toast.
"Harry." Hermione said sharply, and Harry reluctantly looked up at her, "I asked you if you're feeling better."
"Better than what."
"Last night you said you weren't feeling well." Ron put in, looking confused.
"Oh, right. Yea, I'm feeling better." Out of the corner of his eye Harry saw Ron and Hermione give each other a significant glance. "I'm fine, okay!"
Hermione and Ron both looked at him questioningly, but seemed to decide that Harry was just in one of his bad moods. Harry's bad moods were something that they had (reluctantly) learned to deal with.
Harry spent most of that day pretending to be completely absorbed in classes to fend off Ron and Hermione. Although Ron and Hermione were used to Harry's frustrating mood swings, they still could not completely qualm their desire to question Harry.
"Are you sure you're okay?" Hermione asked during lunch.
"No, I'm not okay!" Harry said, throwing his fork into his uneaten lunch and storming out of the Great Hall without another word. Harry didn't notice the figure that left shortly after him.
Part III:
Harry felt something grab his collar and pull him into a small storage room. The door was closed and locked behind him; fearing the worst, Harry drew his wand.
"Calm down, Potter."
"Oh. It's you."
"You haven't told anyone about yesterday have you?"
Harry was shocked- Malfoy had brought him here for this! "Malfoy, if you think I've told someone than you're stupider than you look."
"That's not a very nice thing to say, Potter."
"I'm sorry if talking to you doesn't give me warm fuzzies all over."
"Are you sure about that, Potter?" Malfoy said, placing his hands lightly on Harry's shoulders, and whispering delicately into his ear.
Harry gasped and pushed Malfoy back. "What hell do you think you're doing!"
"Same thing you want to." Said Malfoy just before he grabbed Harry, pulled him closer and kissed him. Harry lost all control, he felt like his brain was numb, but it wasn't something he wanted to stop….
Part IV:
Harry didn't end up making it to his afternoon classes, and was a little late to dinner.
He sat down heavily and started putting heaping portions that rivaled Ron's onto his plate. As soon as he put away the last serving spoon, he dug in.
"Feeling better, then." Hermione said, without a trace of concern in her voice.
"Obviously." Ron said, anger in his tone.
"Why weren't you in classes this afternoon, Harry?"
Harry froze, swallowing his mouthful of food quickly. "Uh…"
"That's not an answer, Harry. And, considering the way you stormed out at lunch, I think we deserve a real answer."
Somehow, Harry thought that Hermione wouldn't actually want this real answer. "Sorry I was just… you know, I, um…"
Hermione and Ron groaned and spoke in unison, "who was it?"
"What?"
"You know, who was it?" Hermione said in an exasperated tone.
"It wasn't anyone."
"It never is." Hermione said, Harry noticed that Ron was concentrating awfully hard on his potatoes, obviously not wanting to get involved.
"What's that supposed to mean!" Harry growled, although he knew very well what it was supposed to mean, and that he deserved everything and anything Hermione was saying.
"You know, Harry, I haven't said anything about the way you've been acting because it never seemed to affect you negatively, but I can't just let you skive off classes. You-" Hermione stopped, and with narrowed eyes looked around her; Harry followed her gaze and saw that their conversation was anything but private, especially as some second year girls were intent on listening in. "We'll finish this later." In a lower voice, meant to not be heard by Harry, "thanks for your help, Ronald."
Part V:
After dinner our favorite trio was to be found in a side corridor, with one looking battle-ready, another looking reluctant, and the last looking like an angry parent. "Okay, Harry, who was it? Because, whoever it was, it better be someone who's worth missing classes." Harry knew perfectly well that Malfoy was not worth missing classes for… however, the satisfaction Malfoy gave him was. Not that Harry could tell Ron and Hermione either of these things, especially when Hermione had turned red with anger.
Suddenly Harry remembered why he had been angry in the first place, "You know, Hermione, maybe you could have said something before I missed classes."
"What!" Hermione's eyes blazed, "I should have said something to you to prevent you from missing classes? Harry, what do you think I am- your mother!" Hermione gasped, and covered her mouth, realizing that perhaps she hadn't said the wisest thing.
"No." Harry said, ignoring the slight pang in his heart that came from that comment. "But you two," here he looked pointedly at Ron, who looked sheepishly at him, "Are my best friends. And you should have told me I was being a prat, instead of going on as if nothing was wrong."
"What?" Ron's vocal entrance was, needless to say, less than ground-breaking.
"Harry… are you saying that you didn't realize that… that, uh…" Hermione was something she almost never was, at a loss for words.
"No, I didn't realize I was in the pants of every half-eligible girl in the whole school. It would have been nice if you two had something about it."
"But, Harry… I mean, how could you not know? I don't understand that."
"I wouldn't expect you to." Harry said coldly, sliding down onto the floor, and leaning his head against the wall. "But it's the truth."
"Sorry, mate, but that really seems off."
"I agree. But I didn't know, I was just so busy trying to forget, that I just didn't notice." Harry didn't say what he was trying to forget, just hoped they would know without him having to say it.
"Harry," Hermione's voice was full of emotion, and she sat down on his left, Ron quickly plopping himself on Harry's left. "You could have talked to us instead of turning to, well… you know…"
"Sex?" Harry said flatly, mostly just because he knew it would make Hermione uncomfortable and he was feeling vengeful. Harry smiled slightly at the fact that his companions appeared to have nothing to say to that statement.
The three of them sat in silence for a few minutes, Hermione and Ron both struggling to think of something to say; and Harry gloating because he had actually made Hermione Granger shut-up.
"Harry, I'm sorry about everything that's happened to you, but that's no excuse for just ignoring everything and… turning to- sex to solve your problems." The last part of this sentence had a distinct 'haha, I showed you, I said it!' tone to it.
"I didn't realize I was."
"Harry, er, is that possible?" Ron ventured timidly.
"Obviously it is. Look, if it makes you two feel any better, I'm pretty sure I'm just gonna' be sticking with one person…" Harry inwardly flinched slightly, knowing that the words were true, even if he resented it.
"The same person who made you miss classes today, I hope."
"It was my choice, not-" Harry realized he was about to say 'his' and stopped dead. The information that their good friend, Harry Boy-Who-Lived James Potter was at the very least bi, was not a good thing to reveal right now.
"Whose?" Hermione and Ron said in unison.
"You don't know them." Harry said, realizing that that was almost impossible, but hoping that they might buy it.
Unfortunately Hermione had been at the top of the class since 1st year for a reason, "that's highly unlikely, Harry."
"Well, maybe I want to keep my love life private." Ron snorted, and Hermione suppressed a giggle, "starting now, then." He said, smiling a bit in spite of himself. "You'll know when I'm good and ready to tell you, okay?"
"Fine." Hermione said, reluctantly.
"Sure, mate." Ron replied, genially.
"Wanna' head up to the common room then? I still haven't finished Snape's essay and it's due tomorrow."
"Harry! Honestly, when will you learn, if you just did your homework the night it was assigned then you wouldn't have these problems! Honestly!"
Hermione continued to ramble all the way to the common room, but both her companions ignored her completely.
Author's Notes:
Thank you soooo much to everyone who reviewed! It makes me so happy! I hope you liked this chapter.
Usually I don't update every day, but I had already mostly finished this one, and finished it just now (obviously), so I figured I might as well put it up.