Erised's Bane
Author's Note: Hey guys! It's me again. I'm not feeling that great today so I stayed home from school and now I am completely bored out of my mind, so I decided to be resolute and begin writing this chapter. I hope that you like the story so far, because I really think that I've done a pretty good job even though I have the tendency to make things a little confusing. I like to make things a little less...usual. It makes for variety, no? Well, anyway, here I am and here's the next chapter.
I guess, since it's finally past Christmas and the plot has taken a major turn, it is officially the second half of my story, to use a J.K. tactic. The last chapter included a complete summary of the story so far, so if you have to review then why don't you go ahead and take a peek? And with nothing left to say, enjoy the show!
Random Chapter
"So you're back, eh? Too bad, it was kind of nice having a bit of a break."
"Nice to see you too, Lord Hornswaggle." Harry said with a roll of the eyes as he entered his room. A quick look around confirmed that everything was as he had left it, and despite the fact that the action seemed slightly paranoid he was still relieved. He tossed his trunk on the floor beside his bed and left just as quickly as he had come, joining the rush to go down to the great hall.
"Did you have a nice Christmas Harry?" He turned to see Hermione rush up, grinning broadly. She hugged him tightly, kissing him on the cheek as she fell in step beside him on their way to the hall.
"It was nice. Of course, anytime you're with the Weasley family you're guaranteed to have a good time. It was too bad that you couldn't make it."
He noticed a slight blush on Hermione's cheeks. "Well...yes. That was too bad, but you know how these things go."
"So...did you visit Dean?" He felt her stiffen underneath the arm he had swung around her shoulder and her step faltered. The both of them stopped in the middle of the hallway as people walked around them, and Harry turned to look at Hermione.
"We...we sort of broke things off. We just weren't compatible." Seeing that she looked uneasy, but not upset by the matter, he furrowed his brow.
"I never really thought so, but then again I didn't think anything was ever really serious between you two."
"Well...it wasn't, not really. Not like you and Susan anyway. But I really did kind of hope it would work. It's not like I don't like him...he's a really nice guy, but..."
"But he's not you're type." Harry said, to complete the thought.
"How did you become the expert in relationships?" Hermione said, just a little shakily. They began walking again and Harry let out a sigh. "You're right, you know, he isn't my type. I just don't know what my type is yet. Everybody thinks I like you, you know."
Harry felt his cheeks go red. "Well...we're really good friends. We aren't...we aren't like that."
Hermione laughed, realizing that she had just made Harry falter to the point that he couldn't even talk straight. "Of course not, and you and I both know that. I really wish I did like you. Then things...things might not be so difficult."
Harry thought back to the exchange he had heard between Ron and Hermione and he shook his head. "Come on." He said suddenly, opening the door to a nearby classroom. He pulled her in and closed the door behind them. "Listen, I heard what Ron said to you before break. I'm sorry," he said quickly, as he saw the stricken look on her face, "I wasn't eavesdropping, but I didn't want to make matters worse by revealing myself when you and Ron had just had such a...such a row."
"I'm sorry you had to hear that." She whispered. "It's one of the reasons I didn't want anything to happen with Ron. We're your friends, right now you need us more than we need each other."
"But you like him, don't you?" Harry said softly.
He looked at Hermione and she looked away, out the window. Finally, she nodded.
"Then why don't you tell him instead of me?"
"I'm supposed to be helping you with this." Hermione said with a choked little laugh. "What's made you come around this way?"
Harry took a deep breath. "I learned over the holiday that keeping secrets from people isn't the way to protect them." He said quietly. "And I also learned that just because somebody is connected to you doesn't mean they care."
Hermione frowned. "This isn't about me and Ron anymore, is it?"
It was now Harry's turn to sigh. "No, it isn't. It's about Young."
"Professor Young?" Hermione said, her voice a marker of her confusion. "What about her?"
"She's my godmother." The truth slipped easily and he didn't regret telling Hermione, even though he now felt as almost a coconspirator...after all, Ron still didn't know about Young or even the prophecy.
"Your godmother?" Hermione said, eyes getting wide.
"Yeah." Harry sighed. "It doesn't change anything though. Remus was telling me about her. There was something he said...that I could trust her to tell me the truth, but not to die for me. She isn't Sirius."
"Would you want her to be?" Hermione said simply. Harry thought long and hard, and finally shook his head.
"No. But she could have been here before now. I know it's wrong, and I feel guilty, but I can't understand why my mother would choose somebody like that for me. My mum loved me, didn't she? Wouldn't she have wanted somebody who would love me to take her place if anything happened?"
"Maybe that isn't it." Hermione said rationally.
"Then what do you think."
"Well..." Hermione sighed. "Maybe it isn't that way. Maybe it's the other way around."
"What do you mean by that?"
"Maybe she didn't want Young to teach you. Maybe she wanted you to teach Young."
Harry thought long and hard, and a little bit of the weight of this, the most recent of revelations, was lifted from his shoulders. "Maybe." He repeated. "Maybe."
"Well, it looks like we helped each other tonight." Hermione said with a small smile, opening the classroom door and stepping out.
"Are you going to tell Ron?"
"Tell me what?"
The both of them paused and turned, seeing Ron standing there. A sullen look crossed over his face and the ease that he had been at with Harry all vacation seemed to melt away. "Tell me what?" he said again, looking at the two of them with perhaps the most intense expression Harry had ever seen in his eyes.
"It's...nothing." Harry said falteringly, when it didn't look like Hermione was going to speak.
"Nothing, right?" Ron said, his voice slightly louder. "Hermione, I'm tired of being lied to. If you want him instead of me, why don't you just say it? You can stop it with the owls and the apologies, and saying that I'll eventually understand. I just want the truth, damn it!"
"Will you stop it, Ron? Do we have to talk about this right now?" she said, gesturing to the people who were standing around staring at the three of them. "We're not exactly alone."
"Let them hear it!" he said angrily. "They already know something is going on, anyway. Will you just tell me the truth? Don't I deserve that?"
"I wish I could tell you what you deserve, you brute!" she said angrily. "Where do you get off thinking you can control me like that? I don't belong to you! I'm my own person!"
"That's right, you don't belong to me." Ron said. Harry cringed...he was now right on the point of shouting, and by the looks of things a teacher was going to be along at any moment. "You belong to him, don't you? You can at least tell him the truth, instead of clinging on while he's already got another girl!"
"That's ridiculous!" she said hotly. "Harry is my best friend!"
"But that doesn't keep you from wanting more, does it?"
"SHOVE IT RON!" Harry roared. All sound in the hall came to a complete hall and everybody turned to him. "Don't you get it? She doesn't want me! She wants you, you idiot!"
Ron's mouth fell open and he spun on his heel to gape at Hermione, whose eyes began to fill with tears. "You...you..." She began to run and Ron put a hand on her shoulder. She threw it off and broke through the edge of the crowd, turning one last time to stare hard at Harry.
"I thought you understood! You've ruined everything, Harry! I haven't told any of your secrets have I? You're just as much of a beast as your bloody friend there!" Harry was aghast as Hermione took off.
"What did I do?" he wondered.
"You broke her schedule." Said a cold voice behind him. He turned and Susan was standing there, a sad look in her eyes.
"What?" he said, in anger and confusion.
"Harry, you can't just do something like that. Girls have a way with things."
"It's my fault." Ron said. "So don't blame him. Harry...I mean, I didn't really think you and Hermione..."
"I know you didn't think that." Harry said. "But I also know what a temper the both of us have. I really wish I hadn't said that about Hermione..."
"Is it true?" Ron asked.
Harry turned to Susan, and she rolled her eyes. "Go ahead and tell him, you've dug a hole this deep, you might as well toss yourself in."
"Then yes, she told me so herself. Ron, I don't know how the heck you're going to get this to work out."
And something totally unexpected happened. "Neither do I. But it better work out."
"Looks like we have a challenge." Susan grinned. "I'll get Ginny, we'll cook something up."
Harry and Ron exchanged a glance. "Why do I get the feeling that I'm about to be the victim in all of this?" Ron moaned.
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The process of making Ron appealing to Hermione got his mind off of his own situation for a little while.
It took some brainstorming, and to the surprise of Harry, Susan, and Ginny, it was Ron who had the idea. A picnic, on the lake.
Of course, if it hadn't been for the girls all it would have amounted to would have been a blanket and sandwiches nicked from the kitchen, all in the dead of winter.
"Okay, we have to have some candles." Ginny said thoughtfully. "Some of those long nonmelting candles that put off a lot of heat. I don't know where to get them, though."
"One of the girls in my year has some I can borrow. They're yellow, for Hufflepuff, but you can always do a charm on them to turn their color for a little while."
"Okay, good." Said Ginny with a little nod.
"Harry? Do you think you can get the house elves to make a little something special for the picnic? I mean, they all seem to like you a lot...especially that Dobby one..." Susan asked.
"I can do that." He said, looking with a grin at Ron, who despite himself was looking positively terrified.
"You know, maybe I should just wait a little while. Maybe Hermione will just come around..."
Both Susan and Ginny rolled their eyes. "And to think I ever wondered how you could have mangled things so badly." Ginny said in annoyance. "Ron, Hermione is a girl, despite the idiotic way you have treated her. So, you have to treat her like one, and that means romance."
"I haven't seen Harry romancing Susan." Ron said.
"What do you call this?" Susan said, jingling her bracelet. "He's a sweetheart."
"Okay, you're going to scare him with the mush." Said Ginny, making Harry grin through his blush.
Eventually they came up with a nice dinner, including some of the foods that Harry and Ron remembered to be Hermione's favorite, a blanket by the lake, and candles. Harry made sure that Ron dressed in his nicer clothes, including the dress robes that Fred and George had bought him, and finally they were all ready. There was only one thing left to do.
"What are you kids doin' here?" asked Hagrid. "A bit late fer a visit."
"Not now, Hagrid." Harry said quickly. "How would you like to take part in a little scheme we've put together."
Hagrid squinted. "A scheme, eh? Now I ain't surpised, but why're you comin' to me?"
"It's about Herimione." Said Ginny, grinning madly.
"And what'd that be?"
"We're trying to get her to forgive Harrry and Ron for their stupidity, and in the process get her to agree that Ron isn't that much of an idiot that he wouldn't make a good boyfriend."
"Way to support me, dear sister." Ron said in annoyance, tugging nervously at the robes.
Hagrid began laughing loudly. "Oh, so that's what this is about, eh? I'd be pleased ter help yeh. What d'ya need me ter do?"
They told him their plan and only a half-hour later, right as the clock struck nine o'clock, Harry was walking with Hermione down the hall. Knowing that she hadn't had any dinner, and knowing her mood, and counting on Ginny to drive her out of her dorm, he was waiting when she entered the commons room.
"Hermione, can we talk?" he said.
She looked at him, and he was hit hard in the chest by the sad look on her face. "I guess so." She followed him from the tower and they were silent for a moment. "I'm sorry I acted the way I did. It was just sudden. It isn't the way I wanted things to be. Ron isn't the type of boy I wanted to like."
Uncomfortably, Harry straightened his collar. "Uhm...I guess not. But..."
"Harry! Hermione, come quick!"
They both looked up and saw Hagrid coming down the hall at a quick pace.
"What is it, Hagrid?" Hermione asked suddenly.
"Erm...what...oh! It's them serpents, I needed yer help. One of em's gotten out of the bunch, he might be turned bad. I was thinking Harry could search em' out, talk to em. And I could always use an extra pair of eyes."
"Of course we'll help, Hagrid." Said Hermione, in what Harry knew to be her comforting tone.
They followed him out of the castle but of course their reasons for getting her out there were more apparent when she saw Ron standing awkwardly by the late-night picnic dinner. "What's this?" she said.
"Go to him." Harry said simply, as Ginny and Susan appeared behind him.
She looked at Ron and reached out for a moment to squeeze Harry's hand. "Thank you." She whispered. Then she made her way to the picnic and, to Ron's pure and utter shock and disbelief, she threw her arms around him and kissed him soundly.
"I'll stay and keep an eye out." Hagrid said. "That way they've got permission to be on the grounds. But the rest of yeh don'." He said, pointedly looking at Harry, Ginny, and Susan.
"We get the piont." Ginny said. "Night."
"Night." Harry and Susan said. They went into the castle and Ginny broke off from them, leaving the couple alone in the hall.
"Well..." Harry began.
"I think it was really good of you, Harry. To do that for them."
"I didn't do anything." He said in shock.
"You were there for your friends today." She said. "That's why you're such a good person." She closed her eyes and kissed him, making Harry feel weak at the knees. "That's why I love you."
His eyes flew open and he jerked back, looking deep into her eyes. She loved him. She loved him? His girlfriend had just told him that. Nobody had ever said they loved him before. It was then that he said something he would remember for the rest of his life.
"Thanks."
It was precisely at this moment that Harry realized he was truly an idiot when it came to matters of the heart.
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