Disclaimer: Nothing mine, blah, blah, blah....
Author note: I am REALLY REALLY REALLY very sorry for not updating sooner. I had some sort of block and just couldn't make myself write anything. Anyway, I'm over it now, so I shall start up updating regularly again, hopefully. Once again – I'm sorry.
Now, one thing I wanted to say – I'm very grateful for any suggestions I receive concerning this fanfiction, but I have plot already planned, at least most of it. So, it's rather improbable that I will actually use any of your ideas. I hope no one feels offended by that.
Anyway – thank you very much for ALL the reviews and comments – they are just priceless to me:)
Author note 2:Chapter edited, thanks to Aln-Mai:)
Chapter 14
Hermione was in a rather bad mood when she came back from the detention. First Ron and then Sirius—honestly, what a terrible day!
She sunk into the soft armchair next to Lily Evans and closed her eyes, sighing deeply.
After her refusal to flirt with Sirius, the handsome Marauder had started to ignore her and only looked at her very coldly from time to time. The rest of the detention—more than two hours—passed in some sort of tension. Lindberg, oblivious to anything going on, simply kept them there until he had finished checking whatever he was checking.
Hermione tried to write her Transfiguration essay, but she couldn't concentrate, and when she was finally free to go, she felt exhausted as if she just had a very tiring Potions class with Snape.
Sirius didn't say a word to her and rushed out of the office, not bothering with letting her through the door first, his gentleman-like manners gone. Somehow, it left Hermione disturbed.
Since she was a child, she had always dealt with confusing or difficult situations in one way—she tried to calm down and think about everything with a cool head. After analyzing different aspects of the problem she chose the best course of action. This system made her feel confident that she was doing the best thing.
Obviously, this sort of system could only work for a well-organized and strong-willed person. Hermione stuck to her decisions, very rarely changing her mind and never without a good reason. She was proud of this even more than of her academic achievements.
Some serious thinking—that was exactly what she needed to do now to sort out her feelings.
She was staring into the fire, immersed in her thoughts, when she felt a gentle touch on her shoulder. She turned and saw that Lily had moved next to her with a friendly smile.
"What's wrong, Hermione?"
"Oh—nothing..." Hermione whispered more to herself than to Lily, because really, nothing had happened—or had it?
Lily just smiled at.
"Sure! And sulking like that is your way of showing cheerfulness?"
Hermione raised her eyes to look at her friend and started to describe everything that had happened that day—the conversation with Ron (although she left out some of the important details) and everything that had happened during the detention. When she was finished, Lily stared at her for a moment, incredulous, and then she burst into fits of laughter.
"But that—that's just priceless. The biggest prat of Hogwarts is finally getting what he deserves! Priceless! I can't believe it!" She paused for a moment and noticed Hermione's half hurt, half-amused expression. "Hermione, I can't believe it bothers you! I mean—what do you care?"
It took a while for the words to sink in, but when they did, Hermione just stared at girl in front of her in wonder. Indeed, what did she care?
Lily didn't wait for an answer. Instead, she continued to talk merrily.
"And Ron? OK, so he said something that hurt you, but that's not a problem. I'm sure he didn't mean that—I think he's just jealous…"
Jealous? What?
Suddenly an awful thought struck Hermione. What if Ron—liked her? What if he really was jealous? It would be perfect explanation for his behavior, both now and in their fourth year, when there was that whole thing with Victor Krum. Hermione didn't like the thought one bit. For her, Ron was a best friend—a brother—and idea of dating him seemed—well, wrong.
Hermione shook her head in defiance as a lump grew in her throat. She wasn't overly emotional, but the fear of losing her best friend because of his infatuation was just too much to take. No! She would not let this happen. She looked at Lily, suddenly terrified.
"Do you really think so?" she asked in a small voice.
Lily noticed that her words, which were supposed to soothe her friend, actually had the opposite effect—but Lily never lied, so she only nodded her head.
"Is that so bad? I mean, he's not really your brother and he's a nice guy…" she trailed off, when she noticed tears in Hermione's eyes.
"Hermione? Tell me, what's wrong?"
Hermione closed her eyes and took few deep breaths to calm down and then started to explain.
"Lily—I—I have never thought about Ron that way—I mean, he's not my brother, but he's LIKE a brother to me. He's my best friend and if he likes me—likes me the way that makes him jealous of other boys, then—it will destroy our friendship…" She paused.
Lily sobered immediately. She was in extraordinarily good mood this evening, but obviously Hermione wasn't. She could see clearly that the girl needed some comforting or even some way of solving the problem.
"You know, Hermione…" she spoke softly, choosing her words carefully. "If it bothers you this much, then maybe you should talk with Ron about it…"
Hermione only shook her head. "You don't know him, Lily. You don't know him as well as I do. He would not admit his feelings openly, even if his life depended on it. He—we already quarreled in the past—once he thought that my cat killed his rat and he refused to talk with me for more than a month. Or when Harry…" she stopped as she realized that she was about to say, "When Harry got into Triwizard Tournament." Of course, she couldn't say anything about that.
"What?" Lily asked.
"Sorry, Lily—it's just—Ron will not talk about it openly. He'll say that I'm imagining things or something like that—and he might be right, you know? I might be imagining things! After all, apart from his reaction to Sirius, I have no reason to think that he likes me…"
Lily gazed pensively into the fire for a long while. Finally, she turned to Hermione again.
"You know, maybe you should try to show Ron that you aren't interested in him. You know, so that he would know about it without having to admit anything. He'll be able to sort things out by himself."
"I was thinking about something like that," Hermione replied slowly. "Only I don't know how to do it! Or, to be more precise, how to do it without pushing him away and destroying our friendship anyway…"
"I have an idea—but I'm not sure if you'll like it—the easiest way would be if some other guy…"
Hermione's head jerked up.
"What do you mean?"
"Oh, you know—if Ron saw that you were interested in someone else, then it would be rather obvious that you aren't interested in him, wouldn't it? And you've got Sirius interested in you. It's not like he's in love or something. He's not capable of it, anyway—it's just his ego that needs to be boosted every two weeks with a new conquest. It wouldn't hurt him or anything. Unless, of course, there's somebody else you like…"
To be honest, Hermione didn't like the idea too much. Somehow, using another person to solve some problems felt wrong to her. But then, Sirius used girls for nothing more than his own pleasure and dumped them as soon as he got bored. Doing something similar to him would be rather—educational for the handsome boy—even if a little cruel as well. Or was it? As far as Hermione could tell, she was nothing more than another trophy-girl Sirius was trying to get—it wasn't as if she would really hurt his feelings, anyway.
Hermione smiled inwardly to herself as she waved away her doubts about the whole plan. It solved both of her problems perfectly—Ron would know that they couldn't be anything more than friends and Sirius would lose his interest in her—after all, he always did, after a week or two with his actual girlfriend. And to be honest, Hermione wouldn't mind dating him for some time. After all, she was fifteen years old, and it was very natural for her to start spending more time with boys, wasn't it?
Hermione turned to Lily and smiled with her most mischievous smile.
The two girls spent the rest of the evening chatting and giggling madly together.
James woke up Saturday morning in a foul mood. It was raining outside, which meant that their Quidditch practice was not going to be very nice today. But that wasn't the biggest of his problems.
There was the Wednesday attack. He had planned to investigate it with Sirius, but had done nothing about it so far. To be honest, there wasn't much that could be done. They needed some way to learn how the Slytherins were connected to the attacks, but that was easier said than done. And with Sirius busy with the Bradley girl, he was more or less left on his own.
Apart from the Slytherins and their devious ways, there was also his crush on Lily. He was still angry with her for defending that weakling, Harry Bradley—for choosing that worthless boy over him, but not quite as angry as he was before. He had to admit that not talking to Lily wasn't going to help him. No matter what happened, no matter what she did—for James, she was the only one. The most important person in the world. He had to find the way to change her view of him.
James lay lazily in his bed, not eager to get up just yet. Suddenly, a movement outside caught his eye. He raised his head, but the view was blurred because of the rain. He got up and glued his nose to the window, trying to see something.
And than he knew—it was the mysterious flier, the one they had seen the other morning. He observed him quietly for a short while—then a movement behind him caught his attention. He turned and saw Sirius stretching and yawning in the bed next to his own.
"What's up, Prongs?" he asked, or rather, mumbled.
"Look outside, Padfoot…"
Sirius looked and moaned.
"Bloody rain—why does it always rain on Saturday, James?"
"That's not what I mean. Look!" James pointed at the lonely and barely visible figure up in the sky. Sirius stared at the dangerous maneuvers and loops done at an incredible speed, and then turned to James, a mischievous sparkle in his eye.
James understood his best friend intentions without a word, but shook his head and waved his hand in the direction of beds belonging to Bradley brothers. Sirius nodded with understanding. They didn't need the two boys, whom they didn't get along with, to know about their pranks. What if they told a teacher about it? Sirius sighed when he remembered how fitting it was to have a dormitory only to themselves.
Both boys changed as quietly as they could and left the room. They had to find out who the flier was—and prank him, if he turned out to be a Slytherin. They reached the common room and were about to go out through the portrait hole when James, who was leading the way, stopped abruptly. Sirius bumped into him and was about to curse loudly when he noticed what had made James stop.
It was two girls, curled up next to each other on the sofa and sound asleep.
Lily snored slightly and her chest rose and fell rhythmically. She was smiling dreamily, her hair a mess with many strands coming out of the braid she had worn yesterday.
Hermione, on the other hand, was not smiling. She lay motionless, her body tense, as if she were anticipating something horrible. Suddenly she shouted, "No! Stop! Harry! Voldemort is trying to lure you! Can't you see? We will all die!" She did not wake up, but she started to sob in a heart-breaking way.
Sirius fought a sudden urge to wake her up from the nightmare and comfort her. Instead, he turned away and headed to the portrait hole.
"Come on, Prongs!" he urged his friend, still staring at Lily, as if in a daze. "Let's not waste time."
James raised his eyebrows in surprise, but followed Sirius to the exit, casting one longing glance in the direction of sleeping girls.
"What was that about? I thought you would be happy to see Bradley asleep sweetly like that, Padfoot. Aren't you guys together? Or soon-to-be together?"
"No," answered Sirius shortly. "No, we're not."
James tried to understand what he had just heard. Sirius was giving up on a girl? That was unheard of!
"But I thought…" he started, but Sirius interjected angrily.
"You though wrong, OK? So let's get over it and do what we want to do! Prank the flier, drown Snivellus in Moaning Myrtle's toilet, interrogate my brother or something and just stop talking about girls—they're just pain in the arse!"
James chuckled at that, secretly thinking the exact same thing as Lily; Sirius was finally getting what he deserved.
They were outside in the pouring rain soon enough. For a moment, they couldn't see the mysterious flier, but then James shouted, "There! Above the forest!"
Indeed, there was lonely figure visible up there, probably with his or her back turned on them. James and Sirius waited; they couldn't see the person's face from so far away. And then, to their utmost surprise, the mysterious flier just headed into the forest and disappeared from their view completely.
Sirius spoke after a moment of silence.
"Pity we don't have the Map anymore…"
"Pity," James agreed, and two boys turned, heading back into the castle.
