Contemplating Confusion

by ©SimbiAni™ and SweetieK

Summary: A joint effort between two dream-dazed fans, one who cant get enough sappiness, and one who has a tendency to surround herself in drama. In this episode of our adventures, Hermione realizes she has a crush on both Ron and Harry. How will she come to terms with this new issue, and who will she choose? No specific year, and complete AU.

Warnings: This fic is not to be taken seriously. It is the result of a non-HP-writing fan (well, who admittedly dreams HP though) reluctantly bribed into RP-ing HP with a drama princess. Although this has been edited to fic form (meaning, minus all the zany chat inbetween each other's posts), you must still expect to encounter lots of randomness, sillyness, grammatical errors, repetitiveness, loss of sense of time, probly OoC-ness too, and extreme lack of plot. Once more, this fic is here purely for your amusement. You have been warned. Enjoy! Hopefully it brings a smile to your face, hehehe...

Chapter Four:

Fleeing Feelings

Once they got into town, the trio headed for the sweetshop, then sat together in the pub.

Ron was munching on candy Harry had bought, and Harry was sipping a halfpint of butterbeer. They watched Hermione sitting across from them.

Hermione sipped her butterbeer occasionally, her jacket in her lap again. She had only brought it in case of the wind, but so far it was pretty warm out.

Harry finally sighed loudly. "Alright, 'Mione, spill it. What is on your mind that's been bugging you for so long now, that you're becoming so uncharacteristically reckless lately?"

Ron sat up, and looked at Hermione expectantly too.

Hermione jumped at the question. "Voldemort's whereabouts, if you must know," she lied, looking at them. 'I am a great liar,' she thought thankfully.

Ron raised an eyebrow. "Riight..." and Harry fidgeted.

Hermione rolled her eyes and didn't reply until about five minutes after. "I've also been thinking about Sirius. From my reading before, I've read a lot about veils and I highly doubt he's dead," Well.. this was kinda true. She had been thinking about that. Before she found out she liked both of her best friends!

Harry nodded. "Now we know something is bothering you- 'cuz we already discussed that thoroughly a few months ago. Don't you remember?"

Ron nodded in agreement.

Hermione stuttered quickly. "Well, there's more. There's a possibility that the veil transported him to somewhere. But we can't discuss it here. There could be Death Eater's sons," she said, indicating Malfoy who just sat down nearby with a butterbeer of his own.

Ron shrugged. "Please, Malfoy is way too wary of us to try anything now that he knows you're not afraid to stand up to him. And if you won't discuss it here, then let's go somewhere else so we can finally talk this out. Right, Harry?"

Harry nodded, still looking Malfoy's direction.

Hermione nodded and stood up, throwing her jacket over her shoulder. She walked outside, not waiting for Harry and Ron. She sat down on a nearby bench.

Harry looked at Ron. "Where's she going now?"

Ron shrugged.

They got up to follow her, noticing Malfoy now glaring at them though he kept his head down. When they had to pass him, Ron made a move as if to strike him, and Harry chuckled as Malfoy ducked.

They found Hermione on a bench outside.

"Okay, 'Mione," Harry began, "Where are we heading?"

Ron nodded. "Yea, where could we talk so secretly...? hehehe..."

"Right here, now that we're away from Malfoy. Sirius could have been transported to.. this is going to sound extremely odd... but Paradise!"

This time it was Harry's turn to do the eyebrow thing. "Miiiiione..." he whined. "Where's your sense of reality gone? That certainly is odd, but even if it were true, Dumbledore would have already discovered it and figured out everything about it. That is not your issue and you know it. If you don't tell us right now, we-" he stuttered. "We wont speak to you for the rest of- of-"

Ron jumped in. "The whole year." he gave a charming smile. "Is that what you want?"

Hermione crossed her arms and got up. She grabbed her jacket. "Fine. You don't have to believe the truth," she turned and walked back towards the school... slowly.

"Truth? You're just throwing speculations out!" Ron exclaimed.

Harry followed after he and grabbed ahold of her hand. "We're just concerned about you... you know... how can we help you if you don't talk to us?"

"I was telling the truth, but you're right. There is another issue but that's completely different.. and I can handle it," she replied, turning and looking at him.

Ron snickered. "Typical Hermione, thinking she can handle everything on her own!" he then took hold of her shoulder and made her look him in the eyes, then spoke in a soft voice. "Just tell us..."

Harry still held her hand.

She bit her lip, looking at them, then turned, slipping away from their grip, and left, going towards Hogwarts again.

Ron tried not to, but he got flustered and fumed. "She's just impossible!"

Harry looked from Ron to Hermione's running away form, and felt lost. How can you choose which friend to try to comfort? Not to mention when he might possibly be falling for one of them... and he already had plenty enough to deal with as it was. As if by total coincidence, one thought flitted lingeringly across his mind at that moment... What if that was her issue? What if she had realized she was falling for one of them? Goodness, that couldn't be it, could it?

Harry grabbed ahold of still-ranting Ron and whispered to him, "I think I know what's wrong with her..." Even if he was still trying to figure his own feelings for her, it was still seemed necessary to discuss the what-ifs with Ron, and altho its not like it hadn't crossed their minds before, they had never really discussed the possibilities, and with 'Mione's suspicious behavior lately, what better time than now?

RP Disclaimer: Hermione is all SweetieK. Harry and Ron though, are SimbiAni's sappy expressions. Other chars' usage are varied, depending on whose RP turn it was, hehe.

Movie/Book Disclaimer: JKR and WB etc own the books and movies. I make no money off this zany sappiness, none at all. Honestly.