SKEETER BASHING! YAY! AND MUCH, MUCH, MORE!

Heart wrenching chaper

I have now lost this damn chapter FIVE times... damn computers... I first typed it and had it complete in the wee hours of Tuesday. Now it's Wednesday night, and I'm in the library... hell if I could live here, I would.

YAY! I have my english and anthropology papers done for Thursday.

Chapter Nineteen... Death?

One morning, about a week later, "Patrick, how would you like to have dinner at Ron's? You can meet Luna, his significant other."

"She's nothing like his family... is she?" He asked worridly, but with a glint of happiness in his 'blue' eyes.

(that is not a typo... remember... just think Dan Radcliffe without them trying to mask his eye color in the movies... wait they don't anyway do they? and without the Harry glasses)

"Oh no, not a thing like that... though I'd never seen them like that though... I'd never seen them like that before."

"Who has!" Ron said from behind them, "The way my Mother and Brothers were acting was ridiculous and uncalled for. I'm sorry about that again, Hermione and Patrick."

"Ron, you've already apologized, don't worry about it. I have one question though... What's up with Ginny... Did she even talk the entire day?"

"Oh, you mean the hair style. She shaved her head for the play she's in. Gin's an actress."

"Ah, so that explains, that wasn't the fifth brother... or wait a minute... you only have four brothers... right?" Harry feigned confusion.

"No, I have five brothers, and one sister. Though we don't speak to my third eldest brother. He turned his back on the family!"

"Ah, I understand, though I have no siblings," Harry replied in his Patrick accent.

"Both of you were the only child, weren't you?"

"Yeah, we were," Hermione answered.

"So was Luna," Ron smiled.

"Will Eddie be one as well?"

"I don't know. He's still little, we haven't decided. We don't want too many kids. What about the two of you? Have you thought that far ahead, yet?"

"Ron! We haven't even been together forSIX months yet!" Hermione reasoned.

"August will be the sixth month," Harry added, in an Irish accent, "And we really need to put that signal back up."

"What signal?" Ron asked.

"The one which says your apparating in," Hermione replied.

"Ah. Do I pop in too much, is that what your trying to say? Excuse me for liking to visit my best friend."

"No Ron, it's not that... it's just nice to have the warning... just in case we're in a comprimising position."

"Ah! Oh, right, I'm so sorry. I completly understand there, sorry Hermione, Patrick. I hated when my Mother would pop into Luna and my flat, after we moved in together. That was wretched."

"I can imagine," Harry said, shuddering at the thought of Mrs. Weasley popping in and out.

"Will you accepct the invitation to dinner?" Ron asked.

"Yes, Ron, of course we accepct," Hermione replied, "Is Luna back yet?"

"She returns tomorrow. How about dinner next week?"

Sounds good."

"Excellent! Well, I have to go, practice awaits. Good bye."

"Bye." Ron apparated away.

"Where has Luna, been?" Harry inquired.

"Scandanavia, looking for the elusive Snorkrack. She's been away since May."

"Really, wow, that's a long time."

"Yeah, Ron really misses her. He was dreadful before Eddie, or so I've been informed by Neville, when she was away."

"Neville?"

"Yeah, an old friend from school."

"Will he be at the Reunion, next month?"

"I assume so."

"Then I look forward to meeting him and other former schoolmates of yours."

"Wonderful, agh!"

"Hmm?"

"Oh, nothing, let me just say... we may be the interest of the party."

"Oh, I bet, especially considering..."

"Lavender, Hannah Abbot, Parvati... shall I go on?"

"Please no."

"Good. Just think, nothing could be as bad as fourth and fifth year gossip wise... Well, except for sixth and seventh."

"Harry laughed, "I wouldn't know, would I..." He winked.

"Of course not."

"What kind of gossip was going on? Did it involve you?"

"Sometimes, and Harry."

"And Viktor, his last year."

"Yes, thanks to..."

"Rita Skeeter, despicable woman!"

"But we got her."

"Who?" Harry asked.

"Well. I did... I know her secret... we got her... well for a year, she agreed to.."

"Not print despicable, nasty, untrue stories?"

"Exactly. And after that year was up.."

"She went back to her ways."

IMPORTANT... THIS NEXT PART IS IMPORTANT!

"I need to go... get the laundry."

"I'll help you," He answered immediately.

After they were locked into the room which was formally Hermione's safe room, Harry said, "You know, with the amount of time the two of us spend doing "laundry" people may think we're nuts."

"I know... but what other excuse is there for coming down here to the basement?"

" know what... if we put in a pool or billiards table... or a dart board?"

"Then we'd have to be playing one of the games."

"Right... well... uh... I don't know."

"Neither do I."

Silence for a few moments before Hermione let out their duel sentiments, "I wish I could talk to YOU! YOU ALL THE TIME!"

"I wish I could too, without being here, in the basement. How stupid am I to think... escaping prison was a good idea, and still have a normal life afterwards. I'm such an idiot. Stupid! Stupid! I should have left for mainland Europe, or the states, or Asia! But I don't know anywhere else. I'm such an inconsiderate Bastard! Making you go through this. It would have been better... better if you hadn't known I'd escaped... if I'd just let them think I'd died, which they think anyway and vanished from those who were my friends. Emerged as a different person... my former friends knowing nothing about. Patrick needs to die, if only for you to be able to live your own life with whomever you please, and not worry about your old friend who is officially dead. There's so much I want to tell you, but it will muss things up even more. Should Patrick's death be staged and when?"

(This is where I was originally intending to leave you... but.. I couldn't. I hate cliffhangers).

"NOOO! HARRY. NO. I CAN'T lose you again. I can't lose my best friend.. I can't," She replied pleading with her best friend, "Just stay as Patrick till the end of the year. If we don't figure something out... Patrick can disappear... but even if I have to change my name, marry you and leave the country. I'd do it, I don't want to lose you again. I like having you in my life."

"So do I. But, I can't let you do that, mess up your life for my sake. I know eventually you'll leave too, like everybody else. Remember, in my own way, I left too," Harry replied too calmly, before breaking into tears.

end of extremly impt. sectionWas going to end the chapter there as well, but I didn't leave the hanger...

"Harry, your forgetting something... or rather someone. I'm the only one who really left. You went to Auror training. Me, I really had no intention to stay. When I came back, last year... but seeing you and Ron again. You. The both of you, changed my mind."

"He's the only one who didn't leave. I thought a job as as Auror would help me avoid life... but I messed up that plan of avoidence."

"You sure did! Did send your plan of avoidence into disorder, didn't you?"

"I did, in the same way I seem to take all challenges! By fucking up first of all!"

"You didn't mess up the D.A."

"I didn't did I?"

"Not at all. You taught admiringly. And why is that, because it was something important to you, you knew the subject matter."

"But I only survived Voldemort because of luck and the help of others along the way!"

"Your always putting yourself down, aren't you, Harry, can never take the credit you deserve, can you? You passed all of your N.E.W.T.S without me looking over your shoulder, didn't you?"

He was silent.

"Didn't you?" She repeated.

"Yeah, but that's only because I had a purpose after fifth year."

"You did and you worked your arse off, didn't you?"

"Yeah, I did. I coasted along with Ron off of your coattails the first five years, much, the majority of the time. But I didn't pass all of my O.W.L.S."

"Harry, honestly, who passed Astronomy! Name one person, any. None of us passed that one, not even the Slytherins, whom hated McGonagall and Hagrid."

"I didn't pass History of Magic, either!"

"I know, because of Vodemort in your head, right? Ron didn't pass that one either, remember?"

"Yeah, besides I wouldn't have passed anyway... and how did you know?"

"Honestly, Harry, you were under seige by Voldemort for the majority of the year... weren't you?"

He looked at her shocked, but not surprised she had figured it out, "I was, though I hadn't known it was him... the whole time."

"You didn't practice your Occulmency, did you."

"No, but after Sirius, I did. I didn't want to kill anyone else, I loved."

"Wait a minute. How did you kill him? Harry, Lestrange did, not you!"

"You weren't there!"

"Neville was, and Tonks and Remus, and shall I go on?"

"No," he replied sullenly.

"I can't believe I never bloody saw this before! You've been blaming yourself for his death all this time. I've been so blind! No wonder, it always seems as if something is eating away at you. Who else's deaths' are you pinning on yourself? Cedric Diggory's, Susan Bones? That would explain why Terry Boot hates you, he blames you for her death, just like you blame yourself. I'm sorry to say this so coldly, because she was such a nice, good person, but she got caught in the backfire."

"It's because of I ducked! I ducked Voldemort's killing curse and she got hit from behind!"

"Harry, we all knew the risks, she was dueling a deatheater. How do you really know, it was Voldemort's curse and not, whomever she was fighting?"

"I don't know, OKAY!"

"But that's what you've been told, right?" He nodded. "You can't know, Harry. You can't know who died because of whom! There isn't a wizarding world video camera to playback. We all lost friends in that battle, Harry, you know it. That was part of the risk of fighting for and with you. To give you a chance! To let us all live in a Voldemort free world. Not everyone can live forever, Harry, you know that... well, that's not entirely true, if you have the philosopher's stone and the elixer of life, you could, but who really wants to live forever."

That is the end of the chapter... the next one is fun... no idea when it'll be up... I really like this chapter... it's kinda how I feel right now... depressed and all... I'm having writers block.. well not neccesarily, more like I don't have the energy to put the thoughts on paper in chapter 23, which thus far has 9 pages and isn't close to being compleated if I get everything I want to get in... may be a 15 to 20 pager... and I was going for 10, this is all handwritten numbers... I mean.

My only bright spot in my sullen life is I got the cd's I ordered YAY! The Clash, Sex Pistols, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, Springsteen, Rickie Lee Jones and The Barenaked Ladies... I've only listened to part of or all of 3 of them... so far... but hopefully the music'll help me get in the mood to write some... I've had an extremely hectic week... not much sleep, and I've spent more time at places besides the place I live then there this week... I've been in the undergrad library the majority of my time out of class... I'm sick of this place! I'm sick of a lot of things...

Well hope you all enjoyed this... and please REVIEW! MAKE ME CHEERFUL WITH A REVIEW... GOOD OR BAD, I DON'T REALLY GIVE A FUCK!